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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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New Tevatron Higgs Limits Got Worse, But The 115 GeV Excess Is Growing!

New Tevatron Higgs Limits Got Worse, But The 115 GeV Excess Is Growing!

Nov 19 2009 | comment(s)

It happens in the best families, so they say. Two experiments work 24/7 to produce an improved result on the Higgs search, and the result is disappointing, to say the least.

I am talking about the Tevatron, of course. For a little while longer, CDF and D0 will have the exclusive on Higgs boson searches. Last March, we all rejoyced when we saw that the Tevatron was starting to become sensitive to a high-mass Higgs, and indeed it excluded its existence in a range of masses between 160 and 170 GeV. We were waiting for more exclusions for the winter conferences of 2010, when more data would be used to produce improved results. Instead, no improvement, but actually, a retractatio. How is that possible ??

New Z Bosons That LHC Can Discover In Three Months

New Z Bosons That LHC Can Discover In Three Months

Nov 18 2009 | comment(s)

I recently discussed here the Tevatron results of searches for new Z bosons in electron-positron or dimuon samples collected by CDF and DZERO, pointing out that there seem to be a couple of intriguing upward fluctuations in the data. One of the dielectron fluctuations sits at a mass of 240 GeV, the other, also in the dielectron spectrum, is at about 720 GeV. Neither is compelling.
Nielsen On CNN: Nonsense Broadcasts Better Than Hard Facts

Nielsen On CNN: Nonsense Broadcasts Better Than Hard Facts

Nov 16 2009 | comment(s)

Today CNN features a short video with an interview to Professor Nielsen, the mastermind behind the whole "Higgs comes back from the future to prevent its own creation" crap.  I wrote about the matter a couple of times in the past, and will not reiterate here that I think his suggestions to pull out cards from a deck to decide whether to carry on basic research with the LHC is a unmitigated pile of you know what.
More On The Omega B Baryon Significance

More On The Omega B Baryon Significance

Nov 16 2009 | comment(s)

Last May the CDF collaboration published their observation of the  baryon, a particle made by a very exotic "bss" quark triplet. The CDF result came almost one year after a similar measurement was published by the competitor experiment, D0.
Attacking for the sake of it

Attacking for the sake of it

Nov 14 2009 | comment(s)

I wish to report here the moves of a game of chess I played on the Internet Chess Club a moment ago, against a similarly rated opponent. This was a 5' game -all your moves have to be done in five minutes, or you lose on time. Under such circumstances, games are ridden with mistakes of all kinds, oversights, strategical blunders, howlers. But sometimes, a game which can be shown with pride appears magically out of sudden inspiration. Here is such an instance.

Tonno - datigoneptraskam, ICC 2009

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6
A law about to destroy legality (or what is left of it) in Italy

A law about to destroy legality (or what is left of it) in Italy

Nov 14 2009 | comment(s)

The Berlusconi government is about to force a devastating law through the Italian bicameral system. And I am appalled by the absurdity of the situation and by the straight face these clowns who govern my country have put up.