A joint Fermilab/SLAC publication

30-ton foot

By David Harris

Pakistan does not have a long history of domestic particle physics experiments, but the country is nevertheless finding ways to contribute to international efforts.

30-ton foot

Pakistan does not have a long history of domestic particle physics experiments, but the country is nevertheless finding ways to contribute to international efforts. After signing an agreement in 1997 with CERN, the European particle physics laboratory, the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission's company, Scientific and Engineering Services, constructed a set of large steel feet that support the 12,500 tons of magnet in the CMS detector for the Large Hadron Collider. Each foot alone weighs 30 tons. The feet were constructed in Taxila, Pakistan, and then traveled by truck, ship, and train to the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.

 

David Harris

 

Click here to download the pdf version of this article.

popular on symmetry

Illustration representing properties of light
06/29/21

What is a photon?

The fundamental particle of light is both ordinary and full of surprises.

more on topic
07/01/09

Periodic table

Look at the periodic table of elements, and you’d be hard pressed to find an element that is not used in physics.

07/01/09

Accidental beauties

These exquisite test samples transcend their original purpose—ensuring all the metal parts of SLAC accelerators and detectors are flawless.

11/01/08

BaBar and the very tiny particle

In which the 500 members of the BaBar experiment buy enough time for one last adventure: capturing the bottom-most bottomonium

08/01/08

Z boson

In May 1983, physicists on the UA1 detector for the Super Proton Synchrotron accelerator at CERN made the first definitive observations of the Z boson.

08/01/08

Bonnie and the ArgoNeuTs

Inspired by heroes of Greek mythology, physicists are on a quest to find a cheaper, more efficient way to capture neutrinos—one of the strangest and most fascinating particles in the universe.

08/01/08

COUPP bubble chamber

Donald Glaser of the University of California, Berkeley, won a Nobel Prize for inventing the bubble chamber in 1952 as a way of detecting subatomic particles.

View full archive