Useful Websites for Schools (and others!)

Here are some interesting websites, mainly about particle physics.

Introductions to Particle Physics
Major Particle Physics Labs and Detectors
Related Topics
Other interesting sites
"Hands on" Particle Physics

The lists are by no means exhaustive, but are the result of some knowledge coupled with occasional "surfing". They all display properly with the latest version of Netscape running on a PC, but other than that there are no guarantees that they will download properly.

The level of knowledge required varies from site to site. While some are aimed at the real beginner, others are more suitable for those who have already studied some particle physics.


Introductions to Particle Physics

Particle Physics UK
http://www.particlephysics.ac.uk/
The starting place to give the web surfer access to various particle physics sites. Look here, for example, for the UK universities that work in particle physics, which experiments they work on - and who can give talks on particle physics. Also featuring regular news items, "what's on" in particle physics, and a growing library of images under "Picture of the Week".

Big Bang Science
http://hepwww.rl.ac.uk/pub/bigbang/part1.html
PPARC’s booklet introducing particle physics, especially at CERN and its Large Electron Positron collider (LEP).

The Particle Adventure
http://durpdg.dur.ac.uk/lbl/particleadventure/
Learn about basic particle physics in an interactive "Particle Adventure", a web-site from the Contemporary Physics Education Project (CPEP), which is mirrored in Durham. See http://durpdg.dur.ac.uk/lbl/particleadventure/other/education/ for classroom activities and http://www.cpepweb.org/ for more information about the CPEP. Also links to sites (not mirrored) about Plasma Physics and Fusion and about Nuclear Science.

SLAC Virtual Visitor Center
http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/
An excellent site from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California, home to the 2-mile long linear electron accelerator. There is a lot of good information here.

All about neutrinos
http://wwwlapp.in2p3.fr/neutrinos/aneut.html
An informative guide to the history of neutrinos and the various puzzles surrounding them.

High-energy physics made painless
http://www-ed.fnal.gov/painless/htmls/index.html
Articles from Ferminews - the newsletter of Fermilab - which aim to explain ideas in particle physics in everyday language.

Of interest to schools ....
http://www.hep.ph.rhbnc.ac.uk/hep/schools/schools.html
Goodies about particle physics, including a "slide show" introduction to particle physics.

 

"Hands on" Particle Physics

Events in DELPHI
http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/Documents/ParticleDemos/DelphiIntro/index.html
An introduction to interpreting events in one of the four LEP detectors at CERN. If you can run Java you can also try rotating and zooming events at http://hepwww.rl.ac.uk/WIRED/.

Hands on CERN
http://hands-on-cern.physto.se/
For those with Java, the chance to rotate and zoom real events from the DELPHI detector. Click on the event display, read the instructions and select the detector components. Useful in conjunction with the above two sites.

Identifying events at LEP
http://hepwww.ph.man.ac.uk/~wyatt/events/

A self-guided tutorial aimed at sixth-formers which explains how to understand event pictures from the OPAL detector at LEP, together with a five-part challenge (with the answers!).

Making top quark data accessible ...
http://www-ed.fnal.gov/samplers/hsphys/activities/top_quark_intro.html
Use conservation of momentum to calculate the mass of the top quark, complete with pages for students and pages for teachers.

Seeing particles
http://www.ep.ph.bham.ac.uk/user/watkins/seeweb/BubbleChamber.htm
Exercises aimed at schools, based on the interpretation of photographs of particle tracks in bubble chambers.

 

Major Particle Physics Labs and Detectors

CERN - Europe's main centre for particle physics
http://www.cern.ch/Public/
Home of particle physics in Europe and the invention of the World Wide Web. The site includes general information about particle physics, links to experiments, and some information for teachers at http://microcosm.web.cern.ch/Microcosm/teachers/home. Also keep a look out for up-coming webcasts, and take a look at the antimatter site, http://livefromcern.web.cern.ch/livefromcern/antimatter/

The ATLAS detector
http://atlas.ch
The biggest of the detectors being built for CERN's next accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The CMS detector
http://cms.cern.ch
The smaller "general purpose detector" being buit for LHC. ("C" is for compact!). 

The LHCb detector
http://lhcb-public.web.cern.ch/lhcb-public/
The experiment at the LHC that may help us understand why we aren't made from antimatter.

Welcome to the DELPHI experiment
http://www.cern.ch/Delphi/Welcome.html
More detailed information on the DELPHI detector, with some good event pictures for the more advanced student (under "About DELPHI - DELPHI transparencies").

The OPAL detector
http://www.cern.ch/Opal/tour/detector.html
More detailed information about OPAL - for the seriously interested. There is also good tutorial on typical events in OPAL, with pictures (in both GIF and Postscript formats) - again for the keener enthusiast - at
http://www.cern.ch/Opal/events/opalpics.html.

Learning physics from ALEPH events
http://aleph.web.cern.ch/aleph/educ/Welcome.html
More detailed information about one of the four LEP detectors at CERN, and events therein, for the more advanced student. Needs a Postscript viewer to view events. However you can find events in GIF format at
http://aleph.web.cern.ch/aleph/dali/.

Physics at Fermilab
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/inquiring/physics/index.html
An introduction to aspects of particle physics from Fermilab in the US.

DESY laboratory, Hamburg
http://www.desy.de/html/home/index.html
The home of HERA, the world’s only electron-proton collider. The links on this page take you mainly to sites in English, but the navigation bar at the top at present takes you to German pages.

The H1 experiment at HERA
http://www-h1.desy.de/
An introduction to one of the major experiments on the HERA collider at DESY, including a "tour" and event displays.

The ZEUS experiment at HERA
http://www-zeus.desy.de/
The second of the two major experiments investigating electron-proton collisions at DESY.

BaBar and the Missing Antimatter
http://hepwww.rl.ac.uk/BaBarpub/
An introduction to the BaBar experiment and its search for subtle differences beteen matter and antimatter.

Gran Sasso
http://www.lngs.infn.it/
Particle physics underground, without accelerators, at an international laboratory in Italy, under the Gran Sasso Massif.

Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/
This laboratory is deep underground in Canada and houses the SNO apparatus designed to detect neutrinos from the Sun.

Neutrino experiments
http://neutrinooscillation.org/
A starting point for anyone who wants to know about the wide variety of experiments with neutrinos

 

Related topics

The Official String Theory Website
http://www.superstringtheory.com/
So what is string theory? Find out at this excellent site by the physicist-wife of one of the pioneers of string theory.

Diamond Synchrotron Light Source
http://www.diamond.ac.uk/default.htm
The recently-opened synchrotron light source in South Oxfordshire.

COSMOS - National Cosmology Supercomputer
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public
This gives access to an excellent introduction to cosmology, set up by cosmologists at Cambridge. With good illustrations.

About ISIS
http://www.isis.rl.ac.uk/aboutIsis/index.htm
An introduction to the world's "brightest" pulsed neutron and muon source at the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

Microworlds
http://www.lbl.gov/MicroWorlds/
An interactive tour of materials research at the Advanced Light Source at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California.


Other interesting sites

Astronomy Picture of the Day
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
A different picture each day, with a brief explanation.

The Electronic Nobel Museum
http://www.nobel.se/
All about all the Nobel prizes, from 1901 to the present day, including videos of the Nobel lectures for the most recent awards.