A week with Nobel Laureates

by Giovanni Banelli

I’m on the plane for Boston, where on Monday I will start my MathWorks internship, i.e. the secondment planned within my AMVA4NewPhysics position. It’s 10PM in the Central European Time, but outside it’s still very bright. Tiredness cannot be hidden. Just this morning I left my hotel in Lindau, where I attended the 2019 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting on Physics (Sunday June 30th – Friday July 5th).

Advanced Results in Lisbon

by Tommaso Dorigo

This week the VII AMVA4NewPhysics workshop is under way in the premises of LIP in Lisbon. During these events the network gets together to discuss the status of the various projects, plan future events and activities, take action on arisen issues, and vote on budget and other topics. But this is a special event in the lifetime of the network, as we are getting toward the mature stage – we are in the 

Science taken wide

 

by Giovanni Banelli

Hi everyone, my name is Giovanni Banelli and I’m the last student joining the AMVA4NewPhysics network. I will be based in Munich (Technical University) and formally I’m the only theorist among the ESRs; hence I will be working on the theory/phenomenology side of the use of advanced statistical tools in searches for New Physics.

A Capella Science at CERN

by Tommaso Dorigo

Do you know the works of Tim Blais, the guy behind “A Capella Science”? I sincerely hope you do, but otherwise this post is for you. Tim has a youtube page where he publishes his amazing works.

Tim sings modified lyrics of famous songs, and mixes them with multiple tracks of his own voice imitating each of the instruments of the underlying orchestra, or other choral voices. Until here you could well say there’s nothing new under

In a random maze

by Greg Kotkowski

One of the best things about being a parent is that as an adult you can play with kids’ toys and nobody judges it as strange (men never grow up). As my kids are still very young, so far I’ve had possibilities to play with dolls (not my favourite), car toys (great memories come back), soap bubbles and other simple toys.

Fashionable researcher

by Greg Kotkowski

Usually, fashion and science are like the opposite sides of a magnet – if one is important then the other is left behind. Let us add up the odds and take some thoughts about the aspects of a PhD student’s physical appearance. It is quite peculiar that I mention this subject, because I don’t care much about my look. Specifically, let me mention hairdressing. Not the last trends, as I know absolutely nothing about the subject, but rather the problem of getting a haircut abroad.

The Caves of Frasassi

by Tommaso Dorigo

While spending a few vacation days on a trip around central Italy, I made a stop in a place in the Appennini mountains, to visit some incredible caves. The caves of Frasassi were discovered in September 1971 by a few young speleologists, who had been tipped off by locals about the existence, atop a mountain near their village, of a hole in the ground, which emitted a strong draft.

The hole was barely wide enough for a person to squeeze in, and it led down vertically into the mountain. The group descended it with difficulty for

Staying at CERN

by Giles Strong

Bonjour! As I write, I’m three weeks into my month long secondment at CERN, near Geneva. CERN, home to the Large Hadron Collider, is the world’s largest particle-physics research centre. It is also the location of the CMS experiment, which I work on.

Efficiency revisited

by Giles Strong

Cover photo unrelated – it’s just some rad fractal broccoli.

Just over one and a half years ago I wrote a post on some of the tips and tricks I’d found useful in trying to organise myself and improve my efficiency. Searching for a post topic, it was suggested that I revisit this to compare how my workload and approaches have changed, so here goes!