Particles are the building blocks for all matter, from paper to primordial ooze.
To better understand the forces of nature and the behavior of matter, scientists are attempting to learn all they can about particles using devices called accelerators. The Tevatron, although it sounds like some kind of doomsday robot, is the name of the superconducting particle accelerator at Fermilab. The Tevatron is a four-mile ring buried in a tunnel twenty feet underground. Inside this ring, protons whiz through the accelerator at nearly the speed of light. By crashing protons into antiprotons or into fixed targets, researchers can create and record particle interactions.