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The unextinguishable beauty of chess June 22, 2007

Posted by dorigo in Art, chess, games, personal.
14 comments

Very sorry to all of you physics geeks, but here comes yet another post about chess. They come in waves, as my love for the game knows moments of high fever alternating dormant periods.

The title of this post refers to the fact that chess positions, unlike most other human activities, allow us to get to the bare, beautiful truth, and the process can at times give an intense satisfaction. Chess is an art, and it is a science, both in its very peculiar way.

A  comment by Derek Slater to my post on the nice queen sacrifice 27.Qc7+!! forced me to analyze the position a while longer. Here is the starting point, after Derek’s proposal of 26. … Nxe5 (instead than the move played in the game, 26….Na7):

Now, says Derek, it seems like white can still play 27.Qc7+ Rxc7 28.Rxc7+ Kd6 29.dxe5+ Bxe5, (more…)

Bet on Higgs @ Tevatron vs LHC! June 22, 2007

Posted by dorigo in games, internet, news, personal, physics, science.
3 comments

Many thanks to Alejandro for pointing me to the following link:

  http://ppx.popsci.com/security/view.php?symbol=BOSON

There, you can buy shares of a bet on which laboratory will announce the Higgs discovery first. Before you run to your wallet, though: we are talking of fake money in a fantasy market.

In any case, it is not totally clear to me how serious this might ever be, even if it were real money that people bet there. I can imagine several instances when the mechanism fails to produce a clear-cut answer:

  1. the Higgs boson might not be found anywhere. Who gets the money ?
  2. a particle could be found at lab X, not claimed to be the Higgs, then found at lab Y, then some theorist could argue the particle found at lab Y is conclusively the Higgs boson. Who gets the money ?
  3. the two labs announce the discovery jointly. Who gets the money ?

 Too unclear to ever put my $$ in a similar bet. I prefer to stay with my 1000$ out against new physics at the LHC. That bet is ruled by a gentleman’s agreement, and there can be no shaded areas.

…But if I were to bet…

I would bet against the Tevatron. Too many things can still go wrong and prevent CDF and D0 from acquiring even the 7/fb of data each which seems totally at reach today. And, even if they do get that much, it would take a lot of luck to see a significant signal.

But those are my two cents, and they are still in my pocket!