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High Energy/Particle Physics Sites
Use the navigation menu to the left to find out more about OnScreen Particle Physics™ and to find other resources for teaching and learning about modern physics. Particle AdventureChances are you already know about this site, but if you don't you'll be glad to find it. The site is maintained by the Particle Data Group headed by Michael Barnett. The Adventure attempts to explain how particle physics is done and what the current status of particle theory is without using any mathematics. There are rather severe limitations to this approach, but it's a worthy attempt to share some of the results of the enterprise that is particle physics with the general public and students. We recommend clicking the "How to Use this Site" link on the home page before entering the Adventure, in order to see the various ways of navigating through it. In addition to the Adventure proper, the site has a good selection of links to other particle physics sites.Click here to go to the Particle Adventure site. To site menu. Particle Data GroupThis is the real thing: the Particle Data Group maintains and organizes the storehouse of data accumulated by the world's particle physics labs in the past few decades. Designed primarily for professionals in the field, the database of properties (masses, lifetimes, spin, etc.) of all known particles is available to all (in Postscript or PDF format) for selective downloading. Unfortunately the handy capsule summaries of the particle data booklet don't appear to be online anymore, though you can order one. What you do find online is a virtual encyclopedia of particle physics in the form of The Review of Particle Physics.Click here to go to the Particle Data Group site. To site menu. Fermilab National Accelerator LabWith the demise of the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), Fermilab continues to reign as the paramount high energy physics lab in the US. Experimenters there nailed down the existence of the top quark, the last one predicted by the standard model, and important research continues at Fermilab. The Inquiring Minds page is a good place to start exploring, but don't miss the one below.Click here to access the beautiful LIVE events from the Live Collisions from CDF and DZero page. To site menu. Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC)SLAC has been the scene of landmark experiments in the development of the standard model of particle physics. The SLAC Virtual Visitor Center appears to be an excellent site. It links to the SLAC large detector page which describes the various components of the detector. The drift chamber is of the same type as the one simulated by OnScreen Particle Physics™ .Click here to go to the SLAC Virtual Visitor Center. To site menu. Omni-Purpose Apparatus at LEP (OPAL)The OPAL experiment is over, but the site devoted to it is still useful. What was it? First, LEP is the Large Electron-Positron Collider at CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research), the major European lab that has made some of the most important recent discoveries in particle physics. "Omni-Purpose" may be stretching it, but the site can give you an idea of the kind of enormous multilayered detectors that are used to study high energy events in current experiments. OPAL is a lot more complicated than the simulated detector of OnScreen Particle Physics™, but the principles of the central detector are the same.Click here to go to the OPAL home page. From there you can take the tour of the detector and/or see what actual OPAL events (keyed to Feynman diagrams) look like (LEP-1 and LEP-2 links from OPAL home page). To site menu. ATLAS ExperimentThis is another CERN experiment, involving high energy proton collisions. The web site is excellent and has outstanding animations of the accelerator and detectors.Click here to go to the ATLAS home page. To site menu. Experiments OnlineSLAC maintains this page with links to home pages of high-energy physics experiments around the world, organized alphabetically by accelerator facility. In addition to CDF, D0, and ATLAS, you'll find BaBar, NEMO, COSMOS, MECO, ZEUS, and more. A great place to start further explorations if you like to see details of detectors and experiments. You'll also find more events for on-screen viewing.Click here to go to the Experiments Online page. To site menu. Supersaturated Environments (Cloud Chambers)Particle physics experiments are hard to do in a classroom,
but you can show your students the real tracks of cosmic rays
or particles from nuclear decays in the diffusion cloud chambers
sold by Supersaturated Environments. Make Your Own Cloud ChamberWe have to confess we haven't yet attempted to do this, but you can find instructions for making a cloud chamber at this
Cornell how-to site.
Particle Detector BriefBookThe BriefBook by R. K. Bock and A. Vasilescu probably has all you want to know about various types of particle detectors and the physics they are
based on. Don't worry, the font gets smaller after the first page.
Contemporary Physics Education Project (CPEP)The goal of CPEP is to bring contemporary physics (particle physics, primarily, but also plasma physics) into the physics curriculum. To this end they have, among other things, published a wall chart of the standard (quark/lepton) model of particles, modeled after the periodic table of the elements. Check out their site for new web-based programs like the Particle Adventure.Click here to go to the CPEP site. To site menu. QuarknetFunded by the US Dept. of Energy and the National Science Foundation, Quarknet is headquartered at Fermilab but involves numerous other institutions around the country in its summer institutes for high school teachers. The workshops are led by particle physicists. OnScreen Particle Physics™ has been featured in a number of these workshops.Click here to go to the Quarknet home page. Click here to go to Quarknet's excellent online resources page. To site menu. |