Black holes seem to be timeless, lurking in the cosmos, forever eating and growing. However, astronomers believe that there is a way for black holes to shrink in size and eventually evaporate away. In episode 18 of Subatomic Stories, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln talks about Hawking radiation, the ultimate fate of black holes.
This 4-minute animation takes you on a flight that starts on Earth and travels one billion light years into space and back. It features data recorded by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey collaboration. Using the data recorded over the last 20 years, the SDSS collaboration has created the most detailed three-dimensional maps of the universe ever made, with deep multicolor images of one third of the sky, and spectra for more than three million astronomical objects.
General relativity makes many incredible predictions, but one of the most amazing is how matter can warp space. Rapidly moving heavy objects like black holes can even cause ripples in space-time called gravitational waves. In this 13-minute episode of Subatomic Stories, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln tells us all about them.
Of the known fundamental forces, gravity stands out. Rather than being caused by force-carrying particles jumping between matter particles, gravity can be explained as the bending of space and time. In episode 13 of Subatomic Stories, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln briefly sketches Einstein’s theory of general relativity — our current theory of gravity — and mentions some tests that prove that it’s right.
The PIP-II project at Fermilab includes the construction of a 215-meter-long particle accelerator that will accelerate particles to 84% of the speed of light. Research institutions in France, India, Italy, Poland, the UK and the United States are building major components of the new machine. The new particle accelerator will enable Fermilab to generate an unprecedented stream of neutrinos — subtle, subatomic particles that could hold the key to understanding the universe’s evolution.
In this 5-minute video, Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia explains why mysterious particles called neutrinos could be the key to understanding the nature of the universe. He talks about the search for a fourth type of neutrino and why the universe would not exist without neutrinos. He describes how scientists aim to unveil the secrets of the neutrino with the ICARUS and DUNE neutrino experiments, hosted by Fermilab. He recalls why early in his career he chose liquid argon as his material of choice to collect information about neutrino interactions with matter.