I remember a time when the fall was the quietest part of the year. You’d escape the twists and turns of the summer conference cycle, survive the post-conference fall collaboration meeting, and set your sights on the winter/spring conferences, or on the hard work of wrapping things from the summer into publications.
This isn’t your typical fall. BaBar is in the intense analysis period, almost a year ahead of schedule and with several new data sets on top of the extensive Upsilon(4S) data, which occupied the first seven years of our operations. With the unparalleled Upsilon(3S) and Upsilon(2S) data sets have come a tremendous set of new responsibilities, and at least one discovery so far [1]. I am constantly impressed with the level of dedication to physics research that my colleagues achieve, a level surpassed each month with new intensity and determination.
In every physics experiment, there comes a time when all the really hard work of securing the data pays off in an avalanche of results. I thought that BaBar had passed that point, but I was wrong. I was worried that the black hole of the LHC, sucking all of us into the frontier of the field, or sling-shotting us into new research in dark matter, dark energy, and neutrinos, would ultimately deplete Babar to the point where this would be the least interesting autumn ever.
Boy, was I wrong.