One such event will take place at the CERN library on November 29th, at 4PM. I am told that CERN already ordered the book to sell it in its bookshop, so it will be good to present the work to the community there - after all, the book is for everybody but I expect that it can be of higher interest to scientists and people in some way connected to research in High-Energy physics.
As for the book itself: I already showed you the book cover a while ago, but I attach it below again in case you missed it. A summary of the book, its contents index, and the endorsements (by Ed Witten, Gordy Kane, Peter Woit, Sean Carroll and Gianfrancesco Giudice) are available at the World Scientific site. There you can also pre-order the book - or you might prefer to use this amazon web page instead.
I think what is left is to give you a little teaser of the contents. The clip below is from a chapter that describes the situation before the top quark discovery. (Note: this is the version before proofreading, for technical reasons; it may contain sentences that are in the process of being fixed).
- - -
Toward the end of the summer 1993 CDF went undercover. The spokespersons Shochet and Carithers decided that the evidence for top production in the data was indeed mounting; it looked likely that soon they would be able to make a public announcement that the experiment was seeing the long-sought sixth quark. Results were feverishly expected from the analyses of the full dataset of 20 inverse picobarns of collisions that CDF had collected before the just ended Run 1A. It was felt dangerous for the experiment to produce interim, inconclusive results which could backfire if unsupported by future data.
The turning point happened shortly before the XVI Lepton-Photon conference, which was going to be held at Cornell on August 10th-15th. During a Heavy Flavour meeting Mel Shochet and Alvin Tollestrup were taking notes of the event candidates and background predictions, as they heard the subgroup leaders report the status of their searches for the top quark in the various channels. Dileptons, two events with a background of 0.56; SLT single leptons, 7 with a background of 3.1; SVX b-tags, 6 with a background of 2.3; and so on. At some point, Mel and Alvin looked at each other: taken singly none of those results were significant, but together they started to be! A lively discussion ensued; the decision was finally taken to stop presenting updated search results until a definite, well-supported claim could be put forth.
"Never give a talk after Brian Greene"
As the meeting ends Claudio walks back together with some colleagues to the trailers from the Hirise. It is a sunny summer evening, and it is quite pleasant to walk rather than drive the few hundred meters that separate CDF from the Wilson Hall; the only concern is to manage to avoid the droppings of geese, the unchallenged masters of the grass and pathway areas throughout the lab. Everybody is cheerful: they do have something in their hands now! The top discovery is close. Spirits are high, but as the CDF collaborators near the B0 parking lot they run into Paul Tipton, who has just parked his car in front of the trailers. His face is livid. He is evidently upset.
"So what's the matter Paul? Aren't you happy about the great results we've seen today?!" asks Claudio.
"Goddamnit, I missed it by one! I missed it by one!"
"What do you mean?"
"I volunteered for the talk at Lepton-Photon several months ago, as I had calculated that by now we would have an evidence in our hands! I wanted to be the one who would show it, and I missed it by one!"
A smile spread out on Claudio's jovial face. Paul and he were used to tease each other at any possible occasion, and this was not one he would miss.
"Oh! That's right. Well, I wouldn't bother going - from what I've heard at the meeting you would be showing the same stuff I've showed in my talk at La Thuile four months ago - and there's no skiing involved in Cornell. You can bring your skates, though."
"I am going - I have already bought my flight."
"Well, okay. In that case feel free to re-use my La Thuile slides!"
Things indeed turned out badly for Tipton. He would not be able to give a lectio magistralis on how he had discovered the top quark - that would be somebody else's job at a later occasion. And not only was his talk devoid of any new information on the top quark search in CDF; he also had to watch his words carefully since there was a significant gap between what he could say and what he did know. And Tipton also suffered a disappointment of a different nature during his session: the speaker who preceded him was Brian Greene, one of the most influential theorists around. The conference hall was packed full as everybody wanted to hear Greene talk; his contribution was titled "What can we do with String Theory?" At the end of his talk, Greene lingered on the stage to answer a long series of questions from the audience, leaving Tipton impatiently waiting for his turn to speak. As Tipton finally went on stage and started fiddling with the microphone, he heard the unwelcome sucking sound of the conference hall suddenly getting half-emptied by attendees leaving the room. He recalls his thought: "Important note to self: Never give talk after Brian Greene!"
