On September 10, 2008, scientists at the European laboratory CERN attempted for the first time to send a beam of particles around a new particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider.
I did not respond in time for the license plate issue, but I do have a good one from an old photo taken while on leave at Caltech in the '70s. The car (right) belonged to Murray Gell-Mann, Nobel Laureate in Physics. I don't know if he still has it.
On the wall outside Cherrill Spencer's office, a scientific poster describes a prototype for a new type of accelerator magnet; a card thanks her for donating her long hair to make a wig for an ailing girl; and a scribbled note points to a spot on a map southeast of Novosibirsk, Russia.
Comiket—short for Comic Market—is the world's largest comic convention. Held in Tokyo, it draws more than half a million people from all over the world to buy and selldoujinshi—self-published manga and graphic novels.
Leon Lederman, a 1988 Nobel laureate and Fermilab physicist, plopped a folding table and two chairs on a busy New York City street corner and sat under colorful hand-scrawled signs offering to answer physics questions.
Lifted out of a travel carrier, the owl screeched and bit its handler's leather glove. The bird was returning to its historic home—and helping to save its species.
The Fermilab boneyard is no burial ground; its a place where unwanted parts find new homes and lives. Theyre matched with scientists who can put them to good use, donated to local schools and parks, or sold for recycling.
A good portion of the public is curious about what is going on in particle physics right now, and we have an ever-longer list of ways for them to find out—from lab newsletters to personal blogs, popular-level magazines, and plain-language Web sites.
On September 10, physicists and physics enthusiasts around the world watched expectantly as CERN attempted to circulate particle beams in the Large Hadron Collider for the first time.
