VOA标准英语2011--Idled Atom-Smasher Yielding Data Months After Shutdown

Idled Atom-Smasher Yielding Data Months After Shutdown

The Tevatron Accelerator at the U.S. government's Fermi National Laboratory in suburban¹ Chicago once led the world in studying what happens when subatomic particles are thrown together at nearly the speed of light. But CERN’s new Large Hadron Collider in Europe has taken the lead in this exotic science. U.S. officials took the aging Tevatron Accelerator offline in September, ending a 30-year career in particle physics.

Since it went online in 1983, Fermilab’s Tevatron Accelerator fueled the study of the most fundamental building blocks of matter - sub atomic particles. But one particle continues to elude² scientists -- the Higgs Boson.

“We know a lot about where it’s not, but we don’t know where it is yet,” said Robert Roser is a senior scientist at Fermilab who has spent much of his career looking for the so-called “God particle” which could help scientists better understand why matter has mass.

“If I look at our data right now... it’s not jumping out at us,” Roser said.

There’s a chance the Higgs Boson will never jump out at Roser and other scientists who have been hunting it for more than 20 years.

With the Tevatron now offline, the search for the Higgs is underway at the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, at the CERN laboratory in Geneva Switzerland. The LHC is now the world’s most advanced particle accelerator, but Roser says even it can’t find the Higgs Boson.

“The fact that the LHC has ruled out the higher mass states makes the Tevatron that much more attractive at the moment, because we’re good at where the remaining territory is left,” Roser said.

That remaining territory is the last frontier of research for the Tevatron, despite the fact it is not operational.

Scientists are still analyzing³ the massive amounts of data the accelerator produced just before its shutdown.

“We hope to have the Higgs (Boson) analysis completed and ready for public consumption by February or March of 2012,” Roser said.

But the final analysis could ultimately lead to the conclusion the Higgs Boson does not exist.

“Not finding the Higgs is to some people’s way of thinking a lot more exciting,” said physicist⁴ Patrick Fox. He says the absence of the Higgs particle could challenge current ideas about matter and mass.

“Finding the Higgs would be great… it would be really great to find the last piece of this puzzle. Not finding the Higgs would actually result in us probably finding a lot more complicated stuff instead of the Higgs which would be very interesting to us to find new forces of nature, new symmetries of nature, new dimensions of space… these are all possibilities where you may or may not have a Higgs Boson but instead have something more exotic,” Fox said.

Scientists at Fermilab say the discovery of nothing at all could be the greatest discovery, and the lasting⁵ legacy⁶, of the Tevatron Accelerator.

1 suburban   

adj.城郊的，在郊区的

参考例句：

• Suburban shopping centers were springing up all over America. 效区的商业中心在美国如雨后春笋般地兴起。
• There's a lot of good things about suburban living.郊区生活是有许多优点。

2 elude   

v.躲避，困惑

参考例句：

• If you chase it,it will elude you.如果你追逐着它， 它会躲避你。
• I had dared and baffled his fury.I must elude his sorrow.我曾经面对过他的愤怒，并且把它挫败了；现在我必须躲避他的悲哀。

3 analyzing   

v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析

参考例句：

• Analyzing the date of some socialist countries presents even greater problem s. 分析某些社会主义国家的统计数据，暴露出的问题甚至更大。 来自辞典例句
• He undoubtedly was not far off the mark in analyzing its predictions. 当然，他对其预测所作的分析倒也八九不离十。 来自辞典例句

4 physicist   

n.物理学家，研究物理学的人

参考例句：

• He is a physicist of the first rank.他是一流的物理学家。
• The successful physicist never puts on airs.这位卓有成就的物理学家从不摆架子。

5 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

6 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。