Physicist, motorcyclist, bagpiper, marathon runner, blogger, open access editor. Horace Hearne Chair in Theoretical Physics at the Louisiana State University.
Baton Rouge, LA
Joined July 2009
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We started building a weighted stack today. This is a dummy structure that takes the place of the active internal seismic isolation system during testing when the suspensions are hung in the test stand in the lab. @LIGOLA
I had a model made from my GPS coordinates of the Petra climb. Race ran clockwise. #petramarathon
We are going to have to vent the vacuum system in a couple of places for repairs. Today it was vent prep, and I was involved in one of its most glamorous aspects. @LIGOLA
Mi niece Viole got mentioned in the competition organized by my alma mater @IBalseiro
A friend of mine sends me this picture he took of me in Vienna in 1996. The "Subject:" line of his email: "The Kaiser and The King" 😀
I moved into a new office and created a museum of technology. If you zoom in you can read the stories of the devices. Up left, a cartoon magazine I used to read as a kid. In addition to cartoons it included plans for telescopes, rockets and electronic circuits.
You can read it here,
ahira.com.ar/revistas/lupin/…
Up in the middle, my id card of when I was a baby. At the bottom, where the signature is supposed to go, it says "he does not sign yet".
When faced with the last few miles of the Petra race, the two runners next to me and I said almost in unison "you've got to be kidding me"...
The quest for the seven continents continues! Finished the Petra (Jordan) ultra half 25k in 5h20m. Tough race. Still jet lagged, 35C in the blazing desert sun and a vertical gain of 700m in the last few miles. Fifth half marathon in fifth continent. Australia and Antarctica, here we come!
Cleaning the office, I found this reflection by a student in an old exam I gave during my years at PennState.
Note: a lot of people used to make fun of the degree in turfgrass management as "dumb" or "mowing the lawn". In reality it represents a highly developed $200B industry in the US.
The Y arm valves were opened and LIGO Livingston @LIGOLA enters the commissioning phase for the next observing run. I couldn't find a picture of the Y arm valves, so here's a picture of me inside the Y-end 😀
220 years ago the British ship Justina was shelling Buenos Aires in an attempted invasion. Then the river dropped and Martin Miguel de Güemes (allegedly) with 60 gauchos charged the ship on horseback and took it. The British flag is still in Buenos Aires. Apparently it is the second time cavalry took a ship, the first was a frozen one in Netherlands that the French Hussars took a dozen years earlier.
