4.05.2006
what's that? it's physics!
(photo by stefan!)
Many years ago, I spent a wild spring break of museum-going and general awesome learning in Washington D.C.(.?) While Spoons and Stefan and Bawb and I were walking around at night taking in the monumental (ha.) amount of Public Stuff in D.C., we kept coming across strange things in the distance, and a refrain developed. Someone would ask: "What's that?" and we'd get to it and answer: "It's art!" We thought it would be fun to write a book called, "What's that? It's art!" that took bizzare modern art pieces and explained their context and their significance to a general audience. So, I call the picture above "What's that? It's physics!" It's actually the hall where my experiment is. The offices are in the next building over, but that's where the magic happens. Er, the science. That's where the science happens.
And! In case our geeky DC spring break sounds too boring, I hasten to add* that this was the vacation where we kept assigning points to people for oblique references to Stefan's penis. (I promise that if you click that link, you will not see a penis.)(OK. That one has real penises. Watch out.)(That one too. Did someone say penis? PENIS!)(Sorry.) The more subtle your reference to Stefan's cock, the more points. So, "Stefan's penis is big." 1 point. Maybe. When eating at a restaurant, "A 12 oz burger. Hmm. That's a lot of meat..." (with a significant eyebrow raise) would earn more points, since, in basically any situtation, it is assumed that it's a comparison to Stefan's unit you're talking about. Near a sign that says the movie will last ninety-eight minutes? You might say "I know something that lasts longer!" And so on. I think someone managed to reference it wordlessly once -- quite a feat. Maybe it was a glance at the Washington Monument, then at Stefan's pants? Try it at home!
In case you were wondering:
Currently in the state of: Illinois
Don't you have some kind of work stuff going on? Yup! Submitted an internal paper to the 600+ people on our experiment just yesterday about the analysis I've been working on, so hopefully we'll be able to show our result at a conference at the end of April. I have a talk to give about it this Thursday. We'll see how it goes!
How many of the 600+ people will actually read your stuff before the conference? 8? 10? Counting me? Not many.
What's your analysis about? It's about two particles affectionately named "W and Z bosons." And how awesome they are. No, wait, it's about their production and decay -- how often they're made from collisions at Fermilab, what they decay into. I couldn't find any links worth linking to about them, so I will try to write something useful sometime.
* - I hasten to add that so you know that the trip was actually action-packed. Where by "packed," I mean "packing," and where by "packing," I mean "well-endowed." With a large penis. And by "the trip," I mean Stefan. Oh dear.
