If the proposed International Linear Collider (ILC) completes the evolution from physicists' dream to discovery machine, Jonathan Dorfan will know when and where the transforming moment occurred: August 20, 2004, in Beijing, China.
Citation numbers and the Impact Factor of journals are often used to evaluate the quality and the importance of research. Both quantities have some shortcomings, and people using these indicators should know when and when not to use them.
Few periods in history were shaped by science as much as the 1950s. The Cold War was in full swing. The space race was finishing its first lap with Sputnik's launch. The Manhattan Project remained fresh in everyone's minds.
After the discovery of a new elementary particle 10 years ago by Fermilab's CDF and DZero detector collaborations, a group from DZero threw a party. Between bottles of bubbly celebrating the top quark's detection, a contest of brains was in full-swing.
The weak force is responsible for the decay of matter: unstable particles made of heavy quarks and antiquarks decay into particles made of their lighter cousins.
Nature provides three kinds of neutrinos. In the last ten years, physicists have gathered increasingly strong evidence for neutrino oscillations, the transformation of one kind of neutrino into another one.
If you are working on a PhD, chances are you're too busy feeding your brain to plan your next meal. Particle physicists share how they managed when they needed cheap or fast meals during grad school.