Saturday 31 October 2015

Next Generation Collider in China

I'm a little behind on this, but I did move in to my new apartment today.  The Guardian has reported that Chinese state media has announced that the proposed 100 TeV experiment will begin construction within 5 years.
China will begin work on the world’s largest supercollider in 2020, a mega-machine aimed at increasing understanding of the elusive Higgs boson, state-run media has reported.

Monday 19 October 2015

CosPA 2015 Summary

Okay, so I kind of missed the last day of CosPA.  There were only three talks, and because I forgot to set my alarm I missed two of them; and wasn't all that interested in the third.  Anyway, with everything over it's time to summarize the whole affair.

On a personal level, I found the conference okay.  A lot of this was that there were a lot of talks on subjects like axions or experimental cosmology that are somewhat outside my interests.  Also, there were relatively few people I knew, hardly surprising given the location.  But these things do factor into my enjoyment.  It also didn't help that there were a few talks I had already seen this year; Daniel Eisenstein's talk on BOSS is excellent, but I didn't need to see it twice.

Thursday 15 October 2015

CosPA 2015 Liveblog: Day Four Session Four

The final parallel session of CosPA.

CosPA 2015 Liveblog: Day Four Session Three

This afternoon looks to be about colliders (at least for me).

CosPA 2015 Liveblog: Day Four Session Two

The second session today features physics closely associated with high energies.

CosPA 2015 Liveblog: Day Four Session One

We now return to the CosPA liveblog.

Euro 2016 Qualification

We interupt this conference liveblog for me to talk about something that's been bothering me.  The group stage of Euro 2016 qualification finished this week.  England were the first team to qualify, and have become I think only the sixth team ever in European Championship qualifying to notch a 100% record.  However, pretty much all discussion of England's campaign has been met with "well, they had an easy group".  And, while I'm not claiming they got a hard group, I don't think this really stands up to scrutiny.

Wednesday 14 October 2015

CosPA 2015 Liveblog: Day Three Session Two

The second session features only a single talk, from the particle theory group.

CosPA 2015 Liveblog: Day Three Session One

The third day of CosPA is a half-day, with the afternoon being devoted to the excursion.  The morning is focusing on our host institution, the Institute for Basic Science, and the three centres relevant for this conference.

Tuesday 13 October 2015

CosPA 2015 Liveblog: Day Two Session Four

I spend yet another parallel session in the same room.  And wonder why they are so opposed to turning on the AC.

CosPA 2015 Liveblog: Day Two Session Three

The first parallel session of the day.  I missed the start of the first talk taking care of some money worries.

CosPA 2015 Liveblog: Day Two Session Two

We round out this morning's session.

CosPA 2015 Liveblog: Day Two Session One

Second day, I was still a little gate so I missed the first couple of minutes of the first talk.  The slides for today are not online, but unlike a certain conference I was at this summer, yesterday's talks are already posted.

Monday 12 October 2015

CosPA 2015 Liveblog: Day One, Session Four

I missed the first parallel session because I as deep in conversation.  With only two parallel sessions, I've gone for one on gravitational physics.

CosPA 2015 Liveblog: Day One, Session Two

The second session continues with more experimentally aligned talks.

CosPA 2015 Liveblog: Day One, Session One

It's my first conference in Korea, and I've got off to a good start by sleeping in.  I don't even have the excuse of jet lag, but I do have the excuse of not having slept well for the last month due to the heat and humidity.  Though it looks like they are already running late, we seem to still be in the first talk which should have finished fifteen minutes ago!  The conference webpage is here, but annoyingly it seems that the plenary talks are not online (yet?).