The small stuff of big science

Big-science experiments are expensive so electronics designers are turning to off-the-shelf technologies to keep costs under control. EARLIER THIS year, scientists celebrated the centenary of the discovery of cosmic rays during balloon flights over the Viennese countryside by physicist and Nobel laureate Victor Hess. Today, several hundred miles to the north in Berlin, people such as Peter Wegner, theoretical physicist and mathematician at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) are working on a much larger-scale project to look more closely at the incredibly energetic radiation that emanates from quasars and supernovas.