A Quantum Diaries Survivor

Tomorrow morning I am jumping on the Venice-Munich plane at 9 in the morning, to then get on Lufthansa LH434 flight to Chicago.

In the last ten years, I have taken that flight about fifty times. I know what to expect, which seat to ask for (I won’t tell you which ones are the most comfortable, lest you take it before I do). I know how to maximize my chances for a complimentary upgrade (one hint: get to the gate at the latest possible second, but of course with a valid boarding pass! Then, make sure the lady at the gate knows you have a Senator card. Then ask for a change of seat with your best possible smile).

All in all, however, the flight will still be boring, the food will still be bad (ok, Lufthansa does not excel in the food, but I guess none of us takes a flight to have a good meal…), and I will get to Chicago tired and with a headache. Oh well. It is part of my job…

Back from ten days off, in the dolomites, I got a few pictures of Mia’s graduation - and in particular the post-graduation ceremony and the torture that ensued.

In Padova, there is a nasty tradition that almost no student manages to avoid (I did, and am very happy about it). Basically, the fresh graduate is prey of his friends, who can undress, beat, throw things at him or her, and play all sorts of nasty tricks, forcing the victim to drink alcohol while he or she recites a poem written for the occasion, telling tales about his or her past university life - particularly the obscene events. Whenever the victim fails to read correctly the scribbling (called “papiro”), a penance ensues, in the form of a sip of a suitable alcoholic beverage.

Mia did not escape. She was undressed in front of the Physics Department, then some of her beautiful curls were cut. She then had to run through a human tunnel made of her friends who could kick her and slap her back. Then other tortures followed. She was dressed as a human “sexy iPod”, and had to sing on order. She drank a liter of red wine of the lowest form, while a dead octopus was resting on her hair. All in all, not a nice view, and the smell of the dead animal was horrible (it had been bought three days before and never frozen). 

As nasty as the tradition is (and I am not proud of it), it was quite fun to follow it from a distance… I even took part of the slapping, as the pictures document.

I am spending some days in Padola, in the italian Dolomites. No posts, or rare ones, for a few more days… Sorry for my thirtythree faithful readers, but anyway I would have little to tell. No new physics results, no news (reading no newspapers nor listening to any TV)…

Of course, I could tell of my hikes in the day and of my observations of galaxies in the night. I guess that will have to wait… But tonight I am meeting with five more amateur astronomers in a super-duper-dark site at 7500 feet above sea level not far from here. Each of us will come armed with a rather large scope… We shall determine once and for good whose instrument and which eyepieces provide the best views!

This morning Mia obtained a “laurea magistralis” (aka Masters degree) in Physics, after two years of specialization in particle physics following three previous years of studies.

Mia presented a thesis titled “A new multivariate approach to the b-jet energy measurement at the CDF-II experiment“. Basically, her work concentrated on writing the code of the Hyperball algorithm in a standardized way, then optimizing the parameters for the Z–>bb resonance, and finally testing the resulting jet energy corrections on the Z–>bb signal in experimental data collected by CDF in 2005.

Mia gave a very nice presentation in front of the graduation committee and fifty persons in the audience. She answered exhaustively to three complex questions posed by members of the committee, and in the end obtained the maximum of points, 110 cum laude.

The fun, however, started just then. Padova University has a nasty tradition of a post-graduation rite which involves getting slapped in the back as hard as possible by everybody present, then stripped almost bare, covered with all sorts of obnoxious substances (water colors, flour, a dead octopus in the case of Mia), and forced to read a poster collectioning a few embarassing episodes of the candidate’s course of studies -whenever possible of sexual nature-, drinking alcoholic beverages every time the reading is not perfect.

All this was experimented by Mia this morning. I felt really sorry I did not have a digital camera with me, but I will be able to post a few pics soon.

After this dubious celebration, we headed to a bar where the real party begun. I drank my share… NOw I am going to the second graduation… 

This evening I am leaving to Padola, in the Alps. I will bring my family there, bags included, but will be there only tomorrow… On Thursday I am due back in Padova, where Mia will graduate (that is, get her Master’s). I expect a lot of alcohol flowing at the party she’ll throw for her graduation - but unfortunately that will be at lunchtime! And in the afternoon I have another session of graduations, where I am the referee of another thesis (on the MAGIC experiment, see a previous post here). Aargh.

In my plans, I am leaving from Padola on Thursday in the early morning, and going back there in the evening… Hmmm. Maybe better to avoid driving in the evening, after such a full day.

When we moved to the new house one year ago, we had to buy some new furniture, although of course we recycled most of what we already had. Mariarosa originally wanted to change the master bedroom completely, but I convinced her to wait - there was no bed that completely satisfied me in the several stores we visited.

Now, after one year, I finally found a bed that I like. And I bought it without even consulting Mariarosa, who was on vacation with the kids… Am I or am I not a courageous man ?

