Italian Universities Evolution

by Greg Kotkowski

The university of Padova is one of the oldest universities in Europe and I’m proud to be its member. It was established in 1222 and the heritage of this almost 800 year long history is visible everywhere. However in the nearby region there are universities in Bologna, Parma or Modena with even longer history.

I was curious how the education system in Italy was developing over the time. Certainly I could visit the Department Historical Sciences in Padova and ask the professors but it is much more fun for

Art and Science: Outreach in Venice

by Tommaso Dorigo

In a few days, students from five high schools in Venice will be lectured on particle physics, the Higgs boson, the giant detectors of today’s colliders, and will be treated with pictures and graphs aimed at stimulating their artistic vein.

This initiative, which is part of the “CREATIONS” EU project, is carried out by personnel of the AMVA4NewPhysics network – another EU project, the one I am coordinating since 2015. The idea is that students of the third and fourth year of high school spend the months of February through May creating artwork inspired by particle physics. The best of these works will be exposed during EPS 2017, the international conference that takes place this July in the Lido of Venice.

Christmas in Japan

by Giles Strong

Konichiwa! Sorry for the recent radio-silence; I recently returned from spending Christmas and New Years in Japan.

I had first visited in 2013, when I’d travelled there with the Durham University Shorinji Kempo Society. I had always wanted to return and, with my retired-and-gone-travelling Dad mentioning he’d be there in December, I thought I’d head over and say hi. One of my old school and university friends, Ed, also flew out to join us.

We gradually landed throughout the day in Tokyo:

AMVA4NewPhysics: Where We Are

by Tommaso Dorigo

The AMVA4NewPhysics network has reached month 17, and its third solar year in existence. It is time, I think, to make a short summary of what has been going on until now, before we concentrate our attention on what lies ahead.

Overall, if we look at the plan as its authors designed it in the fall of 2014, we see an impressive level of agreement. This is by no means a trivial statement! Writing a successful ITN project involves making a number

How to win in Catan

by Grzegorz Kotkowski

During the Christmas and New Year’s vacation I got introduced to Catan board game (Settlers of Catan). It is a popular (classic) game – far more complex and entertaining than simple dices-throwers like for example “Monopoly”. I would like to share with you my opinion and strategies about it.

First of all as a statistician and a person who likes to win I always try to play the optimal strategy. Some people would call me a soulless

The Three Cubes Problem

by Tommaso Dorigo

Two days ago, before returning from Israel, my fiancee Kalliopi and I had a very nice dinner in a kosher restaurant near Rehovot in the company of Eilam Gross, Zohar Komargodski, and Zohar’s wife Olga.

The name of Eilam should be familiar to LHC enthusiasts, as he was the Higgs convener of the ATLAS collaboration when the particle was discovered. As for Zohar, he is a brilliant theorist working in applications of quantum field theory. He is young but already won several awards, among them the prestigious New Horizons in Physics

2016 Highlights, Oxford Meeting Inclusive

by Anna Stakia

First of all, Happy New Year to everyone; my best wishes for a healthy, happy and productive 2017!

Let’s hope Particle Physics has in store for us some intriguing stuff in its New Year’s resolutions, and is -of course- consistent enough in keeping them! [this time] The same should hold for Machine Learning, which however has already offered us some very powerful moments in 2016. For me, the two most