FAQ: Aren't there a lot of guys in physics?

While I could be literal and start quoting statistics on the tiny fraction of the world's population that studies physics, normally when people address this question to me it means "aren't there a lot more guys than girls in physics"? So to answer the typically implied question: yes, like mathematics, computer science, chemistry, and most engineering colleges, ladies in the field of physics tend to be rather drastically out-numbered by their male colleagues.

How drastically out-numbered depends. In most of my time studying physics, my programs ran between 20% and 25% female. That puts the fraction of women higher in physics than in many computer science and mechanical engineering departments, but lower than that of many civil engineering ones. It can also vary depending on which disciplines are included in the physics department. Astronomy tends to have a higher percentage of women than the rest of the physics disciplines, so a department that combines physics and astronomy will have higher numbers than a department that doesn't. In my experience, particle physics and CERN seem to follow the average; I spend my work days in an office space with two girls and five guys.

No, it doesn't bother me. As a fourth-year grad student, I have been working in this sort of environment for well over seven years now. It's normal. Yes, the guys are typically geeks, but I played Magic: The Gathering in high school and used WarCraftIII to celebrate making through each finals week, so the geekiness doesn't bother me. I have always found the guys I work with to be very gentlemanly, if in a shy, slightly oblivious sort of way. I've had them spend hours helping me get code debugged or derivations finished when I was stuck on various problems. They care, even if they would never say so.

That being said, please realize the corollary of the numbers I cited earlier. If only 20% of my group is female, the other 80% is male, and those would be who I've associated with for the past seven years. I talk with guys, work with guys, and befriend guys. Therefore, it probably isn't a safe assumption that any time a guy's name pops out of my mouth, said guy is being evaluated as potential boyfriend material, and I'd rather not be questioned like he is.

Please. I'm a geek, too, capable of throwing together python scripts, opening cans sans can-opener and other geek-powers, and that sort of talk kind of weirds me out.

Computing picture from ladygeek.org.uk; the can of pumpkin is my own.

Probably a bad sign . . .

It is probably a bad sign when the same security guard is on duty when you leave the lab at night as when you come back the next morning.

Yea, that happened to me on Friday. It's been a busy, busy week.

Busy three weeks, to be honest, and it will probably continue up until Christmas vacation has begun and I can safely ignore emails. Everyone is trying to get projects done before Christmas, so they can begin the collaboration review process and have results ready to present at conferences next January and February. It makes for very, very long meetings, and lots of quality time spent tweaking plots.

But, with an internet connection, it is always possible to take a few moments and mentally check out, preventing any violence that might get directed at Powerpoint/ROOT/the research scientist who just signed you up to give a talk in two days. My personal favorite mental time-out is webcomics. There are several I've read or follow (PhD, Not Invented Here, among others) but my favorite is definitely Sheldon. It's about a ten-year-old, who wrote an amazing computer program that sold like mad, making him suddenly the owner of a multi-million dollar company.

And, he's ten.

It only gets wackier from there. So next time you need a mental break and have a few minutes (and the fortitude to keep it to only a few minutes), I would offer you the chance to go visit with Sheldon and Gramps and Dante and Arthur. Enjoy!


Images taken from www.sheldoncomics.com and www.theseofficepranks.com.

A Bientot to Protons

October has bid us farewell and November is with us, and this means the LHC has reached the end of its proton physics program for the year. The Large Hadron Collider can collide more than one type of hadron, and its engineers are now working on setting the machine up for its second type, lead ions. There will be lead ion collisions for a month or so, and then the machine will shut down for its winter break.

The machines will shut down, and the people who work on them will swarm them repairing and testing and tweaking everything in sight. The physics will recommence around February of next year or so, whenever everything is ready to go once more. Of course, for the entire time, we the physics people will be pouring over our data, processing and running and debugging everything in sight.

The leaves have begun to dump their leaves in earnest in honor of the occasion, which has revealed something rather shocking to me. There are Christmas decorations sprouting around town.

. . .

It is the beginning of November.

. . .

Ah yes, they don't have Thanksgiving to distract them here.

Chocolate for One: Hot Chocolate

Happy Halloween, everyone!

I love Halloween. I love the chance to dress up in costumes that I would never wear the rest of the year, I love the chance to eat chocolate candies, and I love pumpkins and pumpkin cookies. In years past, I would celebrate by attempting to make a pumkin cake shaped like a ghost, which I would try to cover with a fondant sheet, which would fall apart under its own weight and leave fondant and frosting and crumbs plastered across my kitchen floor, and then I would give up and head out to a Halloween party to dance the night away.

