• Jiggling atoms Life Physics Science guardian.co.uk

    Updated: 2012-09-29 18:00:27
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  • The Einstein papers: A physicist in turbulent seas

    Updated: 2012-09-27 16:50:54
    Albert Einstein is rightly known as one of the most prolific scientific geniuses of our time. But in between formulating his theories of Special and General Relativity, establishing the equivalence of matter and energy, making major contributions to quantum theory, and even explaining Brownian motion (thereby supporting the study of statistical mechanics and lending credence to atoms as physical objects instead of just useful models), Einstein found time to write. And write. And write some more.

  • Researchers propose machine for a clean, mean neutrino beam

    Updated: 2012-09-27 06:00:00
    About 60 physicists met at Fermilab this past weekend to discuss an idea that might define the future of neutrino research. The scientists are interested in creating clean, precise beams of neutrinos by sending muons—the more massive cousins of electrons—to the racetrack. Neutrinos are surprising little particles. They have mass, despite predictions to the contrary. They come in at least three types, called flavors, and they shift from flavor to flavor as they move.

  • CERN artist-in-residence mixes order and uncertainty

    Updated: 2012-09-26 14:46:16
    When artist Julius von Bismarck was a child, he thought CERN was a mysterious lair built deep into a mountain. After his two-month stint at CERN as the first Collide@CERN artist in residence, he has a more realistic image of the laboratory. He also knows a lot more about where he can go with his work, which is deeply connected to the universe around him. “My way of seeing the world changed,” von Bismarck said. “My way of doing art now of course changes also.”

  • Streaming science

    Updated: 2012-09-25 06:00:00
    When it comes to designing an experiment that looks for the universe’s smallest particles, bigger is better. But when the experiment is so big that it spans multiple states, sometimes scientists need to find a way to keep everyone in the loop. That’s why the NOvA experiment is broadcasting real-time video showing the construction of its 14,000-ton neutrino detector.

  • DOE advances US ATLAS, US CMS detector upgrade plans

    Updated: 2012-09-24 21:52:32
    The US Department of Energy recently expressed support for continued US involvement in work on the CMS and ATLAS detectors at the Large Hadron Collider. On Sept. 18, DOE gave their first stage of approval, Critical Decision-0, to plans for DOE-funded scientists from the United States to participate in upgrades to both detectors scheduled to be completed by 2018. DOE gives CD-0 approval to projects that meet their mission need and that are judged to have worthy scientific goals.

  • African School of Physics student awarded international fellowship

    Updated: 2012-09-20 15:26:48
    As a graduate student, Laza Rakotondravohitra has already been a part of a couple of firsts in particle physics. He attended the first African School of Physics. He is also setting the bar high as the first international student from Madagascar to conduct research at Fermilab. Over the next three years, Rakotondravohitra (pictured below) will study under the supervision of Fermilab scientist Jorge Morfin as he works toward his doctorate in physics, which he will earn from Madagascar’s primary public university, the University of Antananarivo.

  • Second Fermilab muon experiment achieves first stage of approval

    Updated: 2012-09-19 14:08:41
    Fermilab’s plans for creating a Muon Campus with top-notch Intensity Frontier experiments have received a big boost. The Department of Energy has granted Mission Need approval to the Muon g-2 project, one of two experiments proposed for the new Muon Campus (shown in rendering above). The other proposed experiment, Mu2e, is a step ahead and already received the next level of DOE approval, known as Critical Decision 1.

  • ATLAS collaboration gains real recognition for virtual visits program

    Updated: 2012-09-18 14:37:55
    ATLAS Virtual Visits, a program run by one of the major experiments at CERN, took top prize for “Best Online Event” in the Digital Communication Awards, hosted by Quadriga University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, on Friday, Sept. 14.

  • Klystron

    Updated: 2012-09-18 06:00:00
    Klystrons are what make linear accelerators—as well as radar, cancer treatments and some radio telescopes—work. Invented at Stanford University about 75 years ago, klystrons convert electricity into radio and microwave energy, a far more powerful version of what’s generated by your kitchen microwave oven.

  • World’s most powerful digital camera records first images

    Updated: 2012-09-17 15:19:20
    Eight billion years ago, rays of light from distant galaxies began their long journey to Earth. That ancient starlight has now found its way to a mountaintop in Chile, where the newly constructed Dark Energy Camera, the most powerful sky-mapping machine ever created, has captured and recorded it for the first time. That light may hold within it the answer to one of the biggest mysteries in physics—why the expansion of the universe is speeding up.

  • First proton-lead collision test at the LHC successful

    Updated: 2012-09-14 18:11:29
    For most of the year, two beams of protons run the collision course around the Large Hadron Collider. Scientists take a short break from protons in winter to collide much heavier lead ions. In a test on Thursday, scientists collided the two types of particles together for the first time. The feat will allow physicists to better understand the conditions of the universe just after the big bang.

  • NOvA: Exploring neutrino mysteries

    Updated: 2012-09-12 18:52:45
    Scientists, engineers and technicians on the NOvA collaboration posed on Monday, Sept. 10, in front of the newly installed first block of what will be the largest neutrino detector in the world. The 14-kiloton detector will allow physicists to study a beam of neutrinos from 500 miles away at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. But what are they looking for? Physicists explain in a new Fermilab video.

  • From particle physics to the computing industry

    Updated: 2012-09-11 06:00:00
    In particle physics, cutting-edge computing is a way of life. Studying the universe at the smallest scale requires some of the largest data sets in the world, and particle physicists must often build their own solutions to computing challenges because no commercial solutions exist. 

  • Scientists already planning for LHC long shutdown

    Updated: 2012-09-10 20:58:26
    The Large Hadron Collider will go into a long shutdown early next year to allow scientists and technicians to prepare it for higher collision energy in 2015. It has been running at 7 TeV; scientists plan for it to reemerge at upward of 13 TeV. Beginning in February of 2013, highly coordinated teams will spend 20 months preparing its equipment for the change.

  • Crews complete first block of North America’s most advanced neutrino experiment

    Updated: 2012-09-06 20:07:54
    Technicians in Minnesota have completed the first block of a detector that will be part of the largest, most advanced neutrino experiment in North America.

  • SLAC at 50

    Updated: 2012-09-05 06:00:00
    In the early 1960s, a 2.5-mile-long strip of land in the rolling hills west of Stanford University was transformed into fertile ground for physicists’ dreams: the longest linear accelerator in the world, built for studies of the mysterious subatomic realm.  In late August, more than 1000 people gathered at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to celebrate 50 years of scientific successes made possible by that accelerator and the ones that followed. 

  • Pushing boundaries

    Updated: 2012-09-04 06:00:00
    Since our very first issue, symmetry has aimed to be at the forefront of science reporting, outreach and design. I think we’ve done quite well, and the results of a recent survey suggest that our readers agree. To keep things that way, we’re making a few changes—not to the type or quality of our articles, but to how we deliver them.

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