Gordon Watts

Huzza!

Andy, my first graduate student (now a post-doc at Columbia), just got this in the email:

Re: LD10260

Search for neutral supersymmetric Higgs bosons in multijet events at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV

By: V.M. Abazov, B. Abbott, M. Abolins, B.S. Acharya, M. Adams, et al.

Dear Dr. Haas:

This manuscript has been accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters; there are no reviewer comments to address. The paper is now being prepared for publication.

Congradulations to Andy and everyone else that worked on this paper!

Us vs Them

All experiments have a personality. Especially these large collaborations -- sometimes the members have a collective sociology. I think there was even a study once by a sociologist!

The two Tevatron experiments -- DZERO and CDF -- are no different. CDF started first -- it had almost 3 or 4 years head start on DZERO. As a result of that DZERO always feels like it is playing catchup -- weather or not it actually is! It is just part of this experiments collective sociology.

I do my best not to get caught up in this -- I've been on both experiments in my career. But every-now-and-then something goes by that makes me cringe. I was scanning the papers on XXX today and I saw nice looking overview paper. Heavy Quark physics is quite exciting right now, but I don't work on it -- so this sort of thing is perfect for me. But I got caught in the forward by the following:

What is being refered to is the discovery of the top quark -- a huge achievement. And certainly worthy of mention in this article's forward. But there is one problem... it was discovered by both CDF and DZERO -- they submitted their papers minutes apart from each other. I scanned down to see who authored this paper. An fellow I've known for years -- and a member of CDF. :-)

2 Conversations

I was sitting outside for dinner last night at the CERN cafeteria, reading. I could hear two conversations going on.

One was a heated argument over the ability of LHC to see various forms of SUSY physics. SUSY is an extention to the model we currently use today, and is one of the big reasons that the LHC is being built. Must have been almost 10 people at the page.

The second one, at another nearby table, was about 4 people. The argument was just as heated, and it was about Isreal and the US. The thing that made me started listing to that conversation was the statement "There is no way they would have given up Texas for another country to form!" (those aren't the exact words, but are close.

This memory was prompted by Aalu's angry comment about double standards applied to terrorist and the countries that host them (US vs India, in this case).

Age Doesn't Matter

I used to think that as I got older I'd be better prepared for my big talks. For big talks I'd actually get sleep rather than staying up all night frantically producing the last set of plots. This hasn't changed. It is good to know that it isn't just me, either.

When I arrived CERN on Sunday evening I ran into Matt Strassler, another prof from UW. He was trying to figure out where he could sit down and work. He is a theorist, but I set him up on a corner of a desk in Building 40, the LHC experimentalist building. He didn't look very out of place in a tee-shirt and shorts, there until 2am. The outcome was a 90 page talk! Usually figure one minute per transparency. Ouch! His talk was good, however. And he appeared to be awake through most of the talk the next day. ;-)

This conference has been a lot of run. My favorite conversations have mostly happen during break, lunch, or over dinner. There have been some good talks, but the interaction has been much better. The idea behind this conference has been to get theorists to think about how they can directly help out on the LHC. Specifically, if the LHC discoveres something, how can they help determine what it is that caused what has been discovered (a hard problem!!). My favorite was when a theorist, Nima, a theorist from Harvard, drew a simple plot on the board and said "Ok, so the LHC turns on, and they see the standard model background, and this new signal." The three of us experimentalists, sitting together, turned to each other and joked "Should we just leave now?" It was quite something to see what we think will be several years of work reduced to a single plot and an off handed sentence. ;-)

Sign of Times Past

Many CERN buildings are old. We are having the current small meeting in the old theory conference room. The desks are simple wood and metal... and check out what is in each desk...

Of course, these are used for chewing gum and paper now. And no, there is no AC. But it is much cooler here than in Marseille!

Enjoy the Crowds While You Can

Ok, I realise I'm being a pessimist here. I was eating lunch sitting outside near the fish market in Marseille this morning (instead of on the internet, grrr) watching people. I'd just paid 5 euros for an hour of internet to charge up for a TGV trip to Geneva I was going to take in two hours -- and I read the news. The Egypt bombings. London police accidentally killing an innocent man, and the almost-usual bombings in Iraq (how do those things every become usual!). Factor this together with the constant security presense here in France - submachine guns in the subways, the constant searching of people by plain-clothes in the markets... And watching people filtering around enjoying the sun and the fish for sale I started to wonder how much longer will we be able to enjoy this? Even if there is no bombing, the pressure on people rises steadily -- the police presense, the fear that a bomb may go of locally -- when will there be a backlash and who will receive the brunt of it? And my guess is almost with certianty the people that are back lashed will not be the people that really deserve it.

Ok, I'll stop being so depressing now. I sat for an hour in the train station waiting for my TGV (before going through a security inspection yet again!!!) and even thougth the Marseille train station isn't one of the well known ones, it is still quite beutiful. You can't really see it in this picture, but even the decorations around the sides of the roof have small details. Happy thought for the day!

No Internet: Grrr!

Is really killing me! I get home at about 7pm, and I can't eat dinner and work more! I'm forced to stay out by the water and read or something else. I can really tell it is cutting into my productivity! And while it was ok for a while, it is starting to drive me up a wall!

How good's your French?

Not very. I've been having a beer before grabbing dinner every evening. I sit at this one cafe (the Exit Cafe). That is where I met the cruise ship couple. Last night I was sitting next to two locals. We struggled for 2 hours to talk to each other. They would speak in english and I would speak in french. I was exhausted after that two hours. They were two women; I'm not even going to tell you what Paula's first text message back to me was when I told her about it. ;-)

One really weird thing I found out is that the word professor, and its literal translation into French, means something different here. In french it is simply teacher. In the US it also has reserach connotations as well as teaching. And in the US there are even professors who don't teach! To get my job description right you apparently have to say quite a few words (and last night some of them had to be in English!).

It's Friday. I'm happy about that. I'm also happy because it's my birthday! :-)

By the Sea, By the Mountains

This is the building I work in. The first time I came up here, I couldn't find it -- it isn't easily visible from the bus stop -- and a gaurd said, 'ahh, oui -- le grand bateau' -- the big boat. ;-) Check out how it is almost built straight into the mountains. And only about 25 minutes away from the sea. The inside, however, looks just as you might expect a physics building. And the water coolers only work on the floor where all the administrative staff and the director live. ;-)

To get here I take the #21 bus from downtown. That gives me 30 minutes of dirty listening. Yesterday on the way back the subway entrance was closed -- there were police with dogs and very big guns milling around. They had that air about them "You know, subways would be a lot safer if passengers weren't allow to ride them". I didn't know about the London bombing scare at the time, but I'm guessing this was in response to that.

Dirty Reading

I've been listening to an audio book on my commute between the Old Port region of Marseille and the lab where I've got an office -- CPPM. The book makes me feel dirty.

The Da Vinci Code is... well, you probably know it better than I since everyone I've talked to has read it. The first thing that gets me is the science is wrong. For example, there is no way a GPS receiver works underground. If they had enough power to do that, we'd be uncomfortable above ground! The the slimey bit comes from the layout of the story. "The church's beuty is in its architecture"... "but not tonight", or "I'm going as fast as I can", Tom said hurridly (if you get that reference...).

On the other hand, I do want to know what the heck happened! So I keep listening. :(