Of course, I had a pretty good idea that my wife would love it too. It is made by artisans in Peru, out of massive blocks of cedar wood. The two side night tables can be pulled out or stowed behind the backrest, and four large drawers under the bed are very useful for storage.

This evening the bed was brought in and mounted in our bedroom. Mariarosa is delighted, and so am I… The room is full of a sweet smell of cedar wood.

Today Mariarosa had to run a few errands in Venice, and we had a babysitter for the morning… But as Filippo woke up and found it out, he started crying - he did not want to be left alone. So I decided to bring him at work with me, under oath that he would behave…

He is indeed behaving well. Sure, the gameboy is helping a lot, but he also spent time doing multiplications and drawing with pencils… In the pic, he is asking me something about the game he’s playing.

Yesterday I got a visit from a cheating chessplayer… He found my page after searching a web engine for the following combination of words: “connecting fritz to pogo chess“. Bad boy! Fritz, for those of you who are unfamiliar with computer chess, is one of the strongest chess playing programs… On a fast hardware, it can beat almost any player in the world.

Fraud is not just a way to make money, get away with a misdemeanor, or illegitimately obtain advantages. It is, apparently, a lot of fun. Sure, among the people who use a computer to win a chess game there are of course many frustrated individuals. Same goes with those who play bridge on pogo connecting to the same game with two different computers (they get a huge advantage, but not necessarily a winning one). Those who cheat obtain a higher ranking, get to play with strong opponents, get the dubious privilege of boasting about their score. But they also get an additional kick: they typically enjoy it. I am sure many would do it just for the sheer sake of it.

And unfortunately, I believe this is a widespread feeling, and it does not just apply to games, but to everyday life at least as much. People just can’t follow the rules of the game, and show it in the way they live their life. Dodging taxes, speeding, spending working time at the coffee machine or on the internet… All useful and enjoyable practices: but the additional bonus that by cheating one feels smarter than others - or, sometimes, the avoided scorn of seeing others cheating while one follows the rules - is really an important additive.

My dobsonian is transportable, but only barely so. The telescope weighs about 90 pounds, but can be taken apart in pieces which are cumbersome to move around but not too heavy. However, living in Venice makes these kinds of things harder, since my car is 800 meters and three bridges away.

The only time I did take the telescope to my car and back I found out it was a long, complex procedure, and I was exhausted by carrying the 30 lb mirror on my arms ”cake-style”, with great strain to the muscles. So I decided I had to construct a mirror box for an easier and safer transport.

I did it today. It took some design, buying the hardware, a little sawing and drilling, and a lot of sweating - I used as a workplace my terrace, which is invested by the sun and above 100 degrees right now.

Anyway, the pictures below show the result of my effort. In the first you see the box, closed and ready to be carried on your shoulders with the shoulder strap. In the second you see the arrangement of the interior: the floor of the box has seven rubber disks (barely visible, they are transparent) to support the mirror. The sides are lined with foam, and the cover has a large disk of foam which presses just hard enough on the mirror, when closed, to keep it firmly in place.

Overall, the woodworking is not perfect, but given the fact that I do not have a laboratory, but just a few tools, I am pleased by the functionality and appearance of the final product… Now I am ready to transport the scope to Padola, for a few sessions of deep-sky observations under really dark skies.

July and August are dangerous months in Italy, You make a mistake in planning your vacations, or just a trip to a meeting, and you get dire punishment - in the form of several hours spent on the wheel, pondering on your idiocy together with ten thousand more drivers, tidily lined up along a dumb route.

The fact is, there are times when you just cannot escape. No matter how smart you are - or think you are - the force of the central limit theorem will pull your space-time coordinates towards a traffic jam or ten-mile queue.

Take me as an example. I know all the basics. I consult web sites for webcams on critical traffic points, stay tuned on traffic broadcasts, get informed about special events. All useless. I want to rent a place on the beach for my family for a month ? Ok, then I have to take it from a Saturday to another Saturday. Can I arrive one day later ? No, lest you run the risk of losing the apartment and get charged for a week. Can I leave one day earlier ? No, not a chance, my keys and the remote of the air conditioning have to be delivered back to the travel agent from 10 to 12 of the Saturday when we leave.

All this to say that, no matter how well I knew, I was trapped. I did leave today at 10.15 from Cavallino, with family and bags packed in my car. And I did, dramatically as I knew I would, get in a huge line of cars moving away from their vacation place.

Oh well… One has to take this with a bit of humor. Yeah. Not easy, with Ilaria screaming in the back seat, asking for a stop to use the restrooms, or for a drink, when no bar is in sight and you are driving at a billionth of c.

Anyway, we did get home before 1PM. Everything was in perfect order, but of course we had no fun bringing our luggage back home through 800 meters from parking to home.

I think I need a vacation to recover from my family’s vacation…