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Article: Muons meet the Maya: physicists explore subatomic particle strategy for revealing archaeological secrets.
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- December 8, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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At its most glamorous, the life of an experimental high-energy physicist consists of smashing obscure subatomic particles with futuristic-sounding names into each other to uncover truths about the universe--using science's biggest, most expensive toys in exciting locations such as Switzerland or Illinois. But it takes a decade or two to plan and build multibillion-dollar atom smashers. While waiting, what's a thrill-seeking physicist to do?
How about using some of the perfectly good, and completely flee, subatomic particles that rain down on Earth from space every day to peek inside something really big and mysterious, like, say, a Mayan pyramid? That's exactly ...