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Holiday Chess Riddle

During Christmas holidays I tend to indulge in online chess playing a bit too much, wasting several...

Why Measure The Top Quark Production Cross Section?

As part of my self-celebrations for XX years of blogging activities, I am reposting here (very)...

The Buried Lottery

As part of my self-celebrations for having survived 20 years of blogging (the anniversary was a...

Twenty Years Blogging

Twenty years ago today I got access for the first time to the interface that allowed me to publish...

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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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The Quote Of The Week -

The Quote Of The Week - "No New Physics" Now Conceivable

May 17 2013 | comment(s)

"New Physics can appear at any moment but it is now conceivable that no new physics will show up at the LHC"

Guido Altarelli, LHC Nobel Symposium, May 15th 2013

It is funny reading the above quote if you are one who "conceived" that the LHC could find no new physics 7 years ago, as demonstrated by where I put my money...
Higgs Decays To B-Quarks From CMS

Higgs Decays To B-Quarks From CMS

May 16 2013 | comment(s)

Finally the decay of Higgs bosons to b-quark pairs is emerging from LHC data, too.
The Plot Of The Week - Pick Your Favourite μ

The Plot Of The Week - Pick Your Favourite μ

May 15 2013 | comment(s)

Supersymmetry, the extension of the Standard Model of particle physics that was once sold as an almost certain discovery that the LHC experiments would bump into upon starting to collect proton-proton collisions, is not in a very healthy situation these days.
CDF Memories, Circa 1992

CDF Memories, Circa 1992

May 11 2013 | comment(s)

In 1992 the top quark had not been discovered yet, and it did not make much sense for the CDF collaboration to have a full meeting devoted solely to it; rather, analyses targeting the search of the top quark were presented at a meeting which dealt with both bottom and top quarks. This was called back then "Heavy Flavour meeting".
Modeling A Queue

Modeling A Queue

May 09 2013 | comment(s)

Two days ago I wrote a quick post to stimulate non-flat-EEG readers to consider an apparently trivial question, which in fact hid many subtleties. The general question I wanted to address was whether an estimate missing an uncertainty was more or less useful than a quoted uncertainty on the same parameter when the estimate itself was missing.
A Simple Yet Thought Provoking Question

A Simple Yet Thought Provoking Question

May 07 2013 | comment(s)

Compare the following situations:

1 - You dial the number of a call center, and the automated system informs you that the estimated waiting time is eight minutes.

2 - You dial the number of a call center, and the automated system tells you that the estimated waiting time has a uncertainty of plus or minus one minute.

Which automated system is providing you with a more informative answer in your opinion ? Could you base on the information provided by the first one your decision to hang the phone and go for a beer or stay on the line  ? Or would you be more confident of your decision (not necessarily the same!) based on the information provided by the second statement ?