I sat in on the beginning of an evo meeting entitled CMS101++ last week on Wednesday afternoon which was intended to be an introduction to CMS and the computing environment I will be using this summer. (In case you were wondering, evo is an online tool used by the particle physics community, and other physics community, for teleconferencing around the world; CMS is the detector I'm working on, short for Compact Muon Solenoid.) In the talk, the presenter referred to CERN's Meyrin campus as the Bermuda Triangle of Switzerland - you can go for weeks between the hostel, restaurants and office without leaving it.
Granted, it would be quite possible to do this (and tempting at times), but this past week I ventured outside of the 'Bermuda Triangle' a bit more than was good for getting my work done. I visited two of the general purpose particle physics detectors being built here (CMS and ATLAS, our rival in the 'who will see the Higgs Boson first?' game - both of which are off the Meyrin campus) just about as late as they will be open for general tours, climbed Mount Saleve which has a great view of Geneva from the top and ate fondue in Old Town with the chair of the University of Michigan's physics department. I also purchased tickets to go even further. This weekend, a group of the Michigan REU students are going to Interlaken. Next weekend, I'm going to visit high school friends in Madrid.
As I rode through the French countryside in Dan's (my mentor) Alfa Romeo heading out to point 5 (otherwise known as the big hole in the ground where CMS is being built on the LHC - Large Hadron Collider - beam line), I couldn't help smiling. It really is great to be in Europe, and I couldn't find a more exciting time to be working here at CERN.
27 June 2008
20 June 2008
Fête de la musique Genève
This weekend, there is a big music festival in Geneva called Fête de la musique (a very creative name). A group of summies (summer students) were interested in going, so I went into old town Geneva around 8pm with them so that I would meet some of the non-American summer students, explore the town a bit and (of course!) enjoy good music.
Most of the evening was spent traveling in a herd, which was fine by me. I'm going in again tomorrow and will enjoy the music more seriously then. As it was, we rambled from marching band (including a jazzy version of Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever, with an extremely clean piccolo solo and only a nod to the dogfight section near the end) to jazz to young (and ... to put it nicely ... still learning) violinists playing classical music and on. While rambling, I met a good deal of the folks in our herd. There were several guys from Holland, a few from Canada, a girl from Finland/Poland (she goes to school in one and is her home country, but I'm not sure which is which), one guy from Mexico, four girls going to school near Paris and at least two from the UK. I seem to recall at least one German, too.
A few shout-outs from the night:
Most of the evening was spent traveling in a herd, which was fine by me. I'm going in again tomorrow and will enjoy the music more seriously then. As it was, we rambled from marching band (including a jazzy version of Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever, with an extremely clean piccolo solo and only a nod to the dogfight section near the end) to jazz to young (and ... to put it nicely ... still learning) violinists playing classical music and on. While rambling, I met a good deal of the folks in our herd. There were several guys from Holland, a few from Canada, a girl from Finland/Poland (she goes to school in one and is her home country, but I'm not sure which is which), one guy from Mexico, four girls going to school near Paris and at least two from the UK. I seem to recall at least one German, too.
A few shout-outs from the night:
- All you ballroom dancers (Katie, Ed, Sam, Dan...) : two of the people in our group started swing dancing by the marching band's band stand, which sparked a discussion about getting summies together and having those who know teach those who don't know as much. One of the guys in the group is a particular fan of jive and seems rather biased against swing; however, there's plenty that like that, too!
- Katrina & Allison : contact ball and expressive (almost modern) dance to the music from Amelie. I couldn't convince people to stay for the next act, which involved Chinese yo-yos. I saw a set of clubs inside the circle that had formed, too.
- Friends from el Grupo Guay : flamenco dancing! Enough said.
17 June 2008
Size matters
I moved in to my dorm room at CERN on Saturday night. I had essentially no problems moving in, getting settled, etc. It's amazing to be here. I have yet to get over the fact that I'm actually in Switzerland and working on CMS.
I walked around the border of the Meyrin campus (the main CERN campus, where I'm staying) on Sunday afternoon between organized events for the Michigan REU students. The walk - approximately 2.5 km (1.5 miles) - gave me an appreciation for the sheer size of this place. This campus is small compared to the 30km diameter accelerator track for the LHC that passes through campus. If you shrink the LHC down to the length scale of experiments I've worked on so far (ignoring the optical link clock comparisons from Boulder last summer), I'm a mere dust mote. The peeling paint on the earlier buildings (1960s) would be imperceptible on that scale.
My ramble took me along roads named after famous scientists with buildings on one side, countryside on the other (a vineyard at one point on the Swiss side) and mountains all around. I started on Route Marie CURIE (near my hostel), past that to Route Albert EINSTEIN (passing Newton and Pauli on the way), along various others (Maxwell, Coulomb, Schrodinger, Zeemann...) until ending up on Route R. P. FEYNMAN, which turned into Route V.F. WEISSKOPF and turned onto Route BLOCH before dropping me back at my hostel. One of the older accelerator rings is located in the center of the site. The plants there are comfortably overgrown. I've heard that CERN has a roaming flock of sheep that is put in various corralled areas of the campus to keep the grass under control in these less-used areas of the site.
By the by, there was a large dark cloud forming outside my window when I started this post, with a background of dark forests and backlit lighter clouds. It's been fun to watch its progression and growth as I've written this post - now there are only remnants of some lighter clouds under the mountain top!
