We shall not cease from exploration, and the end
of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know
the place for the first time.
-T. S. Eliot
Great Human Triumphs
In the last 50 years, the study of the basic constituents
of matter and their interactions has led to an extraordinarily
detailed understanding of subatomic phenomena (phenomena on the
scale of atomic nuclei or smaller). This work culminated in the
unification of electromagnetism and radioactivity, by which we
mean that they are now understood to be different aspects of the
same phenomenon. This achievement ranks as one of the great triumphs
of the human intellect.
These discoveries were the result of experiments
involving:
- Particle accelerators that produce proton and electron beams of ever increasing
energy.
- Detectors capable of measuring the complex interactions produced by
the collisions of these high-energy beams.
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