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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...

Significance Of Counting Experiments With Background Uncertainty

In the course of Statistics for Data Analysis I give every spring to PhD students in Physics I...

The Analogy: A Powerful Instrument For Physics Outreach

About a month ago I was contacted by a colleague who invited me to write a piece on the topic of...

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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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A Fantasy In Db Minor

A Fantasy In Db Minor

Jul 12 2022 | comment(s)

Now and then I find the time to write music for piano. It is a compelling, satisfying activity that however demands my full immersion for several hours at a time - if I want anything to come out from it. It happened again last Sunday, when I spent the whole day at the keyboard of the beautiful Yamaha C3 artistic edition I bought last year (and am still paying). But in truth, the work is only initially at the keyboard of the piano: after having taken note of a few themes and ideas, the activity switches to a software called Finale, which enables one to write sheet music and check it through a synthesizer that lets you hear what you wrote sounds like without having to go back and forth to the piano. 
Artificial-Intelligence Assisted Design Of Experiments

Artificial-Intelligence Assisted Design Of Experiments

Jul 01 2022 | comment(s)

Yes, I know - I have touched on this topic already a couple of times in this blog, so you have the right to be bored and surf away. I am bound to talk about this now and then anyway, though, because this is the focus of my research these days. 
Recently I was in the Elba island (a wonderful place) for a conference on advanced detectors for fundamental physics, and I presented a poster there on the topic of artificial-intelligence-assistend design of instruments for fundamental physics. Below is the poster (I hope it's readable in this compressed version - if you really want a better pic just ask).



Old-School Statistical Learning Tools Challenge Neural Networks In Physics Problems

Old-School Statistical Learning Tools Challenge Neural Networks In Physics Problems

Jun 15 2022 | comment(s)

Neural networks are everywhere today. They are used to drive vehicles, classify images, translate texts, determine your shopping preferences, or finding your quickest route to the supermarket. Their power at making sense of small or large datasets alike is enabling great progress in a number of areas of human knowledge, too. Yet there is nothing magical about them, and in fact what makes them powerful is something that has been around for century: differential calculus.
W Pairs From Double Parton Scattering

W Pairs From Double Parton Scattering

Jun 11 2022 | comment(s)

When I explain to the public (in this blog, or at public conferences or schools) how the Large Hadron Collider operates, I have to gloss over a lot of detail that is unnecessary to grasp the important concepts, which enable other discussions on interesting subnuclear physics. This is good practice, and it also saves me from having to study details I have forgotten along the way - they say that what you are left with when you forget everything is culture, and I tend to agree. I have a good culture in particle physics and that's all I need to do some science popularization ;-)
The Second MODE Workshop On Experimental Design

The Second MODE Workshop On Experimental Design

Jun 06 2022 | comment(s)

As the twentythree regular readers of this blog know [(c) A.Manzoni], in recent times I have moved the main focus of my research to advanced applications of deep learning to fundamental science. That does not mean that I am not continuing to participate in the CMS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider - that remains the main focus of my research; but it does mean that what remains of my brain functionalities is mostly invested in thinking about future applications of today's and tomorrow's computer science innovations. 
Giorgio The Unstoppable

Giorgio The Unstoppable

May 26 2022 | comment(s)

I was happy to meet Giorgio Bellettini at the Pisa Meeting on Advanced Detectors this week, and I thought I would write here a note about him. At 89 years of age Giorgio still has all his wits around him, and he is still as compelling and unstoppable as anybody who has met him will recall. It is a real pleasure to see that he still attends all sessions, always curious to hear the latest developments in detector design and performance.