Here at CV we continuously strive for total perfection. You all have had enough of us theorists telling you how measurements are made, how experiments are built and conducted, blah, blah, blah, blah. We theorists can bluff our way through most of that, but as Julianne put it – it’s nice to know what’s in the sausage. So, we are bringing in a new contributor. John Conway is a bonafide experimenter at the University of California, Davis. We were fellow post-docs at the University of Wisconsin (where John searched for the Higgs at the ALEPH detector at the LEP accelerator at CERN), after he graduated from Chicago. Like all great physicists, he escaped the midwest and moved to California. John now works on the CDF detector at the Tevatron at Fermilab (still searching for the Higgs) and the CMS detector at the LHC at CERN (where Higgs searches/measurements will continue). Within my household, he is best known for introducing me to epoisse, which has become a lifelong addiction. Welcome John!
Cosmic Variance is a group blog by people who, coincidentally or not, all happen to be physicists and astrophysicists:
Our day (and night) jobs notwithstanding, the blog is about whatever we find interesting — science, to be sure, but also arts, politics, culture, technology, academia, and miscellaneous trivia. We have similar outlooks on many things, widely disparate opinions about others, and will do our best to keep the discourse reasonably elevated.
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January 26th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Three cheers for John and epoisse!
January 26th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Cheers John!
Ahem, I’m sorry to spoil the party, but even though the list (of contributors) is nicely balanced between male and female; it is terrible in terms of skin color. I am not being racist really, but I do miss the ‘black science’. (If you are thinking that, I am not suggesting anyone in particular).
January 26th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I got really excited for a moment — The John Conway?
Actually, I think he would argue that he is The John Conway, and not that other guy.
January 26th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Finally, REAL physics outweighs the rest on this blog.
January 26th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Yeah, once an immigration guy at the airport looked at my passport, then looked up at me and said “you aren’t The John Conway are you?” and I was not quite sure what to say….
In fact, when I lived in New Jersey, I kept getting email presumably intended for The John Conway (John Horton Conway) at Princeton, asking for software for the Game of Life. (The cellular automata one, not the board game one with a mommy and a daddy and little pink and blue kids in a plastic car that goes forward n spaces with the turn of the spinner.)
It’s a common name (my dad has it, for example) and in fact if I google myself I don’t even make page 4.
Can’t do anything about my skin color, sorry!
January 26th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
I know how you feel, John.
January 28th, 2007 at 12:43 am
I look forward to the things you will be reporting about John. “Game of life” occurred to me as well when I seen your name.
January 28th, 2007 at 10:04 am
An experimentalist! This is an exciting development. Welcome!