where physics and life collide
Archive for December, 2009
Winter shutdown
02 years ago
A quiet Christmas
The winter shutdown has begun. CERN closes its doors, turns off the heat, and stops doing physics for two full weeks, starting today. And CERN Love will do the same.
It’s time to say good-bye to 2009 — an epic year — and prepare ourselves for the next stage of CERN craziness. We here at CERN Love have appreciated all your support and willingness to laugh a bit at a place which we are truly lucky to be associated with, but one which is pretty fucking weird. We’ll be on holidays ourselves, trying to party as hard as our colleagues… and it appears we won’t be missing much here at the lab →
The LHC is expected to come back to life near Valentine’s Day/Chinese New Year, 2010 (that is 14 February for those of you who are neither consumers of greeting cards printed in China nor printers of greeting cards printed in China). Don’t worry, CERN Love is expected to come back to life much sooner, around 6 January, shortly after work begins again at CERN.
CERN Love would like to extend our heartfelt season’s greetings to you and yours. As a small gift to you, we attach a gallery of pictures from current and past winters in Geneva (including Fête de l’Escalade) and CERN.
Love,
CERN Love
FOR THOSE WHO LIVE SPICY ONLY
02 years ago
This week, we bring you another selection from the CERN Market. It seems that we often see some true goodness in and around the posts made on the CERN Market, and this week has no shortage of entertainment value. But, before rolling out the red carpet, perhaps some back-drop should be provided for the non-CERNois readership…
The CERN Market, provided as an open forum to CERN Users to serve as a marketplace for furniture, housing, and vechicles, is truly a lifesaver. Indeed, many gain some valuable experience by searching for apartments on the CERN Market, and I’m sure they combined income of the furniture salesmen/women could rival IKEA’s profits in a given year. Anyone who posts on the CERN Market must have the appropriate computer access to do so. Therefore, no spam is expected.
This week, while browsing an especially interesting category — Other — I came across a post that might have blended in well on craigslist.org, but was very clearly out of place here…
I present to you: “FOR THOSE WHO LIVE SPICY ONLY” (you’re going to want to zoom in on this, but read ahead to get some hints)
Spicy
Important Notes:
- These are natural fancy color diamonds we’re talking about here.
- These guys will provide door-to-door service with guaranty.
- The missing images (I tried at least a couple of browsers) are, as you would expect, named ‘Kama Sutra.’
I think CERN needs to consider tightening those access rights. On the other hand, CERN definitely needs its fair share of spice.
Exploding cars forbidden
02 years ago
by lots-o-love
in Marquage
Car explosions (of 30 tons or more) are strictly forbidden in this area of CERN. What a relief!
Just to be safe you should also not carry a 30 ton orange peacock on the roof of your sedan; because–come on people!–a 30 ton peacock deserves better.
This is near the hump on Route Rutherford passing between the PS and ISR.
(In all seriousness, I have seen versions of this sign posted by people as far away as China. I’m pretty certain it forbids vehicles of 30 tons or more from carrying (in)flammable loads. The official French version is a little different, a bit more like a jeep firing a canon at you.)
Busfucked: eyeball punched by God and no help from the TPG
02 years ago
by biglove
in Around town
Friday morning I was woken out of sleep by a fist punch to my right eyeball. My eyeball was punched hard enough that I saw a flash of white light behind my closed eyelids, in the dark room. It was my own fist, apparently directed by the hand of God. There was no dream that prompted this punch, and no immediate obvious explanation comes to mind, which is how I know it was God. Thanks dude.
I was pretty sure I was going to go blind, so I thought I’d try to maximize the remaining life out of my throbbing eyeball by heading to work. I headed to the tram stop where I heard some announcement being broadcast loudly but I couldn’t make out what it was saying. After waiting a little too long for the tram (I prefer sleek, quiet and smooth transport options over dirty, loud and bouncy) I gave up and jumped on a bus, the most crowded bus ever in the history of my career working at CERN. Eventually it became clear that the trams weren’t running at all because of a student demonstration obstructing the tram tracks, and they didn’t really call in extra replacement buses. OK. Note to self: student demonstration = “manifestation des étudiants.” Thanks, étudiants.
Then it was time to transfer to bus number 56 at Avanchet, which is the last time I will ever have to do that, incidentally. I waited for like 20 minutes (WAY TOO LONG, SOMETHING IS WRONG) and watched multiple 29′s go by until I realized the 56 ain’t coming. So I decided to hop on the next 29 and hike the rest of the way to CERN from P+R Planche. As I had walked just far enough that it wasn’t possible to turn back to catch any more buses, guess who rolled up?! BUS 56!! Followed about one minute later by another bus 56!! Thanks, Transports Publics Genevois.
FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU…..
Safety, quality, quantity
02 years ago
by lots-o-love
in Marquage
Accomplishing physics on the scale of the LHC is no simple matter. There are at least three steps. Sadly, the third step is not “profit.”
Losing control
02 years ago
Clearly, with all the excitement that comes along with proton beams and collisions, it’s easy for us to get a little ahead of ourselves. In all honesty, we simply get a bit cocky when we’re setting world records on a weekly basis — in the context of high energy particle physics, of course. As such, we feel it’s appropriate to push the limits, in many areas of our lives.
One such area in which the boundaries have recently become blurred is in electronic communication. Now, CERN is no stranger to ridiculous e-mail incidents, but I feel like the past week has exposed a new and dangerous beast.
In the past two weeks, my inbox has exploded. I’ve received over 2000 e-mails related to the naturally exciting developments we’ve been a part of recently. As such, it’s reasonable that the authors of these many messages might have stopped paying attention to details. The occasional mis-capitalization, excessive use of commas, and over-use of the phrase “in principle” are not new features to e-mails passed around CERN. However, I saw something for the first time this week which truly stunned me.
