Batavia, Illinois: Broken Symmetry: Particle Physics

Straddling the road to the main entrance to Fermilab is the steel sculpture "Broken Symmetry," created by Fermilab's first director, Robert Wilson. The concept of symmetry breaking is very important in particle physics; it may explain why there is more matter than anti-matter in the universe (in other words, why there is stuff instead of no stuff).

The sculpture, when viewed from underneath, is symmetrical, but when viewed from other positions is non-symmetrical. On one side it's black, on the other, orange (sort of like a chocolate/orange candy, just not as tasty). The sculpture's 21 tons of steel came from the aircraft carrier USS Princeton, which saw extensive action during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The Princeton was the also the ship that plucked the Apollo 10 astronauts from the drink in 1969. The reason why old aircraft carrier steel plates were hanging around Fermilab was that it was a cheap way to get metal to filter out background particles during accelerator experiments.