Dream Machines

TL;DR

Particle accelerators are essential tools in physics, enabling detailed exploration of matter at extremely small scales and fostering advancements in science and technology through historical, current, and future perspectives.

Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of particle accelerators' role in scientific discovery and discusses future questions in accelerator science and particle physics.

Findings

Accelerators enable exploration at attometer scales.

They facilitate the creation of new forms of matter.

Progress in accelerator technology advances fundamental physics.

Abstract

Particle accelerators and their detectors are the world's most powerful microscopes. They enable us to inspect the constituents of matter at attometer scales, study matter under unusual conditions, and concentrate extraordinary amounts of energy into tiny volumes to create new forms of matter and initiate new phenomena. The progress of particle physics and of accelerator science and technology go hand in hand. I look to the past, present, and future, raising questions that we would like to answer about nature along the way.