Symmetry features

Four physicists share their journeys through academia into industry and offer words of wisdom for those considering making a similar move.

Physicists meet this week in Granada, Spain, to update the European Strategy for Particle Physics. Hundreds of scientists from around the globe associated with the European particle physics program are meeting ti discuss and evaluate what Europe’s next collaborative projects should be. The end goal is a consolidated strategy that European research institutions can use to guide their efforts for the next several years.

In their quest to discover physics beyond the Standard Model, physicists weigh the pros and cons of different search strategies.

By developing clever theories and conducting experiments with particle colliders, telescopes and satellites, physicists have been able to wind the film of the universe back billions of years—and glimpse the details of the very first moments in the history of our cosmic home. Take a (brief) journey through the early history of our cosmos.

Building a particle physics laboratory requires more than physicists. Fermilab archivist Valerie Higgins has authored a paper available in the online physics repository arXiv, and earlier this month she published an op-ed for Physics World on the importance of capturing perspectives from all parts of the laboratory. She sat down with Symmetry writer Lauren Biron to discuss her thoughts.

Respondents to Symmetry’s survey about what it’s like to earn a Ph.D. in particle physics or astrophysics offer their views of the experience. Nearly 2,000 people worldwide complete the scientific rite of passage each year. Yet for many people, the process remains mysterious.
The more than 300 responses to Symmetry’s survey described a challenging, multifaceted experience that goes far beyond job training, and even beyond the scientific goal of studying the fundamental nature of the universe.

One day in 2017, the idea to detect particles that had potentially been escaping the LHC for years unnoticed by the gigantic detectors suddenly became feasible. The story of the latest experiment approved for installation at the Large Hadron Collider starts with a theorist and a question about dark matter.

Given the popularity of our first article about physics concepts with deceptively common names, Symmetry is back with 10 more seemingly normal words that mean something different in a science context. Some of this science sounds awfully familiar.

Physicists often find thrifty, ingenious ways to reuse equipment and resources. What do you do about an 800-ton magnet originally used to discover new particles? Send it off on a months-long journey via truck, train and ship halfway across the world to detect oscillating particles called neutrinos, of course. It’s all part of the vast recycling network of the physics community.

‘Tis the season for friends, family and funny physics fill-ins. Here at Symmetry, we’ve taken a page from Mad Libs, those short stories designed to trick you into learning parts of speech, and created some science-themed Lab Libs (to trick you into learning science). Simply fill in the blanks to create original science stories.