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Enrico Stomeo - A Lifelong Passion For Meteor Studies

I was reached this evening by the news of the passing of a dear friend, Enrico Stomeo. Enrico was...

Surviving Queues: 1 - At The Airport

Nobody likes to wait in line. Whether you are sitting in your car waiting to reach the toll booths...

Choosing Your Bets: The Selection Bias

As some of the long-time readers of this blog know, in this column I have occasionally discussed...

Have A Master In Science, Want A Post-Doc Position Directly?

Do you have a master in Science, and want to start a Post-Doc position directly? You can have it...

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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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Alas, for once I must say I am not completely happy of one new result by the CDF collaboration - the experiment to which I devoted 18 years of my research time, and where I learned almost everything I know about experimental particle physics.
The latest paper by the ATLAS Collaboration is a very detailed report of the search for Higgs boson decays to W boson pairs in Run 1 data. The H->WW* process contributes significantly to the total bounty of Higgs boson candidates that the two CERN experiments have been able to collect in the 2011 7-TeV and 2012 8-TeV proton-proton collisions, but the presence of neutrinos in the final state prevents the clean reconstruction of an invariant mass peak, hence the WW* final state has remained a bit "in the shadows" with respect to the cherished ZZ* and gamma-gamma final states.
Travel Blog

Travel Blog

Dec 11 2014 | comment(s)

While I do intend to update this blog today or tomorrow with a report on a nice new measurement, my blogging activities have generally slowed down a bit this week, as I am traveling. On Monday I flew from Venice to Paris and then to Miami (in a brand new A380 - that was the first time for me on that giant plane). On the next day I flew to Cancun, and then headed to Playa del Carmen where I am currently staying. 
Great - after posting a blog on alpha_strong and the new CMS measurement of its value yesterday, today I am leaving for the US. My internet connection is going to be shaky during my trip, and right now I am living on the free airport wifi in Paris, waiting to board on my flight. But fortunately, I don't need to worry about answering the comments I receive to that post  - in fact the two main commenters, Vladimir and John, are answering each other well enough that I do not need to intervene...
One of the funniest misnomers in particle physics is the naming of coupling strength parameters of the fundamental interactions as "constants".

We speak of a fine structure constant (alpha) to address one of the most important parameters of electromagnetism; and we call "strong coupling constant" the coupling strength parameter alpha_s of QCD. But these are not constants at all! In fact, they are parameters that show a quite distinct dependence on the energy of subatomic processes.
Diet Is Over

Diet Is Over

Dec 04 2014 | comment(s)

Four months ago I started a diet, as my weight had gone above my comfort zone (77kg, when my optimal weight is of about 70kg). I basically implemented a regime (which has worked in the past) of about 1300 calories a day, cutting mostly on extras (desserts, snacks, alcohol) and bread, and just eating a bit less of everything.