SLAC partners with industry to produce klystrons, the heart of accelerators in labs and medical facilities around the world. Klystrons, lightly humming machines that convert electron beams into microwaves, are the heart of linear accelerators in labo... Continue reading →

Devices designed for science can open both the wonders of the cosmos and new possibilities in everyday life.

Half a millennium ago, Dutch spectacle-makers put lenses together in new ways and invented the telescope and the microscope. Novel instruments have been the key to scientific discovery throughout history.
In particle physics, new technologies brought the field into the electronic era, enabling the discovery of the top quark and the Higgs boson, and contributing to establishing the Standard Model of fundamental particles and forces. 

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A worldwide network keeps astronomers and physicists ready for the next nearby supernova.

When it comes to studying supernovae, if you don’t SNEWS, you lose.

SNEWS, the Supernova Early Warning System, is a worldwide network designed to do just what the name implies: let astronomers and physicists know when a nearby supernova appears. This can be a tricky business, since supernovae appear in our galaxy roughly once every 30 years, and the window for studying them can vary—anywhere from a few weeks down to a few hours.

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To encourage discussion and engagement, a physics forum has banned PowerPoint slides in favor of low-tech whiteboards.

A physicist is more than the sum of his or her slides.

That's why, about six months ago, organizers of a biweekly forum on Large Hadron Collider physics at Fermilab banned PowerPoint presentations in favor of old-fashioned, chalkboard-style talks. 

“Without slides, the participants go further off-script, with more interaction and curiosity,” says Andrew Askew, an assistant professor of physics at Florida State University and a co-organizer of the forum. “We wanted to draw out the importance of the audience.”

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From arcade-style fun to sophisticated simulations, these mobile downloads can supply your physics fix. From simulators and reference tools to fun and games, physics-related mobile applications run the gamut. Some of the apps were designed by physici... Continue reading →

Particle Fever, a documentary that follows scientists involved in research at the Large Hadron Collider, opens this week in select theaters across the United States. Wish you could have witnessed the euphoria and excitement rippling through the CERN ... Continue reading →

The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search has set more stringent limits on light dark matter.

Scientists looking for dark matter face a serious challenge: No one knows what dark matter particles look like. So their search covers a wide range of possible traits—different masses, different probabilities of interacting with regular matter.

Today, scientists on the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment, or CDMS, announced they have shifted the border of this search down to a dark-matter particle mass and rate of interaction that has never been probed.

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Groups of high school students from around the world are competing to win the chance to conduct a particle physics experiment at CERN.

High school is a time for pep rallies, prom and particle physics. That’s right—particle physics. Schools across the globe are vying for their chance to conduct their own experiment at CERN.

The program, called Beam Line for Schools, will award one group of students a week-long trip to the home of the Large Hadron Collider to conduct an experiment using a high-energy beam of particles.

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