A physicist who has devoted his career to developing linear colliders confronts the decision that changed the global physics community and the focus of his work.
Tomorrow's particle physics experiments are redrawing the map for scientific collaboration. Although the field has long been accustomed to large groups of scientists, life in the new CERN collaborations will surely be different.
The future of Stanford Linear Accelerator Center involves a broadening from traditional particle physics experiments to research from subatomic to cosmological scales.
Whether climbing trees with her eight-year-old son Isaac, trying to put a dress on her four-year-old daughter Sonia, or running tests on the MINOS neutrino beam line, Debbie Harris is a problem solver and her mind is always busy. "It's really hard to be a parent," she says.
Back in 1979, I was the new director of Fermilab, wrenched away from 28 years of teaching and research at Columbia. Fermilab was wonderful, filled with experienced and hard-working staff physicists. Achieving a vision for the future -- partly borrowed, partly stolen, partly rented -- was easy.
Physicist Ken Peach, recently appointed director of the UK's John Adams Institute, discusses the current state of particle physics in Britain -- including a significant change in mood among particle physicists.
Now, in the midst of a particle physics revolution, labs are confronting the future head-on. But given the difficulty of prediction, sensible laboratory managers replace prediction with planning.
The last seven years have greatly enhanced our understanding of neutrinos. Groundbreaking experimental results have come in at record pace, and neutrino scientists have barely had time to rebuild the conceptual matrix by which we hope to understand them.
In 1998, theorists Lisa Randall and Raman Sundrum met in a coffee shop in Boston to discuss how extra dimensions of space would change the predictions of particle theories.
Deep in the Homestake Gold Mine in Lead, South Dakota, during the early 1970s, Ray Davis monitored a 100,000-gallon tank of perchloroethylene, a chlorine-rich dry-cleaning chemical.
After reading "The Smoking Mouse" in the March issue of symmetry, I believe I may be able to offer a viable theory to explain how the creature obtained entry into a seemingly impregnable H-spool magnet.
As the sun rises each day, warming the grounds and buildings of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, the entire SPEAR3 synchrotron facility expands in response.
As spring arrived, so did the kids. Their knees wobbly and eyes wide open, they stayed close to their moms. Dad, weighing more than 2500 pounds, made sure that no harm came the babies' way.
