Exploring the next, if not final, frontier

For many of us, it was Spock who knew the secrets of the universe and the mysteries of the galaxies.

With last week's announcement that Fermilab researchers were among those who have discovered the origin of cosmic rays, some answers about our universe are becoming available without the aid of science fiction. It may not spark as much interest in the general public as Spock did on television with his Vulcan Science Academy and the missions of the USS Enterprise on "Star Trek," but it is an impressive feat being celebrated at Batavia's high-energy physics lab.

We have applauded much of the work being done at Fermilab in the past. That includes the federal funding that has provided it, not the least of which is the advanced technology used in the research to collect data to share with other scientists throughout the world. We can all relate to these types of advancements, such as the development of the World Wide Web, even if we are not able to easily grasp the theory behind the Linear Hadron Collider, the Tevatron and other tools of discovery that Fermilab scientists deal with daily.

The discovery that pinpoints active galactic nuclei as the origin of cosmic rays marks the first time "astro-physics" describes what is unfolding at Fermilab.

When Fermilab scientist Henry Glass says this cosmic discovery was 20 years in the making and that it is "one of the outstanding puzzles in astro-physics," we get a sense of the patience and depth of research needed to achieve these goals.

Fermilab is already home to the Tevatron, the highest-energy particle accelerator in the world, and it has its sights set on landing the International Linear Collider within the next five to six years. This project would complement the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland.

We found it to be perfect timing that filmmakers Clayton Brown and Andrew Supernant of Chicago were showing their nearly completed documentary "The Atom Smashers" at Geneva's first film festival last weekend. The documentary is about Fermilab's search for a subatomic particle called the Higgs and the race to find what researchers believe to be "the last piece of the puzzle" of human existence.

As Daily Herald reporter Nancy Gier surmised in viewing just a few minutes of the film, you find yourself "rooting for the men and women of Fermilab in their search for fundamental knowledge."

And that sums it up pretty well. Yes, the work at Fermilab is beyond the grasp of most of us, but so was the work of Thomas Edison and so many other scientists in their times.

What never fails to impress us is that Fermilab, which has always been an excellent neighbor to Batavia, is this country's key lab in what amounts to a global network seeking to solve puzzles that have baffled man for all of time. And we find ourselves rooting for them to succeed because man has always thirsted for more knowledge -- and Fermilab seeks to quench that thirst.