Feature: From Eye to Sight
As a particle physicist, Alan Litke routinely measures tiny signals with equally tiny electronics. Now he's applying those methods to individual nerve cells, revolutionizing the study of how we see.
-
Editorial:
symmetry's Web expansionStarting from this issue we will publish six print issues each year instead of 10 and add a much larger range of online content. Our hope is that this will give readers new ways to respond and become active members of the symmetry community.
-
Commentary:
Krystle WilliamsWhat will the physics community look like 10 years from now? What should it look like? These are questions the Society of Physics Students is encouraging you to ask yourself.
-
Departments:
Signal to BackgroundSLAC’s rise from an ancient ocean floor; TV goes underground at Fermilab; a shirt as old as St. Francis; path-breaking bicycle; Czechs tackle Japanese opera; mysterious wine sign; engineering with toys.
-
Feature:
Short Cuts for Newcomers at the LHCIt can take weeks to get into the groove of analyzing data from an unfamiliar detector. A new starter kit cuts that time to hours.
-
Feature:
Physicists Rock!Wherever physics goes, music follows, from the lyrical strains of flute and violin to Blue Wine, Les Horribles Cernettes and Drug Sniffing Dogs.
-
Gallery:
Satoru YoshiokaA fine-arts photographer turns his lens on highenergy physics labs, capturing everyday work spaces, obscure details and spooky nightscapes.
-
Day in the Life:
Monica Dunford"Did we really have 5063 meetings last year?"
-
Essay:
Jennifer OuellettePerhaps the humor in the TV sitcom The Big Bang Theory raises some hackles because–like all good comedy–it contains an element of truth.
-
Logbook:
W BosonIn August 1982, Margaret Thatcher, then prime minister of the United Kingdom, paid a private visit to the European laboratory CERN. Four months later, CERN Director General Herwig Schopper sent her a letter disclosing "in strict confidence" the news of the imminent discovery of the weak bosons.
-
Explain it in 60 Seconds:
The W bosonThe W boson is one of five particles that transmit the fundamental forces of nature. It is responsible for two of the most surprising discoveries of the 20th century—that nature has a “handedness” and that the physics of antimatter is subtly different from the physics of the matter-based world we see around us.
Email Update List
Receive email notifications of the release of future issues of symmetry:
For decades, studies of how the eye sees—how the information gathered by light-sensitive cells in the retina is transmitted to the brain for analysis–were restricted to recordings from single neurons.
bottom quark
Oct 2005
A memo written at Fermilab in November 1976 hinted at the observation of a new particle. Six months later, the discovery was real.
Standard Model
May 2006
Considered the best theory of the particles and forces known at this time, the Standard Model has serious deficiencies as it can not explain 96 percent of the matter and energy in our universe.
