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Illustration of a giant toddler on a trike.

The freckled universe

05/06/25

Madeleine O’Keefe

There’s a new class of cosmic object in town. And it might just overturn our understanding of black holes and galaxy evolution.

Illustration of Jean Deken holding abstract "strings" of timelines, file boxes, stacks of paper(pink, white, tan, blue, magenta)

05/01/18

Q&A: SLAC’s archivist closes a chapter

Approaching retirement, Jean Deken describes what it’s like to preserve decades of collective scientific memory at a national lab.

Collage of Einstein and Reimann's faces on ripped paper in a geometric field of color, pattern, and shape (teal, mustard, rust)

04/24/18

The coevolution of physics and math

Breakthroughs in physics sometimes require an assist from the field of mathematics—and vice versa.

04/17/18

The world’s largest astronomical movie

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will track billions of objects for 10 years, creating unprecedented opportunities for studies of cosmic mysteries.

Photo of a row of slim silver objects sit in the center of a tube

04/11/18

Right on target

These hardy physics components live at the center of particle production.

Illustration of particles sneaking into Higgs field, scientists watch with binoculars from bushes (green, pink, teal, cyan)

04/10/18

How to make a Higgs boson

It doesn’t seem like collisions of particles with no mass should be able to produce the “mass-giving” boson, the Higgs. But every other second at the LHC, they do.

Photo of PDG Particle Physics Booklet for Symmetry

04/03/18

The big book of physics

Looking for the latest info on particle physics? There’s a book for that.

Illustration of four Rock 'Em Sock 'Em robots representing the four particles in the Sub Smackdown (blue, red, purple, green)

03/30/18

Photon declared champion

After a week of appreciation for each of the four particle contenders, the photon emerged as the winner in the Subatomic Smackdown.

Photo accelerator operators and CERN's Director General stand together watching the process of the LHC beam on a computer screen

03/30/18

The room where it happens

Symmetry goes inside the CERN Control Centre on restart day.

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