First Observer at LHC

I felt I should comment on what I mean by “being the first to see something at the LHC.”
By no means will the person who can discover something new be the only pioneer. It was through the hands of the massive effort of all people involved. From the designers, to the information organizers, to the [...]

LHC SetBack

The LHC setback for 2 months is unfortunate for the engineers who’ve waited so long to see this thing on and running. However, not to make light of the situation, it gives people like me, who are just starting up, more time to prepare for first collisions.
When you first start working on the project, you [...]

Atom Smasher Glitch

I immediately wanted to write this post after reading this article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_re_eu/eu_big_bang
When you’re so involved with a project that comes under media scrutiny, you realize how dishonest the media can become in order to claim readers. This article presents itself like this: “The mighty LHC, with all its glory and success, actually is not working after [...]

Beam Day

Kinda annoyed at how pretty much every major media outlet has presented Black Holes when talking about the turning on of the LHC.
Yes, the public has a right to know that there are people out there worried about the Black Hole – but upshot is that everyone is becoming scared of it as well.
Alarmists…are no [...]

Black Holes and the LHC

Unless something pretty extreme happens, I’m spending the next several years of my life on the LHC, and I figure I ought to be passionate about how the public perceives the experiment.
Firstly, it’s a very important machine and is likely to gain another point in the game of understanding mother nature’s secrets. It’ll be one [...]

Why It’s a Good Idea to get a Ph.D in Particle Physics

Eons ago I talked about writing some arguments for or against getting a doctorate in particle physics. Many months later I actually wrote why it’d be a bad idea. I now attempt to argue the opposite.
It might be fun to review that previous post if you’re reading this one for the first time.
A good place [...]

Why It’s a Bad Idea to get a Ph.D in Particle Physics

I wanted to write about this since the summer. At the time, I thought it would be a good way to organize my thoughts and help me decide what to do. Now I finally have the motivation to write about it! Although I’ve already decided, it’s still fun to write all of it down.
To start, [...]

Julian Schwinger Being Funny

That 2-part series will have to wait for a time when I’m less preoccupied.
For now, I’d like to write an amusing passage from “The Second Creation” by Robert P. Crease and Charles C. Mann:
“…at the beginning of his third year, Glashow asked Schwinger to be his thesis adviser. So did eleven other students. To Schwinger’s [...]