LHC@home

From the New York Times...

A few dozen scientists got together in Los Angeles for the weekend recently to talk about their craziest hopes and dreams for the universe.

At least that was the idea.

“I want to set out the questions for the next nine decades,” Maria Spiropulu said on the eve of the conference, called the Physics of the Universe Summit. She was hoping that the meeting, organized with the help of Joseph D. Lykken of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Gordon Kane of the University of Michigan, would replicate the success of a speech by the mathematician David Hilbert, who in 1900 laid out an agenda of 23 math questions to be solved in the 20th century.

Dr. Spiropulu is a professor at the California Institute of Technology and a senior scientist at CERN, outside Geneva. Next month, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful particle accelerator ever built, will begin colliding protons and generating sparks of primordial fire in an effort to recreate conditions that ruled the universe in the first trillionth of a second of time.

The full story is here...

Thanks very much for the information Tom. I look at these message boards from time to time to keep abreast on activities at Cern. In the New York Times article there was mention of a new book that Lisa Randall is working on. Does anyone know what the name of the book will be or when it is scheduled to be printed? It is not the type of information that is readily available here in Europe.

Thanks

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I really hope the NYTimes will not charge some money for reading it. It is one of my favored sources, not only for science. Lately I read, in the travel section, something about skiing and eating in the Cortina d\'Ampezzo area. The article described the \"rifugi\" (alpine huts) as good restaurants. Unfortunately this is true.When I was young I visited Cortina in summer and winter. I climbed the Tofana Seconda and the Torre Inglese in the Cinque Torri group, but I subsisted on pane e salame and some wine,usually bad. Now you have to make a reservation just to enter a Rifugio. The Club Alpino Italiano built most of them, but now it sells them if they can be reached by SUV or cable. The time of young, pennyless, climbers has passed. In dr.Randall\'s biography I read she fell from the first leg on the Halfdome in the Sierra Nevada, and survived. Had she reached some leg higher she would probably have died. The mountain does not care if you are a theoretical physicist and makes no discount if you make a mistake.Your. first error can be also your last.

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I really hope the NYTimes will not charge some money for reading it. It is one of my favored sources, not only for science. Lately I read, in the travel section, something about skiing and eating in the Cortina d'Ampezzo area. The article described the "rifugi" (alpine huts) as good restaurants. Unfortunately this is true.When I was young I visited Cortina in summer and winter. I climbed the Tofana Seconda and the Torre Inglese in the Cinque Torri group, but I subsisted on pane e salame and some wine,usually bad. Now you have to make a reservation just to enter a Rifugio. The Club Alpino Italiano built most of them, but now it sells them if they can be reached by SUV or cable. The time of young, pennyless, climbers has passed. In dr.Randall's biography I read she fell from the first leg on the Halfdome in the Sierra Nevada, and survived. Had she reached some leg higher she would probably have died. The mountain does not care if you are a theoretical physicist and makes no discount if you make a mistake.Your. first error can be also your last.

My understanding is that the NYT is going to move towards a paid subscription basis. It's not clear what this will entail. They tried it some years ago and then discontinued it after about a year. When they charged before you could either simply pay for access to what they determined was "premium" content or you could subscribe to their print edition and then access was free. I use to get the weekday printed edition because it gave me something to read during my commute. If it goes the same way I'll consider their weekend package instead. I'd miss not being able to have access to the Times on-line.

I like to read \"Nature\", \"Science\",and \"New Scientist\". Some of their articles are free, some require a paid subscription, which I don\'t have.Sometimes I can read an article on \"Nature\" and not on \"Nature Physical Science\" or viceversa (I am referring to the same article). So it\'s a game of chance. But the NYT is surely going to lose some of its 16 million online readers if it starts charging. Not all can afford to pay even a small amount, and also the methods of payment are not available everywhere and I hate to give my credit card numbers online.
Tullio