Designing the International Linear Collider is a global enterprise. Physicists and accelerator experts from around the world are collaborating to design the approximately 25-mile-long machine.
In May, Fermilab accelerator experts began to speculate about when the Tevatron collider would hit the inverse femtobarn mark, a measure of the gazillions of collisions produced since March 2001.
Particle physics is at a critical time, and its future depends on how well scientists can make their case to a diverse National Academy of Sciences panel.
Research papers are traditionally written about data gathered in an experiment. However, research papers are also published before an experiment has even begun, and the International Linear Collider is an example.
As the Global Design Effort for the proposed International Linear Collider starts to take shape, an international collaboration of scientists simultaneously works on an alternative linear collider technology that pushes physics and engineering to the edge.
The 1940s saw the origins of linear electron accelerators that directly led to the 2-mile-long accelerator at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. SLAC archivist Jean Deken presents a pictorial history of early linear accelerator development at Stanford University.