Back in late July, I got email from a writer for Physics World magazine (which is sort of the UK equivalent of Physics Today), asking my opinion on a few questions relating to particle physics funding. The basis for asking me (as opposed to, you know, a particle physicist) was presumably a post from April… Continue reading Thoughts on the LHC and ILC
Category: Funding
Loose Lips Sink Research Grants
A scientific conference like DAMOP almost always includes a conference banquet (to which people may or may not bring dates), usually the last night of the meeting, where everybody gets together to eat massive quantities of catered food and drink massive amounts of wine supplied by the conference. The quality of these ranges from your… Continue reading Loose Lips Sink Research Grants
Physics Funding Fundamentalism
The big physics story of the day is bound to be this new report on American particle physics: The United States should be prepared to spend up to half a billion dollars in the next five years to ensure that a giant particle accelerator now being designed by a worldwide consortium of scientists can be… Continue reading Physics Funding Fundamentalism
Why Are You Asking Me?
I’ve found myself in the weird position of giving career advice twice in the last week and a half. Once was to a former student, which I sort of understand, while the second time was a grad student in my former research group, who I’ve never met. I still don’t really feel qualified to offer… Continue reading Why Are You Asking Me?
Libertopia Approaches?
The big news in physics yesterday was the announcement that a private donation has been made to support experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider on Long Island. This is the accelerator that’s slamming gold nuclei into each other to create a quark-gluon plasma, along with a million dippy stories about how it might make… Continue reading Libertopia Approaches?