I built this to make particle colliders easier to inspect.
Science Wonders is an independent project. It turns accelerator chains, detector layers, and gravitational-wave signals into something you can inspect directly. I am not a physicist, but reading about these systems made me want to see how they fit together.

Jonathan R ReedAI security & product engineer
I spend most of my work hours on adversarial testing, secure LLM deployment, and product engineering for AI systems. This site started as a focused way to build for a curious reader instead of a production risk model.
I picked particle physics and gravitational-wave astronomy because they have extraordinary hardware that most people never get to interact with. The controls here are deliberately simplified: they show relationships, not exact operating values. If you need the real numbers, the sources at the bottom of each page link to the official publications.
The same rule applies to the whole site: if a claim is made, the source is named. If a model is simplified, the shortcut is admitted upfront.
Visit JonathanRReed.comWhat to expect
Start from real machines
The accelerator route uses actual CERN injector-chain specs. The detector route uses the real LHC experiment layouts. The gravitational-wave route uses published LIGO sensitivity curves. Nothing is invented for drama.
Move the model, then read
Each page puts a simplified control first. The explanation is tied to something you can change, so the abstraction lands after you have already seen the behavior.
Limits are part of the content
The controls are teaching controls, not lab controls. The diagrams show relationships, not event reconstructions. Exact values should be checked against the linked sources before citation.
Not official. This is an independent public science project inspired by publicly available CERN and gravitational-wave observatory material. It is not an official CERN, LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, or EGO publication or tool.
Sources & references
- 01
CERN Accelerator Complex overview
https://home.cern/science/accelerators/Official public summary used for accelerator principles, beamline framing, and the CERN accelerator network.
- 02
CERN Large Hadron Collider
https://home.cern/science/accelerators/large-hadron-collider/Official public overview used for LHC scale, collider role, multi-TeV beam context, and the current LHC experiment roster.
- 03
CERN Linac4
https://home.cern/science/accelerators/linear-accelerator-4/Official machine page used for the first proton injector stage in the accelerator journey.
- 04
CERN Proton Synchrotron Booster
https://home.cern/science/accelerators/proton-synchrotron-booster/Official machine page used for the booster stage and injector-chain context.
- 05
CERN Proton Synchrotron
https://home.cern/science/accelerators/proton-synchrotron/Official machine page used for the Proton Synchrotron stage and its role in the CERN complex.
- 06
CERN Super Proton Synchrotron
https://home.cern/science/accelerators/super-proton-synchrotron/Official machine page used for the SPS transfer stage and fixed-target context.
- 07
CERN Antiproton Decelerator
https://home.cern/science/accelerators/antiproton-decelerator/Official machine page used for low-energy antiproton and antimatter facility context.
- 08
CERN ISOLDE
https://home.cern/science/experiments/isolde/Official facility page used for radioactive ion beam and isotope-selection context.
- 09
CERN CLEAR
https://home.cern/science/accelerators/clear/Official facility page used for electron beam, accelerator research, and irradiation test context.
- 10
CERN ATLAS experiment
https://home.cern/science/experiments/atlas/Official experiment page used for general-purpose detector framing and detector comparisons.
- 11
CERN CMS experiment
https://home.cern/science/experiments/cms/Official experiment page used for solenoid, detector scale, and general-purpose physics framing.
- 12
CERN ALICE experiment
https://home.cern/science/experiments/alice/Official experiment page used for heavy-ion detector context and quark-gluon plasma framing.
- 13
CERN LHCb experiment
https://home.cern/science/experiments/lhcb/Official experiment page used for forward-geometry, beauty-quark, and matter-antimatter framing.
- 14
CERN TOTEM experiment
https://home.cern/science/experiments/totem/Official experiment page used for forward scattering and near-beam detector context.
- 15
CERN LHCf experiment
https://home.cern/science/experiments/lhcf/Official experiment page used for forward cosmic-ray simulation context.
- 16
CERN MoEDAL-MAPP experiment
https://home.cern/science/experiments/moedal-mapp/Official experiment page used for magnetic monopole and exotic-particle search context.
- 17
CERN FASER experiment
https://home.cern/science/experiments/faser/Official experiment page used for light, weakly interacting forward-particle search context.
- 18
CERN SND@LHC experiment
https://home.cern/science/experiments/sndlhc/Official experiment page used for collider-neutrino and off-axis forward detector context.
- 19
European Gravitational Observatory
https://www.ego-gw.it/Public resources about interferometric observatories.
- 20
LIGO gravitational-wave basics
https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/MIT/page/gravitational-wavesOfficial LIGO outreach material explaining what gravitational waves are and how the observatory studies them.
- 21
GWOSC event catalog
https://gwosc.org/eventapi/html/GWTC/Official Gravitational Wave Open Science Center catalog used to distinguish simplified presets from research-grade event data.
- 22
LIGO GW150914 press release
https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/MIT/page/press-release-gw150914Official release used for the first directly observed gravitational-wave event from a binary black-hole merger.
- 23
LIGO GW170817 press release
https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/press-release-gw170817Official release used for binary neutron-star, multi-messenger, and waveform-duration context.
