In a recent post I mentioned here that for the first of two feature articles I wrote for Physics World, and which just appeared in this month's issue (the first piece is actually available online here), I had hand-drawn four sketches that described visually the four main steps of a data analysis looking for new physics.

I had chosen to pictorially describe the search for centrally-produced pairs of energetic hadronic jets, which may be the result of the decay of a massive new particle (say, a Z' boson, or a string resonance, you name it) or the anomalous production of high-energy scattering, signalling the substructure of quarks. [As a matter of fact, I had envisioned to actually include in the second of the two feature articles -the one titled "Signatures of New Physics"- the description of the result of a CMS search for quark compositeness; but the shortness of space forced a change of plan.]

The sketches went along well with a nice event display that is contained in one of the two pieces, because I used the same graphical ingredients already contained in the event display. I was really pleased with my own product, and I was looking forward to their apparition in print. Unfortunately, the shortage of space forced the editors of the magazine to make do without the four panels. The two back-to-back features already took up almost nine pages of this month's magazine, and from an original 2500 word article we were well over 6000, so I could not really object.

My feature editor, Louise Mayor, assured me that the sketches would be put to good use anyway. I am very pleased to see today that this is indeed the case, and Louise kept her word. She wrote a very nice online article, using my hand drawings as center piece.

It remains me to thank Louise for the extremely professional and careful reading of my drafts and the several editing choices that she made, all spot on. It was a pleasure to work for Physics World, and I look forward to do more of it in the future.