Hadron Collider Physics Summer School

So I've been overwhelmed with information for the past couple of days at the CERN-FermiLab Hadron Collider Physics Summer School. We have up to 5 lectures a day, each an hour long with 15 minutes for questions, and there is a lot of material covered in each of them. I've been okay so far on the experimental side of things, since they have been discussing things that I have some experience in - trigger, calorimetry and computing, but I have been getting lost in the Standard Model and QCD lectures.

The day starts at 9am and we have discussion sessions until 9pm, which is very tiring. It is also very unhealthy, since we are given sweets and coffee twice a day and eat lunch and dinner from the cafeteria 20 metres from the lecture room, so we don't move very much. We even get shuttle bused to and from the hotel to the hall on yellow school buses!



Luckily, my hotel has a pool, which I have been using since I have been waking up way too early due to jetlag. We also when for a walk yesterday lunchtime to see the FermiLab bison herd, which is much cooler than the CERN sheep.



Actually, FermiLab has a very different vibe to CERN. It is an hours drive west of Chicago, in the countryside, so there is not much to do close by. The grounds of the laboratory are much larger, though very empty, so instead of buildings everywhere, there is Wilson Hall, then the experimental halls, and empty land - prairie, wetlands and forest. There is less people working here, and you can tell that you are in States and Europe, and not just from the language. Firstly, the whole place is kept at a ridiculously low temperature thanks to the air-conditioning. Secondly, none of the windows in the whole building can be opened, which I guess is part of the design, but still, no fresh air in the whole building is strange. Thirdly, there is an overuse of packaging and polystyrene in the cafeteria. There really is no need for polystyrene bowls and cups when there is real cutlery and plates which need to be washed. It is also very American to have a 15 level building in the middle of what is essentially a field. It has been cool to come out here and see what it is like though.