Now, while France is aware of Halloween, it isn't really celebrated around here, and those of us who do want to celebrate the holiday need to make it work as best we can and just ignore the funny looks if we end up wearing our costumes on the trams. I found a Halloween party to attend, but this party lacked both chocolate and pumpkin baked goods. The lack of pumpkin I can almost forgive, but not the lack of chocolate. Not in Switzerland. Unforgivable. So I woke up today needing to right this wrong and seriously craving chocolate.

And this is why this post is headed by a picture that has nothing to do with Halloween. Allow me to introduce my favorite way to address chocolate cravings for most of the year: hot chocolate.

The Swiss Bank Account

"Swiss Bank Account" . . . the phrase evokes spy stories with a 1950s flavor for me, with crime lords and intricate plots and crazy scientific gadgets. There is a bit of a mystique about them and the people who have them, shadowy figures with rich lifestyles and fortunes that no one is quite sure the size of.

That is, shadowy rich figures and everyone at CERN, though no one really cares about the size of our "fortunes". CERN's administration operates through Switzerland, and so we the CERN users all have to open a Swiss bank account (which is actually a bit tricky, as the IRS has been at odds with at least one Swiss bank lately, and so they don't care to work with Americans right now). The accounts lose much of their mystique when you actually have one yourself. Whatever the appeal may have been for all those mega-rich, shadowy figures in the 50s, I'm not seeing it on my end. Take, for example, the necessary procedure for me to check my account balance online, as I have an account intended for online access:

1. Go to my financial institution's website. Easy enough--it does have an English version.
2. Enter an account number (for my computing account with them, not my bank account) and a password, which is another number.
3. The website will produce another, ten digit number.
4. Insert debit card into the little card reader (shown above). Punch in number from website.
5. Enter pin number into little card reader. Press OK.
*Note: you need to do all this fairly quickly, before either website or card reader times out and makes you start over again.
6. Card reader will produce another number, which you then type into the website so you can finally access your account information.

Yup, that would be a total of five numbers to move around. The Swiss take their banking privacy and security very seriously, on behalf of their customers.

A Curseless Cake

I love to make cakes, and will spend time perusing cookbooks for ideas and planning out how I would assemble some of those intricate constructs myself. However, I know from much sad experience that in making a fancy cake something always goes wrong. The caramel burns, using up the last of your sugar. The whipped cream refuses to set up. The layers slide during transit, leaving you with the smashed ruins of a cake upon arrival. The top of the cake bumps the shelf in your fridge, and all your carefully piped decorations stay behind when you take the cake out. You inhale half a pound of powdered sugar in the process of making frosting and give yourself a sugar migraine for the rest of the day.

In particular, I attempted to make a cake at the beginning of September that gave me more than half of the above issues. My kitchen looked like someone had detonated a bomb filled with chocolate shavings in it. It took me forever to get my refrigerator clean again.

FAQ: How do I take a tour of CERN?

If you should chance to be wandering through the area and want to do a little sight-seeing, I recommend coming to CERN. To be blunt, there aren't that many other things I can recommend in Geneva, but CERN is still worth it and not just for the lack of competition. There are three ways to come:

1. Just show up at Entrance B. There is a reception building open from about 9 to 5 six days a week, which houses a free museum. You can learn about the history of CERN, the basics of particle physics, what puzzles remain and how CERN is working on them, how the LHC works, what experiments and detectors are involved, and about the phenomenal effort involved in gathering enough computing resources to handle all the data (the internet was to some extent invented here, and CERN is proud of it). You can also walk across the street to the Globe, which houses traveling exhibitions and other special events, and is also free.

2. You can book a tour. There are tours open for individuals on Wednesdays and Fridays, and groups can book tours in advance, although CERN recommends booking a group tour approximately two months in advance, more during peak tourist season. I have never actually taken such a tour; when I first arrived, I was given a much more practical introduction ("this is the cafeteria, and this is the users' office where you'll get your ID badge, and this is the building where you will work and attend most meetings, except for the ones clear on the other side of campus, and this is your desk"). Still, I know the tours visit a bit more of CERN than just the microcosm and the globe, and will include visits to experiments and accelerators depending on availability. I know because there are always groups peering through the windows at the back of the control room and trying to take pictures through the glass while I'm on shift.

3. You can try to find someone who works there to get you a day-pass and take you around the site. This is going to give you a very different picture, because like I said, we get a very practical
introduction to the lab.

Alternate title for post: What is that funny, Death-Star-esque globe thing? Is that the accelerator?

Nope, that's the globe of science and innovation, and a pretty convenient land-mark for the Meyrin - St. Genis-Pouilly area.