In a salutation of an e-mail sent to one of the many e-mail lists of which I am a member, I saw something truly special. Consider this e-mail:
Hi *,
I’m addressing everyone on the list, and I clearly have to say whatever it is I’m saying quickly. I’ve demonstrated that in my salutation.
Regards,
Me
At first, I was baffled. After an instant, though, I realized what he was doing. I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from seeing this.
To my collaborators: please, don’t. Don’t do that. Stop.
A very sturdy projector stand
02 years ago
by biglove
in On the grounds
Let’s have our next physics meeting in the CMS assembly building. All we need is lots of PowerPoint slides, a 10 000 lumen projector, and a five-ton concrete block to set it on. Have some grad students carry it over here.
Nobel Frenzy
02 years ago
CERN has a fan-base. I think this is clear. There are consistently many tour groups found on the grounds of the lab, oggling and snapping photos of smelly scientists, lovely buildings, and mysterious dipoles.
But it’s important to realize something: CERN tends to shower its fair share of praise on others, as well. When Tom Hanks came to CERN, the whole lab was watching. When the LHC re-turn-on was successful a few weeks ago, all eyes were on Steve Myers and his team of experts (I actually considered asking Stevie for his autograph…). And now, we have a celebration ongoing which makes Oscar night look like a 6-year-old’s birthday party at the skating rink.
Not only is CERN breaking world records in the field of accelerator science, but also in the “number of Nobel Prize laureates sitting in the same room” category:
A plethora of badasses.
These demi-gods are here as a part of the celebration of 50 years of a quite remarkable high-energy physics program at CERN: From the PS to the LHC: 50 Years of Nobel Memories in High-Energy Physics (ProTip: PS stands for “proton synchrotron,” which was the first accelerator here at CERN)
Disclaimer:
These men are truly amazing. Their work has contributed (greatly) to the advancement of one of the most fascinating fields of physics the world has ever seen. Their pioneering accomplishments should not be undersold.
Rant:
When these people show up, CERN-ites effectively turn into crazy teen-age girls from a 1960s Beatles concert. The festivities span two days, with a series of lectures, given by those pictured above, covering the history and development of high-energy physics in the context of CERN. In addition, there was a gala held in their honor last night in the ever-famous Restaurant 1. Actually, the event completely shut down R1 operations around 14:00 (it was scheduled to start at 19:00), at which time appeared a new collection of decorated tables, old equipment from previous accelerators and detectors, and various interactive stations that visitors could visit to hear about what’s currently going on with the LHC. The best part: crowds of visitors (I’ve never seen most of the people at this party), huddled around the laureates, drooling over every word they spoke. I didn’t quite understand the fandom.
Okay, so it wasn’t all that bad. There was a SHITLOAD of free food — which was French and delicious — and an ASSTON of free wine — which was pretty good, too.
If you’d like to keep up with the festivities, take a gander at these links:
- Schedule of presentations (If you don’t see slides attached, it’s because the speaker chose to use an overhead projector. Yes, I’m serious.)
- Live webcast
- Advertisement poster
I’m down with OP V
32 years ago
Well, the holiday season in Geneva is certainly getting off to a festive and boisterous start. From the pretty lighted trees by the lake to the yet-to-be-seen-illuminated Christmas lights in St-Genis-Pouilly, it’s clear that it’s time to get our “fête” on. Even more notable, the LHC has given us physicists an early present or two.
Needless to say, the past 10 days or so have been quite titillating at the lab. Thousands of e-mails have been exchanged, hundreds of plots have been generated, and many million cups of coffee have been consumed. As we “ramp up” for the next few weeks of beam and commissioning before CERN becomes a ghost town, I feel like it’s important to share with you, our devoted audience, a little taste of the magic.
Of course, it’s impossible to stay in the control room for one’s experiment 24/24 (or, for you ‘merkins, 24/7). So, the friendly guys down at the CERN Control Centre (CCC), the control room for the LHC, have created a web-based resource which one can use to receive up-to-the-minute updates on the status of the LHC proton beams. My friends, I present to you OP Vistars — Page 1:
Christmas lights for your browser.
If you’d like to check in every once in a while yourself, click here.
This page is a nice way to be kept in the loop about current activities along the LHC as well as its four experiments. Pay special attention to the ‘Comments’ box in the bottom left. This usually gives a good description of the plan for the immediate future. On the top, one can get some crucial beam information, including the number of protons per bunch in an LHC beam (denoted with an ‘I,’ shown for both beam 1 and beam 2), whether or not there is beam circulating (the two big green BEAM indicators), and the beam energy. The beam which was circulating for the example image was characterized by a proton energy of 450 GeV, which is equivalent to their energy at injection. Injection is quite a tricky process, and it occurs at points 2 and 8 along the LHC (hence the TI2 and TI8 acronyms).
When you really start to think about it, though, this is a masterfully designed, albeit mysterious, piece of internet. Actually, many of the individuals who gaze at this site for many hours a day are perplexed by some of its most prominent features. But the colors sure are nice! As an example of our confusion, in a survey of some 20 ATLAS physicists (my colleagues), I found that exactly 0 of them knew what the shit was going on in the four plots found in the middle of the screen. Noting the x- and y-axis labels, one might suspect that these should be showing the beam position in the x-y plane (and the left-most plot supports this), but nothing about plots (b)-(d) suggests this at all.
The ATLAS run coordinator is reputed to have said that, when one of these plots is shaped like the second plot above, the LHC is operating as a fixed-target collider interacting with someone’s head. I highly doubt it, Christophe.
Perhaps the most elusive question, however, is the following one: Does anyone know what the fuck “OP Vistars” means?
Feedback