Events archive

Presented by Sean Brennan. The Stardust mission returned from a 6-year voyage in January of 2006. During the mission it swept through the tail of comet Wild 2 (pronounced Vilt), collecting the microscopic particles streaming from it.

Presented by Sarah Church. The faint radio signal that fills our universe is the echo of the beginning of the universe. This signal, called the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, was first detected by accident in 1964 but has since been...

Presented by JoAnne Hewett. Extra dimensions of space may be present in our universe. Their discovery would dramatically change our view of the cosmos and would prompt many questions. How do they hide? What is their shape? How many are...

Andrea Foster uses x-rays to determine the forms of potentially toxic elements in environmentally-important matrices such as water, sediments, plants, and microorganisms. In this free public lecture, Foster will discuss her research on arsenic, which is called the silent killer...

Archimedes (287-212 BC), who is famous for shouting 'Eureka' (I found it) is considered one of the most brilliant thinkers of all times. The 10th-century parchment document known as the “Archimedes Palimpsest” is the unique source for two of the...

The enigmatic neutrinos are among the most abundant of the tiny particles that make up our universe. They are a billion times more abundant than the particles of which the earth and we humans are made. Thus, to understand the...

Everyone knows that lasers can be bright. From Goldfinger to Star Wars, intense lasers carry a "death ray" reputation in popular culture. But what is intense light, anyway?

According to Smith, protein crystallography allows scientists to design drugs in a much more efficient way than the standard methods traditionally used by large drug companies, which can cost close to a billion dollars and take 10 to 15 years...

stillframe from pubic lecture about smarter drugs

When we explore Nature at distances much smaller than the size of an atom, we find new and mysterious physical principles. At such small sizes, particles are governed by "quantum theory". Quantum theory tells us that some aspects of particle...

stillframe from public lecture Profiling the invisible

Most people have intuitive associations with the word "magnetism" based on everyday life: refrigerator magnets, the compass, north and south poles, or someone's "magnetic personality". Few people, however, realize how complicated the phenomenon really is, how much research still deals...

Physical Attraction: The Mysteries of Magnetism

Who we are

SLAC science explained

Vera C. Rubin Observatory LSST

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Expecting the Unexpected with AI at Particle Colliders

A Comet on Earth: Results from the Stardust Mission

Whispers of the Big Bang

Space: The Hunt for Hidden Dimensions

Arsenic: The Silent Killer

Archimedes: Accelerator Reveals Ancient Text

Neutrinos Get Under Your Skin

LCLS: Ultrafast Science

Smarter Drugs: How Protein Crystallography Revolutionizes Drug Design

Profiling the Invisible: Quantum Mechanics and the Unseen Universe

Physical Attraction: The Mysteries of Magnetism