On the hit television show Numb3rs, where crimes are solved with math and science, cosmologist and theoretical physicist Larry Fleinhardt has lived in a monastery and flown into space searching for a sense of purpose. The next step takes him to Fermilab.
For most people, a Caribbean cruise is an opportunity for sun-splashed daydreaming, guiltless beach reading, and lackadaisical dips in warm, shimmering waters—in other words, complete mental repose.
Many high-energy physics laboratories have athletic clubs, music clubs, or chess clubs, but a bread-tasting club? Only in Japan. And only at Koo Energy Ken, KEK, outside of Tsukuba.
Tesla coils always draw crowds, and the DucKon science fiction convention in Naperville, Illinois, was no exception. People gathered around the seven-foot-tall metal transformer tower and awaited its monotone crackle, purple sparks, and thrilling flashes of artificial lightning.
When I set out for Chicago with a group of artists last year, I knew almost nothing about particle physics or about Fermilab, where we hoped to find inspiration for a singular performance project called “Principles of Uncertainty.”
In an empty urban lot beneath an overpass in Philadelphia, drummers beat a slow and steady rhythm. Two groups of dancers circle them in opposite directions.
Amateur scientists make important contributions in a number of fields, from astronomy to ornithology. But very few have the background needed to succeed in high-energy physics.
In a boon for archaeology, particle physicists plan to probe ancient structures for tombs and other hidden chambers. The key to the technology is the muon, a cousin of the electron that rains harmlessly from the sky.
When particle accelerators gave birth to the powerful X-ray microscopes known as synchrotrons, they revolutionized the study of virtually every field of science.
Layoffs, budget cuts, a call for new vision in high-energy physics -- in her first months as director of Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Persis Drell had a lot to navigate.
Particle physics, particle astrophysics, and cosmology are all extreme sciences. They investigate phenomena at one end or the other of various scales: the highest energies, the smallest sizes, the rarest events, the longest distances.
