Comments on: Supersymmetry Closer To Home

By: chimpanzee

chimpanzee — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 20:19:43 +0000

[ I'm blogging from NC room/Marriott, SUSY '06 just finished ]

I put up a new video-clip from Wed/evening plenary-session “Naturalness”, here. It’s available on “SUSY ‘06″ video-podcast on iTunes Music Store (do a search on “susy06″, “supersymmetry”). Subscribe to it, connect your video-iPod & listen to it at your leisure (or show it to colleagues).

It’s the start of the panel-discussion.

“It’s [ Antrhopic Principle ] an OBSERVATION, not an explanation!”

was BR’s point. I have to side with him. In Control Theory (Elec Eng),, there is the concept of 1) Observability 2) Controllability.

B. Richter is quite a good speaker, & I related to his technical points (emphasis on “Observation”). Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the tape with his & A. Linde’s talk..I hope I didn’t lose it. I wasted hrs this morning trying to find it. That’s why the above clip is a little late. It was uploaded during this morning’s plenary-session, while I was LiveWebCasting.

Thanks CVJ for the post, without it..I wouldn’t have “Thrown Technology at the Problem” at SUSY ‘06. Dr. Feng was really gracious & supportive (got me a lunch on Fri, since I was running short on time because of the extensive workload). I think SUSY ‘06 might have the distinction of “leading the way” as far as using the new “mobile media solutions”. I met Bob Stein (USC Media Ctr?) way back in ‘93, at the AFI (American Film Institute) in Hollywood. He’s the founder of the well-known Voyager CD company. Maybe USC has the right leadership to use these New Mediums.

By: Clifford

Clifford — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 01:47:55 +0000

I think that people are most turned on by the exciting possibility that we might see something at LHC which consitutes a WIMP candidate…. and a SUSY sector seems to be everyone’s most hoped culprit. As the direct WIMP searches come to that “window” too, it is not unreasonable to allow oneself a bit of an excited squeal that we might being to see the very same SUSY sectors in direct detection experiments, and at roughly the same time. It would be marvellous. It could all be wishful thinking though…. but it is a nice thought, and beleived by most to be a very real possibility. I myself am allowing quite a bit of optimism that we will indeed have a huge breakthrough in our understanding of the universe in this way….. within five years.

Others may have other thoughts…. would be nice to hear them.

-cvj

By: spaceman

spaceman — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 01:37:40 +0000

I noticed that included in the SUSY06 scientific program is a section called WIMP theory and detection. Most of the talks in this section have to do with dark matter direct detection experiments, one example being the CDMS. Based on other things I’ve read on the subject, it seems like many people in the dark matter direct detection community are optimistic that a WIMP signal will begin to emerge by or even prior to 2010 or so. I think they are basing this optimism on the fact that the direct searches are just now reaching a part of the parameter space called the SUSY focus region. This would mean that a major breakthrough in our understanding of the material make up of the Universe is right around the corner.

Do you all share this optimism? or do you think the dark matter problem will remain irresolvable for the foreseeable future?

By: SUSY06 Goes Hi-Tech | Cosmic Variance

SUSY06 Goes Hi-Tech | Cosmic Variance — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 01:20:10 +0000

[...] Just a quick note to point out the growing volume of video and stills of the SUSY06 conference that is being produced at an incredible rate by the Cosmic Variance commenter (pic right, taken when he was unawares) who calls himself “chimpanzee”. He has a handheld device that launches video and stills to the web seconds after recording it. All very splendid, if you like that sort of thing. [...]

By: chimpanzee

chimpanzee — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:47:16 +0000

I'm Blogging from SUSY '06, afternoon-session "Alternatives", where Joanne is Chair..she's sitting 15 ft away from me, to my left. She is listening very attentively to all the lectures & knows by name of the people asking questions during Q&A. See here for some near-LIVE pics & videos of the lecturers. One of the 2 female lecturers I accidentally met 3-times already..Sabine Hossenfelder (postdoc @UCSB). She's the only woman here at the conference who wears a dress (everyone else is in pants or pantsuits). [snip... before it gets any worse... and incidentally that last sentence is incorrect -cvj]

By: chimpanzee

chimpanzee — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:01:34 +0000

I’m blogging from SUSY ‘06, aftetrnoon-session break. Lots of people eating/drinking, in discussion groups. I plan to attend “Alternatives” (NC 1/2)..where Joanne will be chairing the 4-6pm session.

