How do we hunt for elusive neutrinos emitted by distant astrophysical sources? Submerge a huge observatory under ice or water … and then wait patiently.
Walk into the main CERN cafeteria at various times of the day and you'll find different scenes: scientists discussing results over coffee; a parent coaxing his children to finish lunch before swooping them back to the nursery school on site; groups of grad students soaking up the sun on the
In a typical high school physics textbook, says scienceeducation specialist Beth Marchant, only the last chapter is devoted to all the developments since 1900–the stuff that physicists are actually working on today.
In pursuit of some of the most exciting science of our time, the Large Hadron Collider has pushed the boundaries of technology and the scale of science experiments to new extremes.
When the CERN safety team and I heard the loud rumbling 25 meters underground, we weren't concerned. With no warning, it would have been frightening, but the rush of water through pipes overhead presaged a thrilling event.
The worldwide particle physics community is about to sail on a voyage into a New World of discovery. The Large Hadron Collider, a multi-billion-dollar particle collider that will begin operations in Europe in 2007, will take us into new realms of energy, space, time, and symmetry.
A proton travels around a 27-kilometer ring at nearly the speed of light. Along with a bunch of other protons, it passes through the hearts of each of a series of detectors more than ten thousand times per second. Then, on one pass, it slams into a proton coming from the other direction.
