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And therefore, a witch (Part II)

Symbols are important to nations, and often horribly abused in politics. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, from the state that avoided teaching science by redefining it, gave a tedious presentation during the recent stem cell debates. In it, he made the following analogy: bald eagles come from eggs, and it […]

And therefore, a witch (Part II)

Jodi at theILC workshop

The “International Linear Collider”:http://www.linearcollider.org is the priority machine for the high-energy physics community after the Large Hadron Collider begins operations in just over a year. This week, the University of British Columbia in Vancouver hosts a huge ILC workshop, a forum for discussing technical, research, and educational issues surrounding the […]

Jodi at theILC workshop

Vetoing science, upholding science fiction

The President exercised the first veto of his two terms today, and chose to act against science while upholding what he called “America’s culture of life”. This is the same “culture of life” that leads to the state-sanctioned execution of criminals, that turns an eye wounded by moral cataracts toward […]

Vetoing science, upholding science fiction

A life is more than this…

The back-and-forth in the Senate and the White House these past few days had me thinking, thinking about life and what it means to be alive, to take a life. I kept thinking about what the President said, that he would execute his only veto in six years should the […]

A life is more than this…

Polishing the stump

The 2006 International Conference on High-Energy Physics is a little over one week away. This coming week is the full flood of practice talks, the final days of preparation for the conference. Analyses are coming out of review, talks are being written and practiced, and everybody is stretched by the […]

Polishing the stump

Hunting the invisible

The BES collaboration has “recently reported results in a search for invislbe decays of the eta meson”:http://www.arxiv.org/abs/hep-ex/0607006. This is interesting, because I have long been interested in similar decay searches at BaBar. It’s nice to see the experimental community beginning to build a fervor for searching for these rare, but […]

Hunting the invisible

Surviving the week

Summertime is the worst time of the year for physics. I’ve said this many times before, but no season is busier. I suppose it’s timed to coincide with professorial “free time”, when classes end and researchers can get back to their life of labs and meetings. For a post-doc or […]

Surviving the week

Fun Facts from the Russian Consulate

This morning, Jodi and I drove up to one of the four Russian Federation Consulates in the United States, conveniently located here in San Francisco. It was my day to hand in my visa application and hope I did all the paperwork correctly. It was a beautiful day, and from […]

Fun Facts from the Russian Consulate

Moscow

The past few months have been crazy, by normal scientific standards. My instincts as a scientist tell me to be cautious in all proceedings, to carefully weigh and study choices and make decisions based on a balance of return and investment. For instance, if I have a choice to do […]

Moscow

30-year essay

After 30 years, it seems sensible to look back a bit and reflect on the life that was, and the life that will be. It would be wise to think about the contrast between my first decade, the second and third, all of which led to to where I am […]

30-year essay

Quiet after 10 pm

This is going to be a hard month, and it hasn’t even started yet. I’m talking about July. I’ve been working pretty seriously on my research, getting it ready for the summer. Along with my 500 colleagues on BaBar, you could probably wring the toil out into a bucket and […]

Quiet after 10 pm

Rituals

Rituals are important to life. They can be secular or religious in origin, but having a regular event to which you can look forward is important. I’ve tried removing ritual from my life, and I always feel unglued as a result. Jodi and I decided a few months ago that […]

Rituals

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  • (no title)
    July 5, 2025
    Last evening was a lovely one for a walk home from dinner. I paused on the bridge over a creek along the way and […]
  • (no title)
    July 5, 2025
    One of my favourite things was the specially labelled bottle of champagne my colleague, Aidan, put together in anticipation of this day. It was […]

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