Events archive

What was the first thing in the Universe? A black hole or a star? How did it form? Even our biggest and best telescopes cannot tell us. Direct calculation with supercomputers, however, can. The first luminous objects in the Universe...

Perhaps the most significant event in intellectual history has occurred over the past several decades, a convergence of the sciences, a blurring of the distinctions between disciplines, from physics to chemistry to biology. Fundamental questions about human existence have been...

For over 40 years, physicists have been trying to track down a hypothetical particle called the Higgs boson. This particle could explain how known elementary particles like the electron can have mass, and also why one of the basic forces...

What is the Universe made of? This question has been asked as long as humans have been questioning, and astronomers and physicists are finally converging on an answer. The picture which has emerged from numerous complementary observations over the past...

Presented by Marusa Bradac. One of the greatest accomplishments in recent astrophysics is the creation of a model for the complete inventory of the Universe. All the observational data tells us with extremely high certainty that ordinary matter (every particle...

Particle physicists have a description of the forces of nature known as the Standard Model that has successfully withstood decades of testing at laboratories around the world. Though the Standard Model is powerful, it is not complete. Important details like...

A irreverent non-technical review of the history of surprisingly animate machines, from ancient Egypt to current times. Areas include teleoperators for hazardous environments, assembly systems, medical applications, entertainment, and science fiction. The talk has over 100 slides, covering such varied...

As our dependence on foreign oil increases and concerns about global climate change rise, the need to develop sustainable energy technologies is becoming increasingly significant. Worldwide energy consumption is expected to double by the year 2050, as will carbon emissions...

Presented by Kelly Gaffney. Movies have transformed our perception of the world. With slow motion photography, we can see a hummingbird flap its wings, and a bullet pierce an apple. The remarkably small and extremely fast molecular world that determines...

In this talk, Eduardo do Couto e Silva will explain that while the night sky appears calm, it is in fact populated by colossal explosions and cosmic conflagrations.

Who we are

SLAC science explained

Vera C. Rubin Observatory LSST

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Shocking to the Core: Adventures in Earth Science

Cosmic Dawn: The First Star in the Universe

From Atoms to Animals: The Vital Force in Biology

Hunting the Elusive Higgs Boson and the Origin of Mass

Dark Energy. What the ...?

The Dark Side of the Universe

The Large Hadron Collider: Redefining High Energy

Robots: Fantasy and Reality

Hydrogen: Fueling the Future

Making Molecular Movies: 10,000,000,000,000 Frames per Second

The Violent Universe