Tomorrow night, NOVA will air the next in its series of science news magazines, “ScienceNOW”. The topics will be: the importance of sleep, and the Large Hadron Collider. I’d encourage everybody to watch this, especially those in physics and most especially those working on or near the LHC. Why? Well, first every physicist likes an ego boost. Watching yourself on TV is hard to beat (unless you are awkwardly swatting cameras away while refusing to answer questions, I guess). Second, the program talks about the role sleep plays in forming new memories, sorting out the mental noise from the mental signals, etc. I think that more physicists need more sleep, even at the expense of work.
Why? Watch the program and find out. But at the very least, we’ll all stop making stupid mistakes and maybe have some real breakthroughs, instead of just relying on routine and structure to get work done.
A bunch of us are getting together tomorrow night to watch the program. Some people we know are likely to be in it, and we’re always curious to see what **that’s** like!
