Most of us like to be in control: of what happens around us, of our own feelings, of our actions, of the actions and well-being of our beloved ones. Being in control means feeling secure, unthreatened. It is the prevalence of order on chaos. And chaos, I have grown to realize, is one of the things that scares me most. Yes, I am a true control freak.

The question of what will the next discovery at Fermilab be was asked in the thread of a recent article, and I initially answered it there, but then thought that expanding my answer makes excellent material for an independent article. Therefore, below I have tried to put together my own personal list of the places from where a unexpected new Tevatron discovery may come and hit us, in the near future.

I am spending my time in the CDF Control Room this week (seven days, from 4PM to midnight), as a Scientific Coordinator. My job is to work with my crew to ensure that the experiment collects good data as efficiently as possible. The data I am talking about is, of course, provided by our glorious accelerator, the Tevatron collider. Today I will tell you how the Tevatron is doing these days, and doing that will prepare the ground to my suggestion that you should become a fan of this wonderful machine.


A short introduction

I was notified today that within three weeks I am due to write a proceedings article for the "Physics in Collision" conference I attended in Kobe two weeks ago. The task is not too stimulating for me, given that the material it has to cover just consists in projections of the discovery reach of the Higgs boson, based on simulated data; but to add unexcitement to the whole thing, I found out that I am bound to stay within the limit of two pages of text.