Archive

An illustration of a hand writing an equation

09/01/07

Theory

Theories describe scientists’ understanding of observed phenomena.

09/01/07

Barbara Manning: Computers, disco, and double-knit

The late 1970s were a special time for me. The radio played disco, George Lucas released the first of the Star Wars movies and Alice Waters, at her Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse, was shaping a cuisine featuring fresh, local ingredients.

09/01/07

Amy Lee Segami: Painting with the flow

To artist and engineer Amy Lee Segami, water is no ordinary substance—it is her canvas. Using her knowledge of fluid mechanics, Segami paints on water in a contemporary version of the ancient Asian art form of Suminagashi.

09/01/07

HERAfest

On June 29, 2007, when Albrecht Wagner told an assembly of nearly 1800 people to go to lunch and return at 2 p.m. for a surprise, nobody could have expected what was coming.

09/01/07

The art of the unseen

As technology evolves, posters are getting easier to produce and pass around. But it still takes skill and imagination to illustrate the abstract ideas of physics.

09/01/07

The end of the HERA era

Laughter punctuates the excited conversations, a mix of German and English. Drinks are passed around and children dart among the legs of the hundred or so scientists gathered together for one last time. The sky’s blue is deepening: only 90 minutes until sunset.

09/01/07

Fermilab's path to the future

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois has a challenge: how will it maintain its central role as a place where particle accelerators produce groundbreaking discoveries in physics?

09/01/07

Philip Burrows: An engaging new way to get the message out

In August, the International Linear Collider reached an important milestone when two huge documents were presented to the international particle physics community at a meeting in Daegu, Korea.

09/01/07

The challenge of change

The world of particle physics is changing. In a few years time, most large particle colliders will have closed; the only one left operating will be the Large Hadron Collider at CERN outside Geneva, Switzerland.

08/01/07

Plutonium

Atomic element 94 was named “plutonium” after Pluto, the ninth planet from the Sun (now demoted to “minor planet” status.) By tradition, plutonium should have been assigned the symbol “Pl,” but co-discoverer Glenn Seaborg gave it the symbol “Pu” as

Four people pulling on four corners of a space blanket

08/01/07

Dark energy

Dark energy, the weirdest and most abundant stuff in the universe, is causing the expansion of the universe to speed up.

08/01/07

Guru of Hatha yoga

Many readers of symmetry are undoubtedly familiar with the Dan Brown novel Angels and Demons, which is staged partially at CERN. One of the characters, physicist Vittoria Vetra, is described as "CERN's resident guru of Hatha yoga."

08/01/07

Small world

While reading symmetry (May 2007), I came across an article about Katie and Adam Yurkewicz moving from Fermilab, Batavia, to CERN, Switzerland. I was floored when I realized that the home they were leaving (424 Blaine St) is the home I grew up in.

08/01/07

Non-dark energy

With regard to your story on dark energy (May 2007): Please explain the amount of known energy there is in the universe. If there is a small percentage of known matter, what is the percentage of known energy?

08/01/07

Particle sudoku: Solution

Did you find last month's sudoku tough? Word from our readers is that the puzzle in the Jun/Jul 07 issue of symmetry was much more difficult than a regular sudoku.

08/01/07

Contest: Where has your symmetry been?

Our readers live in all parts of the globe, from Alaska to Wyoming; from Argentina to Zimbabwe. But when a copy of symmetry lands in a mailbox, that's often not the end of its journey.