Anyone who has seen a strobe light in action knows that short, bright flashes of light can appear to ‘freeze’ the motion of a moving object. It is intuitive that to apparently freeze the movement of ever-faster moving objects, one needs ever-shorter pulses of light. The Sub-Picosecond Photon Source (SPPS) project takes this relationship to the Nth degree in order to produce informative images of movements that occur, even at the atomic level, during chemical reactions.

The SPPS project is made possible by an upgrade to the existing SLAC linear accelerator (linac), along with specialized new instrumentation, to produce and deliver x-rays from bright electron beam pulses.

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James Joyce said, "Mistakes are the portals of discovery." Similarly, SLAC takes the opportunity to learn from unfortunate incidents so we can prevent them in the future. We call this the ‘lessons learned process.’ This article explores the lessons to be learned from a recent accident at SLAC.

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On the Channel 7 (ABC) news several weeks ago, there was a story about two couples who have a very special bond. One couple was called up to service in their respective reserve military units, and the other couple stepped in to take care of their infant son as well as their home. Turns out this story has a strong connection to SLAC.

SLAC made its presence known on April 6 as Stanford University celebrated its second annual Community Day. Attracting children and their parents in droves, SLAC staff put an exciting spin on physics.

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