Planning designing, and funding the proposed International Linear Collider (ILC), a 40-kilometer-long electron-positron collider costing billions of dollars, will require global participation and global organization.
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.
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.
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.
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 February, the Department of Energy's Office of Science and the National Science Foundation asked the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel "to form a committee to write a document" that addresses the synergies and complementarities of the Large Hadron Collider, now under constructi
The International Linear Collider will cost billions of dollars, paid for by taxpayers. Douglas Sarno, a consultant on public participation projects, explains that the public has a legitimate right to help shape the ILC's course.
Nature still has many surprises left for us. Discovering them is increasingly difficult (and expensive) as we dig deeper into the foundations of the universe. The next discovery steps must be planned carefully, using all available information to increase the chance of success.
I confess to reading "Women's progress in face of challenges" in my husband's April 2005 copy of symmetry. Despite my educational background in business, I've always been interested in science.
Perhaps the key lesson we learned from Einstein is the significance of physical symmetries in the laws of nature. For example, the special theory of relativity is, in a nutshell, nothing more than a description of the symmetries of space-time.
"It's funny to see how people react to it. Non-technical people steer wide and won't touch it, while engineers and designers, people you wouldn't think of as given to humor, will stand in front of it until it moves around or put a handkerchief on the wireless camera.
The most-cited paper in theoretical particle physics in 2004 was "A large mass hierarchy from a small extra dimension" by Lisa Randall and Raman Sundrum, published in Physical Review Letters in 1999.
Robert Wilson, the first director of Fermilab, was both scientist and artist. There are many anecdotes about his interest in and promotion of art at Fermilab. Over many years I have observed that physical scientists often have a deep interest in the arts.
When was the last time you met three Einsteins? Masa Hokari and his son Harumi had this opportunity during Stanford University's Community Day, held in April.
