One of the things I like the most when I do data analysis is to use "pure thought" to predict in advance the features of a probability density function of some observable quantity from the physical process I am studying. By doing that, one can try one's hand at demonstrating one's understanding of the details of the physics at play.

I (T.D.) am very happy to host here today a guest post by Daniel Hoak, a member of the LIGO collaboration, who participated in the discovery of gravitational waves that made headlines one week ago in the world media. Daniel earned his PhD in 2015 with the LIGO collaboration, and is currently working at the Virgo detector outside of Pisa. Daniel's picture is on the left.

Yesterday and today I have been spending time in Rome together with 600 Italian colleagues, at a symposium named "What Next". The idea is to discuss what should be the strategy of the institute to participate and support basic research in fundamental physics in the next few decades.

The format of the event is of short summary talks by ten "working groups" that examined different macro-areas: Precision SM Physics, Cosmic Ray Physics, Neutrino Physics, Flavour Physics, Gravitational Waves, Beyond the SM Physics, New Technologies, Fundamental Physics, and Dark Matter (I might have forgotten one). To each summary, delivered by two or three leaders of each working group, follows an open discussion that is allotted at least as much time as the presentations.

I believe that the recent discovery of gravitational waves has been described in enough detail by reporters and bloggers around, that my own contribution here would be pointless. Of course I am informed of the facts and reasonably knowledgeable about the topic, and my field of research is not too distant from the one that produced the discovery, so I could in principle offer something different from what you can find by just googling around. But I have a better idea.
What I think you cannot read elsewhere are the free thoughts I had as I listened to the announcement by the VIRGO collaboration. So maybe this may be a different kind of contribution, and of some interest to you.

After the ATLAS and CMS collaboration disclosed their first Run 2 results on diphoton searches, less than two months ago, the realization that it would be impossible to keep up-to-date with all the theoretical ideas that were being put forth was immediate. The flood of papers discussing the 750 GeV bump was - and still is - too much to handle if reading papers is not your primary occupation.This is unfortunate, as many of my colleagues believe that the new tentative signal is real.

With a long delay, last week I was finally able to have a look at the book "From the Great Wall to the Great Collider - China and the Quest to Uncover the Inner Workings of the Universe", by Steve Nadis and Shing-Tung Yau. And I would like to report about my impressions here.