I don’t have a lot of time to say too much – in fact, I’ve planned a rather informative look back on my seminar trip that I’ll write later – but I can say this: what an incredible month this has been. I have learned a terrific amount about over a dozen experiments in this last month. In no particular order: LHCb, Belle, CLEO-c, CMS, ATLAS, MU2E, Pierre Auger Observatory, LSST, LUX, CDMS, DMTPC, PHENIX, Daya Bay, the Dark Energy Survey. There is so much going on, so much that is happening and so much to come (this doesn’t even count the unnamed efforts, such as the extrasolar planet work that was mentioned to me by an astronomer at Cincinnati). I have a lot to process, a lot to digest.
My last seminar of this part of the tour seemed to go very well, despite my immune system’s best attempt to drown me in snot and make it hard for me to swallow without pain. Eat it, T-helper cells.
I had a great time at UIUC today. I met a lot of people, some known to me but many not. I learned about their efforts on ATLAS, exciting observations about the role sea quarks and gluons play in nuclear interactions, details about calibrating the proposed MU2E experiment. What a great suite of science, and yet I know this is a small taste of my field.
Tonight, I will get a very restful sleep before I leave for Midway airport tomorrow. My flight is late, getting me back home tomorrow evening (PDT). It will still take me a day to get back in the swing after I get back, but by Thursday I’ll be fully engaged with my research life again. It’s been great to go walkabout in the wider world; now I am ready to get home, and get back to my own science.
