Yesterday, scientists from 20 different countries working at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, announced that, after years of work, they had created "a new state of matter." In this new state of matter, quarks, the smallest known particles, roam freely instead of being bound up into more complex particles such as protons and neutrons. By smashing heavy lead ions at temperatures...

Most people have heard of the Manhattan Project, but a great many have probably never heard of Project Matterhorn. Started under the leadership of Lyman Spitzer at Princeton University in 1951, this was the code name given to a controlled thermonuclear research effort. With support from Princeton and the US Atomic Energy Commission, Spitzer began to outline the basic concept for creating the...

The Center for History of Physics presents the Selected Papers of Great American Physicists Web site. Seven physicists are featured: Benjamin Franklin, Joseph Henry, Albert Michelson, Henry Rowland, Josiah Gibbs, Robert Millikan, and Arthur Compton. Each page contains a biography and various documents produced by the scientist, a letter commenting on experiments and observations on electricity in...