We (the Boomers) were eliminated from the playoffs on Aug. 12 with our second loss. Our opponents in that second loss, the Big Bangers, went on to loose the championship game to the Lighting Rods.
Though the season is officially over, we still hope to have a few informal games while the weather allows.
I had fun this season, learned a lot about how to gracefully handle loss and keep my own performance in proper perspective. I am able to share in one of Kelly's favorite passtimes, and I also am better at playing softball than I ever have been :)
Our Fermilab Softball League Team (the Boomers) start in the league playoffs tomorrow (Aug. 11) if weather permits. We go in as the fourth seed with a 3-8 record.
If you look at this picture carefully, you will notice something odd. Specifically, the antenna cable is plugged into the wall rather than a TV. This is because our TV is in our living room on the first floor, but the best reception is obtained with the antenna on the second floor. Since previous occupants of our house had cable and satellite TV, we were able to use coaxial cable they left here to connect the antenna to the cable jack as seen above, run a cable from that jack to another one downstairs, and finally, run a cable from that jack to our TV. It's amazing what one will do to get good TV without paying for cable!
The problem alluded to in the title is that this antenna (a Terk HDTVa) receives almost all of the broadcast channels from Chicago that we want to see. One channel is missing.
MISSING: Channel 2
Call Letters: WBBM
Network: CBS
Frequency: VHF Ch. 12 (204 - 210 MHz)
Broadcast Power: 8 kW
Distance: 34.2 mi
URL: http://cbs2chicago.com/
Why Wanted: Steelers Games and The Big Bang Theory
For various reasons, we would rather not try to put an antenna on our roof.
So, if anyone wants to demonstrate their technical prowess and give ideas for receiving WBBM, please do so.
Given the size of ICHEP, my experience is only a small sample.
Overall, I got the impression that neutrino physics is an extremely active field with a large number of experiments either collecting data or being constructed. The only real disappointment at the conference with neutrinos was that NOvA did not get a talk and that not many abstracts from MINOS were accepted.
I also was personally glad to see that my thesis work on B→ τ ν was mentioned several times and is a source of tension with the Standard Model. See slides 21-23 of the plenary Rare B Decay talk and slide 31 of the plenary CKM review talk.
As expected, the LHC experiments showed their first results. They are rediscovering the SM quite quickly. I was surprised at how many analyses had results ready for the conference.
The only other disappointment came in the form of the Conference “Dinner.” The quotation marks are very deliberate. The reality is described in part on an ICHEP 2010 blog entry. It was not a dinner; it was a cocktails and appetizers with too many people, too little food, and too little space. It was, in the words of one of our colleagues, an “unmitigated disaster.” To the organizers’ credit, they did give 50% refunds of the accompanying person fee.
The coffee break food and beverages were quite good with large fruit baskets being part of most of the coffee breaks.
The conference had two big surprises. The biggest surprise for most people was that “opening” talk given on Monday by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France! I thought his speech was very good, even though he made one historical error (Galileo did not go to prison). He talked much about the need to defend and promote science to the general public. He also announced a large proposed funding project for Saclay. The speech was interpreted into English in real time via headsets; that led to some interesting artifacts like people laughing at two different times to the same joke and the English interpreter consistently referring to members of our field as “physicians” rather than physicists.
The biggest surprise for me was winning the First Prize Poster award. Thank you for your help, and I thank God for giving me the opportunity and ability to do so. My poster is available online as a PDF.
This entry is intended a summary of the conference in Paris. Details about the rest of our trip will come when we have finished sorting through the hundreds of pictures we took!
THEIST: If the Universe had a beginning, as science now seems quite sure, who began it?
ATHEIST: I presume you would like me to answer "God."
THEIST: Ideally.
ATHEIST: You answer that question with "God," but then I must ask the obvious question "who made God?"
THEIST: God is eternal and has always existed. He had no beginning and thus no need for a beginner.
ATHEIST: Well, as Carl Sagan said, why not just save a logical step and say that the Universe is eternal and has always existed. It had no beginning and thus no need for a beginner.
THEIST: As I said, the overwhelming scientific evidence points to the Universe having a beginning.
ATHEIST: Then, your "evidence" for a god or gods becomes dependent on scientific understanding, which is, by definition, subject to change. Suppose science finds that the Universe is oscillatory. This Universe ends and another begins in an infinite cycle into the future and the past.
THEIST: So, crudely we could imagine time being bent into a circle in your picture of the Universe.
ATHEIST: Yes, although I prefer the image of a Mobius strip.
THEIST: Whatever geometry you choose, I still ask who made the circle or strip?
ATHEIST: Whatever answer I give does not solve the problem, it only moves it around; the question still remains: Who made the maker?
THEIST: Well, I believe God is eternal; he has always existed. We know our observable Universe well enough to know that everything here has a beginning, but God is transcendent. He is outside of our Universe, so we cannot just assume that he had a beginning.
ATHEIST: So are you telling me that you are so desperate to cling to the idea of God that you are willing to forsake even cause and effect?
THEIST: Yes! That's it! This is an exciting realization, not desperation. I believe in a God that is so thrillingly different from anything in nature, from anything I know that even the rules of cause and effect may not apply to him.
"This is what the LORD says: 'If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night no longer come at their appointed time…If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed laws of heaven and earth, then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David my servant'" - Jeremiah 33:20, 25-26 (NIV)
"It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out."- Proverbs 25:2 (ESV)
"The scientific ethos, moreover, is...the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit." - Pope Benedict XVI