I walked around the border of the Meyrin campus (the main CERN campus, where I'm staying) on Sunday afternoon between organized events for the Michigan REU students. The walk - approximately 2.5 km (1.5 miles) - gave me an appreciation for the sheer size of this place. This campus is small compared to the 30km diameter accelerator track for the LHC that passes through campus. If you shrink the LHC down to the length scale of experiments I've worked on so far (ignoring the optical link clock comparisons from Boulder last summer), I'm a mere dust mote. The peeling paint on the earlier buildings (1960s) would be imperceptible on that scale.
My ramble took me along roads named after famous scientists with buildings on one side, countryside on the other (a vineyard at one point on the Swiss side) and mountains all around. I started on Route Marie CURIE (near my hostel), past that to Route Albert EINSTEIN (passing Newton and Pauli on the way), along various others (Maxwell, Coulomb, Schrodinger, Zeemann...) until ending up on Route R. P. FEYNMAN, which turned into Route V.F. WEISSKOPF and turned onto Route BLOCH before dropping me back at my hostel. One of the older accelerator rings is located in the center of the site. The plants there are comfortably overgrown. I've heard that CERN has a roaming flock of sheep that is put in various corralled areas of the campus to keep the grass under control in these less-used areas of the site.
By the by, there was a large dark cloud forming outside my window when I started this post, with a background of dark forests and backlit lighter clouds. It's been fun to watch its progression and growth as I've written this post - now there are only remnants of some lighter clouds under the mountain top!
09 June 2008
Ciao from Roma
I'm in a little internet café a hop and a jump away from the tomb of the unknown soldier in Rome right now. What a wonderful day to be here! The weather is gorgeous!
I owe you all lots of updating, but (unfortunately or fortunately, your pick) I don't have terribly much time on the 'net. No worries - that is, if you were worried :) - I should have internet again on a steady basis starting Monday. Then I'll start copying over the (many) stories I've written out longhand for you to read here - people I've met, wonderful food, a janitor in a church trying to get me to go to dinner with him, places I've seen...
Time's almost up! Baci!
I owe you all lots of updating, but (unfortunately or fortunately, your pick) I don't have terribly much time on the 'net. No worries - that is, if you were worried :) - I should have internet again on a steady basis starting Monday. Then I'll start copying over the (many) stories I've written out longhand for you to read here - people I've met, wonderful food, a janitor in a church trying to get me to go to dinner with him, places I've seen...
Time's almost up! Baci!
03 June 2008
il Museo di Storia della Scienza
After several days of looking at art and architecture in Treviso, Venice and Florence, I enjoyed some cultural heritage of a different sort today - at il Museo di Storia della Scienza. Il Museo di Storia della Scienza is right next to the Uffizi Gallery (which, by the way, has ridiculously cool bathrooms in its basement). While it is currently under construction and the better part of their collection is in storage, the one exhibit they had open during construction was perfect for me - Galileo's telescope!
The museum had a large collection of telescopes on display. I spent a long time staring at the old instruments, trying to decipher how their systems of pulleys, levers and screws once worked together to raise and lower and then precisely adjust the positioning of these 18th and 19th century telescopes. A floor down, however, had the historically cool artifacts - two telescopes constructed by Galileo himself. The exhibit surrounding them discussed the difficulties of low resolution telescopes (by today's standards) that led to headed arguments about the nature of Saturn, the philosophical and theological arguments that hinged on sunspots and the making of historical replicas of Galileo's telescopes. Upstairs, before I left, I stopped again to visit a reliquary that made more sense to me than the dozens I saw in the cathedrals I have visited so far - a glass bell containing the bones from one of Galileo's middle fingers.
By the way, I had an awesome lunch. Right after leaving the museum and still somewhat in awe from my brush with my scientific ancestors, I headed to a little cafe that had been suggested by my travel guide for lunch. As advertised, I had a decadent panini with zucchini, onions, pesto and saffron accompanied by a glass of yummy white wine. Why don't we have food like this back home?
[posted 2 July]
The museum had a large collection of telescopes on display. I spent a long time staring at the old instruments, trying to decipher how their systems of pulleys, levers and screws once worked together to raise and lower and then precisely adjust the positioning of these 18th and 19th century telescopes. A floor down, however, had the historically cool artifacts - two telescopes constructed by Galileo himself. The exhibit surrounding them discussed the difficulties of low resolution telescopes (by today's standards) that led to headed arguments about the nature of Saturn, the philosophical and theological arguments that hinged on sunspots and the making of historical replicas of Galileo's telescopes. Upstairs, before I left, I stopped again to visit a reliquary that made more sense to me than the dozens I saw in the cathedrals I have visited so far - a glass bell containing the bones from one of Galileo's middle fingers.
By the way, I had an awesome lunch. Right after leaving the museum and still somewhat in awe from my brush with my scientific ancestors, I headed to a little cafe that had been suggested by my travel guide for lunch. As advertised, I had a decadent panini with zucchini, onions, pesto and saffron accompanied by a glass of yummy white wine. Why don't we have food like this back home?
[posted 2 July]
01 June 2008
Hello!
A quick message to say that I am safe in Florence (Firenzi). I had a marvelous time in Venice/Treviso visiting family... more on that (I have it written out, but you'll have to wait until I get dedicated internet access for those updates (I'm on a computer at the hostel I'm staying at). Some quick shout-outs:
- Jen, I found a gellateria named il penguino - it made me think of you :) I've got a picture of it for you!
- Ben, Alex, other Floyd afficionatos: last night, I hung out in Piazza dei Signori in Treviso listening to student bands play - including Floyd's Comfortably Numb.
- Katie, soooo many pictures of cathedrals & churches! Wish you were here so you could tell me about the architecture! (Nonetheless, I'm enjoying it... Venician glass chandeleirs, huge frescos, and goooorgeous mosaics)
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