There is more to discuss about “Climate-gate.” There is the release of e-mails from the scientists. There are the choices scientists make when faced with data. While no doubt it relieves many climate science detractors that the veil was lifted on climate research, they also should stop to wonder what […]
SMU imposed a new requirement on faculty starting this year. We are now required to take and pass a multi-hour web class on research practices and ethics. Over several months, in short shots, I took the class. The first half of the material focused on things like pressure, plagiarism, gift […]
In the movie, “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” author Audrey Niffenegger explores the relationship between a husband, who unpredictably travels through time, and his wife, who must deal with his disappearances and harrowing experiences. But what if it was the wife whose life had become unpredictable, and the husband who had […]
It’s being tired, because you’ve been cramming information about jets, electrons, muons, photons, and all manner of other things yet unidentified in your head. It’s the swelling in your eyes because you’ve been staring at code, a sheriff and an outlaw locking eyes on a dusty main street, each knowing […]
The Blackberry goes off at 6, playing a jolly little electric piano tune. In the dark of a room in Hostel 41 – a room I have affectionately taken to calling the “Monolith Apartment” (see Stanley Kubrick’s “2001”) – I dismiss the alarm and swing myself out of bed. Thus […]
This has been a whirlwind week for me. Ever since I arrived in Geneva last week, I’ve been keeping myself as busy as a grad student so that I can be a more effective professor. I truly need to understand something of ATLAS before I can lead a group of […]
Day two: jet lag. Despite five hours of sleep on the plane from Dulles to Geneva, my body insists that it is, in fact, midnight when we land. It is unhappy, it is tired, and it is angry at my brain for keeping it up. Despite the overwhelming exhaustion, the […]
I am on my first trip to CERN as a real collaborator in the ATLAS experiment. I have not earned the right to call myself a “member” yet – at least, in the sense that I can sign papers. I am a newbie (n00b, if you will), a greenhorn, and […]
The past week has been spent in restraint. As Thanksgiving approached, a few brave souls jumped the gun and started putting up Christmas decorations. Jodi and I started driving around the neighborhoods and then changed to walking. Every time we returned home, Jodi would race for the garage, storehouse of […]
The sermon that followed the baptism of my God-daughter was a let down, a reminder of the reason I originally abandoned a religious life in favor of a spiritual one. I don’t know if these let-down sermons are at all common; I just know that I run into them a […]
We landed in SFO over an hour later than scheduled. The woman sitting next to me was ill-prepared for actually leaving the plane. When the herd thinned ahead of our row, she seemed to suddenly realize that getting her bags together was a good idea. The two mini-bottles of wine […]
The past two days have been full of discussions about the B-Factories Legacy Book. This book, targeted for publication in 2012, will contain a coherent record of the work of the two B-factories: Belle and BaBar. As a member of the BaBar collaboration, I am keenly interested in seeing a […]