A joint Fermilab/SLAC publication
Add filters
Type
Category
04/01/06

24/7: Labs that never sleep

Here they measure the time not in minutes or hours. Instead they think in terms of how many antiprotons are ready to stack and how soon the Tevatron will be ready to accept new beam. Or how fast they need to fix something, any time of the day or night. Or how long they can stay awake.

04/01/06

George Gollin: Diploma mills

Criminals offering fake degrees from non-existing institutions are a threat at many levels. Their actions also destroy the credibility of the higher education system of entire nations.

04/01/06

Mel Shochet: The new HEPAP

We are at a time of extraordinary scientific opportunity, when the prospect for making major advances in elementary particle physics is greater than it has been in at least three decades.

04/01/06

A clear message

Policy makers have a clear message for the high-energy physics community: Present a united, accessible justification to the US Congress, the Administration, and the American people, or else you won’t be able to do the science you care so deeply about.

Logbook of March 2006
03/01/06

First Z at SLC

Roger Erickson was annoyed with all the calls to the main control room. People were eager for news of the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC). Was it running? Did they already observe the first Z particle, one of the carriers of the weak force?

03/01/06

Female-friendly physics departments

This month, thousands of college seniors will be deciding which graduate school to attend. An important issue for female students concerns the climate for women in the various departments.

03/01/06

Chinese high-energy physics

In your recent editorial (Feb. 2006), you mention the upgrade of the facilities at the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) in China, but do not give details of the BEPCII/BESIII construction.

03/01/06

Where do they go?

High-energy physics labs worldwide are neighbors with numerous butterfly species–from the Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus, photo) found near CERN to the Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor) that shares the Bay Area with SLAC. But where do butterflies go in the winter?

03/01/06

A special introduction

“It’s not often you get introduced by a Nobel Prize winner,” said US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, former professor of chemical engineering at MIT and CEO of a Fortune 300 company.

03/01/06

On the shoulders of how many giants?

Scientists since the time of Sir Isaac Newton (and before) have built their work on the work of those who preceded them. Newton famously described this by saying, “If I have been able to see farther, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants.”

03/01/06

Nuclear drive-in

Standing outside in the dark and the cold on the east coast of Scotland, 500 people let out a communal gasp as a huge screen was illuminated on the side of the Torness nuclear power station.

An illustration of a brick wall being constructed
03/01/06

Quarks

Quarks are fundamental particles found in the matter all around us.

03/01/06

Melissa Alexander: The beauty of Super-K

Recently I discovered that one of the most beautiful expressions of Japanese craftsmanship is neither a vase in a Tokyo museum nor a carving in a Kyoto temple. Instead, it rests deep inside a mountain in the Japanese Alps.

03/01/06

ILC design

Supersymmetry. Dark matter. Extra dimensions. Scientists have proposed the International Linear Collider (ILC), a next-generation project designed to smash together electrons and their antiparticles at a higher-than-ever energy, to learn more about these and other mysteries of the universe.