Geneva Monopoly

Just returned from a couple of weeks at CERN. Saw this in Geneva and had to buy it – you can probably tell why.

Monopoly – Geneva Edition (and a foot).

Monopoly – Geneva Edition (and a foot).

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First ever acceleration of electrons in a proton-driven plasma wave

Turning out to be a busy August in physics. This breakthrough was just published in Nature:

 

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ATLAS and CMS results on Higgs decay to bottom quarks

seminar

This morning two results appeared on the arXiv:

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Horizon 2020 funding if there’s no Brexit deal

This went up on the government webpages yesterday: Horizon 2020 funding if there’s no Brexit deal.

In a way it is comforting that someone in government thinks enough of scientific research to even mention it in the current Mayhem. The restatement of the guarantee of continued funding from the UK for current EU funded projects, even in a no-deal scenario,  is welcome.

They have even noticed that money alone doesn’t solve the issue, since UK scientists are the leaders of some projects, and so receive money from the EU and disburse to the rest of their collaboration, all over the EU and beyond. The UK isn’t going to fund all that, but if there’s no deal, the EU will stop sending the money. So this is a “no deal” contingency that needs a deal. Erm. Still, it is a time-limited problem, as the idea of the UK leading anything European belongs to an already-fast-receding golden age.

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