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The Problem With Peer Review

In a world where misinformation, voluntary or accidental, reigns supreme; in a world where lies...

Interna

In the past few years my activities on this site - but I would say more in general, as the same...

The Probability Density Function: A Known Unknown

Perhaps the most important thing to get right from the start, in most statistical problems, is...

Summer Lectures In AI

Winter is not over yet, but I am already busy fixing the details of some conferences, schools,...

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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 Say of the Week

The Say of the Week

Aug 26 2009 | comment(s)

"It is not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes"
(From a sentence attributed to Josef Stalin)

With a thought to Middle Eastern elections...
The Higgs Mass ? 120 GeV, SUSY Says

The Higgs Mass ? 120 GeV, SUSY Says

Aug 24 2009 | comment(s)

Today, although fully submerged by an anomalous wave of errands which had been patiently waiting for my return at work, I heroically managed to dig out of the ArXiv a paper worth a close look.
Another Scalp - International Master Vladimir Barskij

Another Scalp - International Master Vladimir Barskij

Aug 21 2009 | comment(s)

Back from vacations, I found the usual pile of errands, tons of unattended emails, papers to review to take care of at work. I got home pretty tired tonight, and I was more than else looking for some relaxation when I logged on the Internet Chess Club for a couple of blitz chess games. Instead, I found some fulfilment by winning a short game with the black pieces. White was International Master Vladimir Barskij, Fide ELO 2419 in the current list, number 2273 in the world. Not a top chess player, but one of those I sometimes have a chance of beating.
Plot Of The Week: The Best Top Mass Measurement Ever

Plot Of The Week: The Best Top Mass Measurement Ever

Aug 20 2009 | comment(s)

The figure shown below represents the best measurement of the top quark mass ever obtained by a single experiment, and it is a determination with a less than 1% total uncertainty. It has been approved last week by the CDF experiment at Fermilab.

The CDF experiments collects proton-antiproton collisions delivered by the Tevatron collider, which imparts the projectiles with 1 TeV of energy each, for a center-of-mass energy of 2 TeV. This is still the highest energy ever achieved by a collider, although the record is going to be soon stripped off Fermilab by the Large Hadron Collider, which is due to start colliding protons with other protons at 7 TeV of energy this coming fall.
Video Clip of a Wow Fireball

Video Clip of a Wow Fireball

Aug 16 2009 | comment(s)

If you have never seen a fireball lighting up the night sky I bet you will appreciate the video below, which was taken by Ivaldo Cervini over Italian skies a few days ago. It is a Perseid meteor, which lit up at a visual magnitude of approximately -10 (for comparison, the brigthest Venus can get is -4.5, and the full moon is -12.5: -10 is roughly 200 times brighter than Venus, and a tenth of the full moon).
The Say of the Week

The Say of the Week

Aug 15 2009 | comment(s)

"We would dig a shaft near 'ground zero' about 10 feet in diameter and about 150 feet deep. We would put a tank, 10 feet in diameter and 75 feet long on end at the bottom of the shaft. We would then suspend our detector from the top of the tank, along with its recording apparatus, and back-fill the shaft above the tank.