Today and tomorrow are the last scheduled shifts for the Babar experiment. I have the pleasure of being on shift as the Liaison yet again, sitting in the main accelerator control room and passing information between Babar and the accelerator operators. Jodi came with me and baked a bunch of […]
physics
47 posts
Since the big one, there have been few bangs as spectacular. In our frigid modern universe, two are still quite phenomenal. The first are gamma ray bursts, intense explosions that occur all the time and are largely believed to be the result of a massive rotating star experiencing a total […]
A friend of mine recently sent me a summary of a relevant portion of H.R. 2641, the FY2008 House Energy and Water Appropriations bill. In the more common tongue, this is the budget proposal from Congress for the Department of Energy, an agency that funds much of the U.S. basic […]
CDF and D0 were well represented by two students today, Per and Zeynep, who presented their measurements of the top quark charge. The standard model top must have charge 2/3, but a simple extension (adding a fourth quark generation) would give an exotic quark with mass 175 GeV, pushing the […]
When I was a senior at Yale, I decided to see how much I had really learned in junior year quantum mechanics by taking solid state physics. Solid state physics is the study of crystalline structures. It is an exercise in applying quantum mechanics – you have to have a […]
For the past five months, my professional life has been a roller-coaster ride. My research is now a constant source of stress, as deadlines rapidly approach and MANY questions need to be answered. Adding to this is a broader concern about the future of my own field in this country. […]
I’ve avoided the blog for the last few weeks, pretty much on purpose. The March 7-9 trip to Washington D.C. was one of the most singular and draining experiences of my life. It was terribly stressful and exhilarating, all at the same time. All in all, 29 of us spent […]
Today is an exciting day: the WMAP collaboration (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) has “released its three year data and data analysis”:http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/map/current/map_bibliography.cfm. I’ve just started looking through their results, but there is no doubt the precision cosmology they were able to do three years ago is even more exciting now! Recall […]
The continuum. It’s not an “organization of intergalactic intelligent designers whose purpose seems to be constant irritation of Jean-Luc Picard”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_%28Star_Trek%29. The continuum is the ultimate expression of quantum mechanics. It is what nature does with energy when it converts to mass: generate a continuous distribution of random particles whose production […]
I just saw an “article about an astrologer in Russia who is proceeding to sue NASA because she believes that a future planned comet mission will disrupt the natural order of the universe”:http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/russiausnasaspace. Says the woman’s lawyer, “My client believes that the NASA project infringes upon her spiritual and life […]
Despite the bad winter storm that dumped upwards of 35 inches of snow in New England, I was able to get back to Boston yesterday with few flight delays. After an uneventful first leg of the trip from San Fran to Chicago (Midway), we were delayed by a half-hour. We […]