Deep in the woods of Minnesota, close to the Canadian border, particle physicists hope to construct the next neutrino experiment on a secluded piece of land, fit for studying a lightweight particle that was, itself, once ignored.
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.
When the 10th issue of symmetry magazine came out on October 12, the magazine's Web server crashed unexpectedly. Looking at the Web traffic statistics, the reason became obvious: symmetry had been "slashdotted."
When physicists organized the first Particles and Nuclei International Conference in 1963, nobody thought that the acronym PANIC could cause trouble in getting the word out about the meeting. That was before the now-common use of email.
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.
Students around the world are familiar with the periodic table of elements, a chart that outlines how protons, neutrons, and electrons form more than 100 different types of atoms.
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.
