A Quantum Diaries Survivor

On "Not even wrong" (http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/), the blog hosted by Peter Woit, as well as on the Cosmic Variance site (http://cosmicvariance.com), an interesting discussion is taking place on the contents of the recently published plan by the National Academy of Sciences, "Revealing the Hidden Nature of Space and Time".

The document discusses how the US should plan their funding of HEP in the next 15 years (I wrote some sort of summary of it in http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2006/04/27/long-live-particle-physics/). 

I paste below my contribution to the discussion below (originally posted on Peter Woit's blog):  

My two pence on the “US leadership” issue:

I think the attitude of us non-americans working in HEP would improve a lot if the US stopped talking about themselves as the owners of the field.

A committee of americans talking about how to steer US HEP into a leadership role is fine - nothing to object. But it should not be a public document, as if seeking agreement from international collaborators. It is slightly annoying since it gives the -IMO wrong- idea that the US has entered the LHC experiments in forces to do science there for a long time to come, bringing experience and money, but with the secret aim of finding the right moment to stab their collaborators on the back, win support for an american ILC, and march back home triumphantly.

Why can’t we form a committee who deals with a more important issue: how to dodge the need to tickle the ego of a few dumb congressmen in order to survive ?
I am sure 90% of US scientists would be happy to live without having to be the kings of the hill in HEP. Let me rephrase it: without the need to put “leadership” as a deliverable in all their requests for funding…

A nice picture from the space telescope (below) shows what is presently happening to the nucleus of comet Schwassmann-Wachmann (73P), a Mv=8 object visible with binoculars in the boreal emisphere (look for it close to iota CRB).

The phenomenon is not new, but I cannot recall anything this spectacular as far as comet fragmentations go, and recorded while it was happening. Of course, the images of Shoemaker-Levy falling on Jupiter are even more dramatic, but the detail visible in the pictures recorded by NASA is amazing:

Yesterday in a post about the forthcoming election of the president of the italian Senate (http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2006/04/27/only-the-good-die-young/)I wrote a inaccurate sentence:

"He also was on trial for his contiguity with mafia (famous was his participation in happenings with mafia bosses), and came out clean of all accusations".

He actually was pronounced guilty of "associazione mafiosa", but not punishable, because too much time had passed since the crime. 

Today our new senators are electing their president. In the picture below you can see the two candidates: Andreotti (left) and Marini (right). Both ex members of the defunct christian democracy, the party who ruled italy for almost fifty years after WW2. One was proven contiguous with mafia, the other is a honest person - or at least nobody can claim the opposite.

Good luck, Franco Marini, good luck Italy.

Yesterday, an italian armored vehicle was hit by a bomb in Nassirija, and three of our men died. This brings the total of lost italian lives in Iraq to 37. 

37 casualties since the start of the Iraq war (three years ago!!! And 33 months ago Bush had the face to declare the war was over…) may not look a lot compared to the over 2000 bodies brought back to US soil in brown bags. It is an almost physiological price to pay for a large participation in activities in a war zone.

However, that number is just another demonstration that italian troops were not there to "help the civilians". We did not participate actively in war operations, that is true - but if you walk around in armored vehicles, dressed as Rambo, and coordinate your operation with the other occupation forces who happily use white phosporus over a whole city and use torture with the prisoners of war - there is something wrong with arguing you are there pacifically.

Of the total budget spent by Italy in his Iraq mission, 7 percent has been used for actual help to the country. Seven percent. When confronted to that meager number, members of the (starting today, former) italian government claimed that they had to pay for transportation, salaries, and the like… Then why not to give the money and stay home ? We could have doubled the financiary help and saved 86% of our expenses… And 37 young sons and fathers would still be alive (plus the countless iraqi insurgents died under italian fire).

"Italy repudiates war as a means of solution of international controversies". It is written in our Constitution. We must have forgotten on which page.