Particle Physics, features and articles | Educational Science

Apr 25, 2022

What is the Large Hadron Collider?

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest particle collider: a marvel of modern particle physics that has enabled researchers to plumb the depths of reality. In 2012, the massive atom smasher, a 16.5-mile-long (27 kilometers) underground ring on the border of France and Switzerland, allowed researchers to find...

Apr 29, 2022

Ultraprecise atomic optical clocks may redefine the length of a second

The definition of a second, the most fundamental unit of time in our current measurement system, hasn't been updated in more than 70 years (give or take some billionths of a second). But in the next decade or so, that could change: Ultraprecise atomic optical clocks that rely on visible...

Apr 29, 2022

Large Hadron Collider breaks new record only days after it reopens

After a three-year hiatus, the world's most powerful particle accelerator is back in business and already breaking records. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) — which is operated by the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN) — is the world's largest particle accelerator and consists of a 17-mile (27 kilometers) ring...

Jun 8, 2022

Physicists discover never-before seen particle sitting on a tabletop

Researchers have discovered a new particle that is a magnetic relative of the Higgs boson. Whereas the discovery of the Higgs boson required the tremendous particle-accelerating power of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), this never-before-seen particle — dubbed the axial Higgs boson — was found using an experiment that would...

Jul 22, 2022

Where do electrons get energy to spin around an atom's nucleus?

An atom is best visualized as a tight, dense nucleus surrounded by buzzing, orbiting electrons. This picture immediately leads to a question: How do electrons keep whirling around the nucleus without ever slowing down? This was a burning question in the early 20th century, and a search for the answer...

Aug 10, 2022

Mystery of Weird Sky-Glow Named 'STEVE' Finally Solved

Three years ago, a mysterious purplish glow arced across the Canadian skies. The light show was a completely unknown celestial phenomenon, so it was given a name befitting its beauty and grandeur: Steve. Now, scientists have finally pinpointed what causes the phenomenon's glowing ribbons of reddish purple and green: magnetic...

Sep 19, 2022

What is the Standard Model, the subatomic physics theory that has been tested more than any other?

The Standard Model is the most complete description of the subatomic world that has ever been created in modern physics. The model was built through the 20th century on the foundations of quantum mechanics, the strange theory that describes how particles behave at the tiniest scales. The Standard Model explains...

Sep 20, 2022

What Are Elementary Particles?

Elementary particles are the smallest known building blocks of the universe. They are thought to have no internal structure, meaning that researchers think about them as zero-dimensional points that take up no space. Electrons are probably the most familiar elementary particles, but the Standard Model of physics, which describes the...

Sep 20, 2022

Oddly heavy particle may have just broken the reigning model of particle physics

An ultraprecise measurement of the mass of a subatomic particle called the W boson may diverge from the Standard Model, a long-reigning framework that governs the strange world of quantum physics. After 10 years of collaboration using an atom smasher at Fermilab in Illinois, scientists announced this new measurement, which...

Sep 20, 2022

Bizarre Particles Keep Flying Out of Antarctica's Ice, and They Might Shatter Modern Physics

There's something mysterious coming up from the frozen ground in Antarctica, and it could break physics as we know it. Physicists don't know what it is exactly. But they do know it's some sort of cosmic ray — a high-energy particle that's blasted its way through space, into the Earth,...

Sep 20, 2022

Misbehaving Particles Poke Holes in Reigning Physics Theory

The reigning theory of particle physics may be flawed, according to new evidence that a subatomic particle decays in a certain way more often than it should, scientists announced. This theory, called the Standard Model, is the best handbook scientists have to describe the tiny bits of matter that make...

Sep 20, 2022

Higgs Boson Confirms Reigning Physics Model Yet Again

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 7:20 p.m. E.T. For a subatomic particle that remained hidden for nearly 50 years, the Higgs boson is turning out to be remarkably well behaved. Yet more evidence from the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland, confirms that...

Oct 14, 2022

Plasma Waves Studied for New Electronics

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? After nearly 25 years as an electrical engineer in semiconductor development and manufacturing, I headed back to school as an NSF Integrative Graduate Education...

Oct 14, 2022

Atomic Clock Is So Precise It Won't Lose a Second for 15 Billion Years

An atomic clock that sets the time by the teensy oscillations of strontium atoms has gotten so precise and stable that it will neither gain nor lose a second for the next 15 billion years. The strontium clock, which is about three times as precise as the previous record holder,...

Mar 22, 2023

'Ghostly' neutrinos spotted inside the world's largest particle accelerator for the first time

For the very first time, physicists have created and detected high-energy ghost particles inside the world's largest atom smasher. The findings could help unlock the secrets of how stars go supernova. The tiny particles, known as neutrinos, were spotted by the FASER neutrino detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)...