Toward the end of the summer 1993 CDF went undercover. The spokespersons Shochet and Carithers decided that the evidence for top production in the data was indeed mounting; it looked likely that soon they would be able to make a public announcement that the experiment was seeing the long-sought sixth quark. Results were feverishly expected from the analyses of the full dataset of 20 inverse picobarns of collisions that CDF had collected before the just ended Run 1A. It was felt dangerous for the experiment to produce interim, inconclusive results which could backfire if unsupported by future data.
The turning point happened shortly before the XVI Lepton-Photon conference, which was going to be held at Cornell on August 10th-15th. During a Heavy Flavour meeting Mel Shochet and Alvin Tollestrup were taking notes of the event candidates and background predictions, as they heard the subgroup leaders report the status of their searches for the top quark in the various channels. Dileptons, two events with a background of 0.56; SLT single leptons, 7 with a background of 3.1; SVX b-tags, 6 with a background of 2.3; and so on. At some point, Mel and Alvin looked at each other: taken singly none of those results were significant, but together they started to be! A lively discussion ensued; the decision was finally taken to stop presenting updated search results until a definite, well-supported claim could be put forth.
"Never give a talk after Brian Greene"
As the meeting ends Claudio walks back together with some colleagues to the trailers from the Hirise. It is a sunny summer evening, and it is quite pleasant to walk rather than drive the few hundred meters that separate CDF from the Wilson Hall; the only concern is to manage to avoid the droppings of geese, the unchallenged masters of the grass and pathway areas throughout the lab. Everybody is cheerful: they do have something in their hands now! The top discovery is close. Spirits are high, but as the CDF collaborators near the B0 parking lot they run into Paul Tipton, who has just parked his car in front of the trailers. His face is livid. He is evidently upset.
"So what's the matter Paul? Aren't you happy about the great results we've seen today?!" asks Claudio.
"Goddamnit, I missed it by one! I missed it by one!"
"What do you mean?"
"I volunteered for the talk at Lepton-Photon several months ago, as I had calculated that by now we would have an evidence in our hands! I wanted to be the one who would show it, and I missed it by one!"
A smile spread out on Claudio's jovial face. Paul and he were used to tease each other at any possible occasion, and this was not one he would miss.
"Oh! That's right. Well, I wouldn't bother going - from what I've heard at the meeting you would be showing the same stuff I've showed in my talk at La Thuile four months ago - and there's no skiing involved in Cornell. You can bring your skates, though."
"I am going - I have already bought my flight."
"Well, okay. In that case feel free to re-use my La Thuile slides!"
Things indeed turned out badly for Tipton. He would not be able to give a lectio magistralis on how he had discovered the top quark - that would be somebody else's job at a later occasion. And not only was his talk devoid of any new information on the top quark search in CDF; he also had to watch his words carefully since there was a significant gap between what he could say and what he did know. And Tipton also suffered a disappointment of a different nature during his session: the speaker who preceded him was Brian Greene, one of the most influential theorists around. The conference hall was packed full as everybody wanted to hear Greene talk; his contribution was titled "What can we do with String Theory?" At the end of his talk, Greene lingered on the stage to answer a long series of questions from the audience, leaving Tipton impatiently waiting for his turn to speak. As Tipton finally went on stage and started fiddling with the microphone, he heard the unwelcome sucking sound of the conference hall suddenly getting half-emptied by attendees leaving the room. He recalls his thought: "Important note to self: Never give talk after Brian Greene!"
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