Word: positron
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...easy to understand why even Hawking was awed: he was looking at just a portion of the largest scientific instrument ever built. Known as the large electron-positron collider, this new particle accelerator is the centerpiece of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research and one of Europe's proudest achievements. LEP is a mammoth particle racetrack residing in a ring- shaped tunnel 27 km (16.8 miles) in circumference and an average of 110 meters (360 ft.) underground. The machine contains 330,000 cubic meters (431,640 cu. yds.) of concrete and holds some 60,000 tons of hardware, including...
FOOTNOTE: *Antiprotons and positrons are examples of antimatter, a rare set of particles that mirror normal matter. A proton is positively charged, but an antiproton is negative. The counterpart of the negative electron is the positive positron...
CAPTION: CERN's Large Electron-Positron Collider...
There are no doubt plenty of frontiers left for CERN to push back. Though LEP does not appear to be powerful enough to find the top quark, the "clean" electron-positron collisions could reveal many other exotic phenomena. One long shot is the much-sought Higgs boson, named for British theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, one of the first to recognize its importance. According to some theories, the Higgs boson is what gives all particles their mass. The idea is that everything in the universe is awash in a seaof Higgs bosons, and particles acquire their mass by swimming through this...
Some of the images Tan creates are effective portraits. In one piece, called "Positron," two twins, one wearing white, the other black, slowly dance to Philip Glass' "Metamorphosis One," and exchange clothes. Then one twin carries the other off the stage...