This is an exciting time for the BaBar experiment. We have just completed our last shutdown between run periods, where we performed a series of maintenance tasks and small upgrades and the accelerator performed a series of engineering upgrades. This three month down-time was the last chance to make major […]
Physics
257 posts
OK, maybe it’s a little much. But, I have to say that this collaboration meeting has been a real high when it comes to physics. Not only is BaBar in the first stages of Run 7, a solid 10-month run from now until next October, but there is so much […]
Today, as I was thinking more about my undergraduate experience in physics, I recalled that I had a photo of my advisor, Michael, floating around on my home computer. What made me think of it was the laugh I had when I first found the picture. In one of my […]
Today, some very painful news reached me. My father informed me of the death of my undergraduate mentor in physics, Dr. Michael Schmidt. After a long battle with cancer, he passed on November 18. Michael was one of the reasons I survived my time as an undergrad at Yale. Without […]
Sitting in the Kavli lounge, chatting with a friend of mine, I mentioned that I had finally gotten around to setting up a professional blog. He responded with, “What’s a professional blog?” Hmm. When I set the darn thing up, I didn’t really think about what it meant. Well, that’s […]
It’s collaboration meeting time again. When BaBarians last met in June, it was at SLAC. I split my time between plenary presentations, parallel sessions, chairing sessions, and (of course) hurrying to get the numbers needed to my own research presentations. It’s busy, but fun. This time around, BaBar is largely […]
He founded the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, was a tireless driving force behind the great discoveries of this laboratory, and worked into his last days as an advocate against the testing and use of nuclear weapons. Today, the scientific world has lost another luminary: Pief Panofsky. We all got the […]
Tonight, viewers in the U.S. were treated to the premiere of the CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory”. Portraying the lives of reclusive young scientists coming to grips with their likeable female neighbor, the show roots itself in the usual stereotype of the scientist (and in particular, the physicist). While […]
There is a coming change in the American landscape of particle physics. It’s an interesting violation of some basic tenets of physics. As the center of gravity shifts from the U.S. to Europe, more and more of the weight of the field is being born by fewer people here at […]
Tonight I have a bittersweet occasion to attend. My long-time friend and colleague, once my graduate school apartment mate in Geneva during my first summer at CERN and then my grad school office mate, is saying farewell to the U.S. physics community and going to Switzerland. Like many, many other […]
The mad rush to the summer conferences is almost over, and while I am still trying to wrap up the research projects I’ve been working on for many months, I am thinking ahead to other projects that I’d like to start in the autumn. The BaBar experiment offers many opportunities […]
As Jodi and I discussed on our podcast this Sunday [1], deadlines and time pressures make people nuts. In physics, this is the kooky season, as the big conferences – EPS (European Physical Society), SUSY07, and Lepton-Photon ’07 approach. Over the next 1.5 months, thousands of physicists from across the […]