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A Chess Study Requiring Backpropagation

The following position is a win for white. But how?It seems like white is able to grab a knight...

Co-Design Of Scientific Experiments

Next Monday, or Tuesday at the latest, you will find a new bulky paper in the arXiv. Titled "On...

Travel With Two Infants

The other day I traveled with Kalliopi and our two newborns to Padova from Lulea. After six full...

A Nice Little Combination

Although I have long retired from serious chess tournaments (they take too much time, a luxury...

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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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Saturn in a 24-Inch Dob

Saturn in a 24-Inch Dob

May 19 2011 | comment(s)

Last night I had the pleasure to visit Mauro, a friend of mine and an amateur astronomer. Mauro owns a 24" dobson telescope with a mirror crafted by the superb hands of Romano Zen, the same who made my own 16". The precision of the optics of Romano is legendary, and as far as my limited capabilities allow me to judge, his reputation is entirely deserved. With my dobson scope I have been able, in nights of lucky seeing, to discern details on Jupiter of the order of half an arcsecond in angular extension. And with Mauro's 24"...
On Narrow Bumps

On Narrow Bumps

May 18 2011 | comment(s)

A question posed by Tony Smith in the thread of the previous post (which dealt with the choice of the bin width in histograms) triggered me to do a little work to produce a convincing answer to him.

The issue is the following. Tony got interested in a few top candidate events in a few mass distributions published by CDF and DZERO quite some time ago, which seemed to all cluster in the surroundings of 145 GeV. Could those eight candidate events (once summed across the various channels and experiments) be the signal of some resonance different from top quarks ?
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!).