Ken Herwig's scientific drive crystallized in his youth when he solved a tough algebra word problem in his head while tossing newspapers from his bicycle. He said the joy he felt in that moment as a teenager fueled his determination to conquer mathematical mysteries. And he did.
When opportunity meets talent, great things happen. The laser comb developed at ORNL serves as such an example.
A trio of new and improved cosmological simulation codes was unveiled in a series of presentations at the annual April Meeting of the American Physical Society in Minneapolis.
Few things carry the same aura of mystery as dark matter. The name itself radiates secrecy, suggesting something hidden in the shadows of the Universe.
Andrea Delgado is looking for elementary particles that seem so abstract, there appears to be no obvious short-term benefit to her research.
How did we get from stardust to where we are today? That’s the question NASA scientist Andrew Needham has pondered his entire career.
A chemist from Oak Ridge National Laboratory attracted national attention when her advocacy for science education made People magazine’s annual “Women Changing the World” issue.
The old photos show her casually writing data in a logbook with stacks of lead bricks nearby, or sealing a vacuum chamber with a wrench. ORNL researcher Frances Pleasonton was instrumental in some of the earliest explorations of the properties of the neutron as the X-10 Site was finding its postwar footing as a research lab.
Scientists have long sought to better understand the “local structure” of materials, meaning the arrangement and activities of the neighboring particles around each atom. In crystals, which are used in electronics and many other applications, most of the atoms form highly ordered lattice patterns that repeat. But not all atoms conform to the pattern.
For nearly six years, the Majorana Demonstrator quietly listened to the universe. Nearly a mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility, or SURF, in Lead, South Dakota, the experiment collected data that could answer one of the most perplexing questions in physics: Why is the universe filled with something instead of nothing?