A few days ago, a critical piece of evidence was gathered [ARXIVDM]. This evidence was needed to discern between two possibilities: either 84% of the matter in our universe is “dark” – non-luminous, invisible to most means of detecting it – or is due to a modification of gravity at […]
I’ll comment on this more later. For now, here is the reference: “http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0608407”:http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0608407.
Jodi and I have been in Wisconsin for a day, marking the second half of our trip to the Midwest. We’re leaving Park Falls tomorrow for Osh Kosh, then on to Madison on Tuesday and Wednesday. I sat outside today, working on the PC I built for my in-laws using […]
We’re in the final stages of packing and cleaning before we get into the car, head south (quick lunch in Virginia, then coffee in Duluth), and go to Jodi’s parents’ house. Goodbye, Soudan!
One of the many reasons I am a physicist is the influence of my father. I had previously commented on the role my mother’s father, “pop-pop”, played on my choice to pursue science as part of my life. However, the role my father played in engaging me in challenging questions, […]
An article appeared recently [CNNPhysics], written by Gregory Mone, a member of the writing staff at Popular Science. In the title of the article, he posed the question “Can this machine rescue physics?”. This article came to my attention when members of the BaBar collaboration began to comment on it. […]
I think that much of the public forgets that scientists, including physicists, are people, too. Partly, this is because of the myth of the scientist – the recluse, the weirdo, the hubris. Partly, this is because often the most outspoken scientists are, indeed, the reclusive, weirdo, snobs. It’s the greater […]
Sometimes, life is more like Fox News than the Daily Show. Yesterday was a prime example of that, perhaps more evidence that my poor country is collectively going bat-shit crazy. What happened? A woman on a flight from London to Washington appears to have been unable to control her claustrophobia. […]
We closed the trip into the mine yesterday the way that they close it every day: rush to get to the elevator before final call. The 8-minute announcement sounded as the last CDMS people hurried out of electronics rooms and clean rooms, gathered their belonging, and collected at the exit. […]
My “day off” in the mine has been anything but. Well, to be fair, I volunteered. I had planned to spend the day catching up on news, listening to some statistics lectures from SLAC [SLUOStats], and generally take photos of all the cool stuff down here in the Soudan Mine […]
A great draw of physics, especially particle and astrophysics, is the list of exotic locations available to study the origin of the universe. Jodi has traveled from the soaring heights of the Antarctic plateau to the depths of the earth in the Soudan Mine (a total vertical distance of 12000 […]
I’m scheduled to give the “wine and cheese” seminar at “Fermilab”:http://www.fnal.gov on August 25, so part of my vacation has to be spent writing slides for the talk. I’m planning to give the audience a promenade through recent results using searches for leptonic decays of heavy mesons. BaBar is what […]