The amazing properties of spider webs have fascinated scientists for years. Some of the mysteries of the spider's thread (such as the radii and spirals of threads produced by the Nephila pilips spider shown above) are unraveling through the use of synchrotron light sources.
In August 2005 nearly seven hundred physicists and engineers from around the world traveled to the small Rocky Mountain town of Snowmass, Colorado, to advance the planning and design of the proposed International Linear Collider.
Like climbers assessing a new route before making the ascent, physicists have been looking for footholds on a vertiginous new terrain. These footholds contain important information for trekking to TeV heights (the lofty trillion electron volts energy scales of future colliders).
After darkness sets in each night, a wall of TV monitors in the control room of Apache Point Observatory continually displays the telescope's view of the heavens.
Public participation is a critical issue for planners of the proposed International Linear Collider. The recent Snowmass conference included a daylong session titled, "Workshop on Public Participation in the ILC," sponsored by the US Linear Collider Communication Committee.
Few facets of nature are more mysterious than the quantum world. Particles that appear and disappear from nothing, interactions governed by probability, and intrinsic uncertainties are enough to baffle even the most experienced scientist.
Believe it or not, most of Fermilab's power comes from pi. Electrical power, that is, as the shape of the lab's power poles is modeled after pi, the symbol for the famous number.