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.
Particle physics has been getting its due in the theater world with the recent plays Copenhagen and QED, which celebrate the lives and work of famous physicists. Now the field is being paid the highest musical and artistic compliment.
Artist Robert Lang has folded intricate paper sculptures from flat sheets that, in some cases, started out over nine feet long. He uses the same method many of us used to make cranes and party hats in elementary schoola series of precise folds. But Langs designs are far more complex.
Computing centers are hot--literally. At least, they are in the absence of extensive cooling systems. With an increasing number of computers installed at scientific labs nationwide, the efficiency of those cooling systems is becoming much more important.
Today's cutting-edge scientific projects are larger, more complex, and more expensive than ever. Grid computing provides the resources that allow researchers to share knowledge, data, and computer processing power across boundaries.
A piece of steel may look cold and lifeless. But like any other piece of matter, it is bursting with activity deep inside. Electrons whiz around inside atoms, and a sea of never-resting quarks and gluons populates the nucleons that make up the atomic core.