I interviewed Raman Sundrum (Johns Hopkins), who was very cooperative & generous with his time. Previosly, Angela Olinto (Chicago) also was the same. See here for their interviews. A. Olinto is quite a Brazilia n soccer fan (made references to the World Cup in her talk)..pretty dis-satisfied with Brazil’s performance so far! I was reminded of Joanne’s fandom with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Very interesting experience so far. Dr. Feng asked me to fill in for filming this evening’s session (nobody was hired..$$ issues). I plan to have it available to the Physics community over the video-iPod medium/

Any other requests, fire away..I’m here until Sat

By: chimpanzee

chimpanzee — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 02:32:09 +0000

I'm posting from Mariott outside the NC Ballroom, where there will be a Plenary session called "Naturalness". The panel members will be Susskind, Richter, Wilczek, Linde. It will be from 7:30 to 10:00, so in that 2.5 hrs I will try to get a video-clip uploaded (not just a dinky cellphone video)..here & also over iTunes Music Store video-podcast Andrei Linde just whisked by, saying something about "computers & needing a Mac"..which my Powerbook is. I had the opportunity to talk some physics with Dr. Susskind (who related an interesting comment Lubos made about him..I can't repeat it here), & a woman theoretical-physicist (post-doc @UCSB), formerly @U of Arizona. She reads this blog. I wasn't aware of the various "camps" within this field, it reminds me of my field during my PhD research. Lots of politics, & I heard other people say the same. I told him what my ex-classmate (hid Dad was a Caltech Math PhD, "Group Theory" early 60's), told me: "I stay away from groups!" It's the territorial-nature of sub-groups within any population. I'm reminded of S. Weinberg's statement: "The Universe is a consquence of symmetric groups"..something like that.

By: Not Even Wrong » Blog Archive » Various and Sundry

Not Even Wrong » Blog Archive » Various and Sundry — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:56:56 +0000

[...] The SUSY 06 conference is taking place this week, hosted by UC Irvine, with talks at the Marriott Hotel in Newport Beach. Here’s the program, which now has links to slides for some of the talks in the parallel sessions, although not at the moment for those in the plenary sessions. This evening there will be a plenary session on Naturalness, with talks by experimentalist Burton Richter, theorists Frank Wilczek, Leonard Susskind and Andrei Linde. This line-up is very heavily weighted toward the anthropic point of view, I wonder why the organizers couldn’t find anyone from the other side. Various bloggers are at the conference reporting, including Clifford Johnson and Sabine Hossenfelder. B. Yen, who normally covers off-road motor-racing, has decided to cover something even more exciting, academics at a SUSY conference, and is providing stills, video, and podcasts via iTunes from the conference site. [...]

By: chimpanzee

chimpanzee — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 04:58:16 +0000

I’m posting from the Marriott/Rose Garden, where the Reception was held. I got permission by Dr. Feng/UCI/chair to try New Mediums for the SUSY ‘06 conference. Thanks to CVJ for this post, which stimulated me to try some LiveWebCasting (”mobile blogging”, aka “moblogging”):

http://susy06.textamerica.com

& video-blogging (& video-podcasting):

http://susy06.blogspot.com

[...And later..... -cvj]

I have a video-clip of the Reception up at the SUSY ‘06 video-blog. It’s also available over the “SUSY ‘06″ video-podcast at iTunes Music Store. Just subscribe to it, plug in your video-iPod, download the clips. Carry it around, & show to friends or public.

[The rest of these long comments have been sent back to the author. Perhaps they can be found later on the blogs linked. -cvj]

By: Valuing Negativity | Cosmic Variance

Valuing Negativity | Cosmic Variance — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 03:47:19 +0000

[...] If this had been the end of the story, then bosons and fermions (and therefore force carriers and matter) would be destined to forever remain distinct. But here comes the loophole. The 1975 Haag-Lopuszanski-Sohnius theorem (after Rudolf Haag, Jan Lopuszanski, and Martin Sohnius) pointed out that if one relaxes one of the assumptions, and allows anticommuting operators as generators of the symmetry group, then there is a possible non-trivial unification of internal and space-time symmetries. Such a symmetry is called supersymmetry and, as you know, constitutes a large part of current research into particle physics. [...]