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Move Over - The Talk I Will Not Give

Last week I was in Amsterdam, where I attended the first European AI for Fundamental Physics...

Shaping The Future Of AI For Fundamental Physics

From April 30 to May 3 more than 300 researchers in fundamental physics will gather in Amsterdam...

On Rating Universities

In a world where we live hostages of advertisement, where our email addresses and phone numbers...

Goodbye Peter Higgs, And Thanks For The Boson

Peter Higgs passed away yesterday, at the age of 94. The scottish physicist, a winner of the 2013...

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Tommaso DorigoRSS Feed of this column.

Tommaso Dorigo is an experimental particle physicist, who works for the INFN at the University of Padova, and collaborates with the CMS and the SWGO experiments. He is the president of the Read More »

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For Adlène Hicheur

For Adlène Hicheur

May 17 2011 | comment(s)

I was unaware of the following story, which was brought to my attention by Monica Pepe-Altarelli yesterday. Since I totally agree that nobody should be detained without proof of guilt for long periods of time, and since we are talking of a physicist, I am glad to broadcast the story here.
Choose Bins Wisely

Choose Bins Wisely

May 16 2011 | comment(s)

The presentation of data is a very rich subject, on which there is a whole lot to discuss, even by restricting to the issues relevant to our dear field of experimental high-energy physics. Usually too little thought is given to it, even by expert researchers, so I thought that maybe today I would offer here some ideas on one very basic issue, the one of how to choose the width of the bins of a histogram.
A Top Cross Section Measurement I Like

A Top Cross Section Measurement I Like

May 13 2011 | comment(s)

The measurement of the production rate of top quark pairs at the Tevatron is by now a very well developed technology, where it is hard to invent anything new. Eight years ago, however, there was still the chance to develop new techniques and explore new land.
Guess the Plot 2 - Solution

Guess the Plot 2 - Solution

May 09 2011 | comment(s)

Okay, the riddle I posted two days ago  was indeed solved by theorists - albeit ones with good internet connections and smart search engines.

The figure, pasted below for your convenience, is from the CDF collaboration, and it refers to a "famous" analysis - one of the few important measurements for which Run II at the Tevatron was considered a good idea (thank god that one sold with the funding agencies, because there were sooo many others that eventually paid off!).


Excess ? What Excess ? ATLAS Clarifies.

Excess ? What Excess ? ATLAS Clarifies.

May 08 2011 | comment(s)

In a display of nonchalance that should teach us a thing or two, the ATLAS collaboration has put an end to the Easter Higgs Rumour (EHR), which brought the blogosphere in an excited state for at least a week, and experimentalists and theorists for even more time. They did so by publishing a very narrow-focused document, totaling less than five pages, where they discuss the backgrounds to Higgs boson decays in the diphoton final state.
Guess The Plot - Chapter 2

Guess The Plot - Chapter 2

May 06 2011 | comment(s)

My attempt at stimulating your curiosity with a scientific graph last time worked quite well, and I want to try it again. This time, however, you should not consider yourself eligible to participate if you are an experimental particle physicist (or in the process of becoming one). That's because I want to "lower the bar" a little, allowing non-experts in the game, and an experimentalist in HEP should recognize what this figure is quite easily. If you are a theorist, I am not sure -today's plot might be instantaneous for you to recognize, or not easy, depending on what you work on. I'll take Lubos as a testing ground. Lubos ?