In October 2023, I had the great pleasure to journey from Sudbury to Modane, France to participate in a workshop at the Modane Underground Laboratory (Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane, or LSM). That was an incredible work period and a great chance to visit the underground laboratory, which is a “horizontal […]
Journal
51 posts
I have decided to make a commitment to cover all three of the basic science Nobel Prizes this year. Next up is the Chemistry Prize! The prize announcement will begin not earlier than 05:45am Eastern Time (11:45am CEST) on Wednesday, October 9. I’ll be up with coffee in-hand to watch […]
I have decided to make a commitment to cover all three of the basic science Nobel Prizes this year. Next up is the Physics Prize! The prize announcement will begin not earlier than 05:45am Eastern Time (11:45am CEST) on Tuesday, October 8. I’ll be up with coffee in-hand to watch […]
Live updates are at the bottom of this post. (Scroll down to see them) I have decided to make a commitment to cover all three of the basic science Nobel Prizes this year. I will confess: I know the limits of my knowledge and the prize for “Physiology or Medicine” […]
The Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane, or LSM, is located directly adjacent to the Italy-France border. Nestled below the Frejus Peak and connected to the Frejus Road Tunnel (a 13km underground highway currently under expansion), the laboratory can be driven into and shields its projects with a maximum of 1700m of […]
It was a good trip from Toronto to Modane. Two planes, two trains, and a bus … and I was standing at the feet of alpine mountains in beautiful Modane. Here are some scenes from the trip.
This week will be something of an intense travel exercise. I am off to a 2-day workshop at the Modane Underground Laboratory on the border of France and Italy. To get there, I leave on a flight (today) from Toronto to Paris, connecting through New York. This puts me into […]
What is a work vacation? It’s when you keep working but do it from a different location than your work site. My own experience with this is that doing this can vastly improve productivity while serving the interests of your employer and yourself. Last week, I had something of a […]
I have decided to wake up nice and early today to watch the live stream of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics announcement. It will likely begin later than scheduled, but the formal event should begin around 5:45am ET. I’ll post here as the event unfolds. I am very curious […]
These are my personal notes from day four of the Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics Conference. The full conference materials are online: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1199289/timetable/#20230831 August 31, 2023 The fourth day kicked off with a focus on gravitational waves [Mavalvala]. The speaker began with a history of the technology. The LIGO […]
These are my personal notes from day three of the Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics Conference. The full conference materials are online: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1199289/timetable/#20230830 August 30, 2023 We began the third day plenaries with a focus on dark matter. The first talk explore models for dark matter [Cirelli]. The potential […]
The plenaries on the second day began with beam-based neutrino physics [Wen]. The speaker reiterated the target parameters and discussed existing results and future facilities for measuring them. They began by noting that sin2(2theta13) is known by Daya Bay to 2.8%, and that Double Chooz has just updated their measurement […]