Okay, I admit it. It took me all of last week to recover from the bad news. I spent a lot of the week going to meetings (there were two ATLAS workshops with meetings all day every day), squeezing in some analysis of the data we did get before the accident, and the rest gossiping about the LHC status.
Even being at CERN, it was difficult to get any information on what was going on, so everyone was guessing what happened and what the damage was. First, I heard “a magnet was damaged”, then two, 50, and 100! Obviously, none of the people spreading rumors had any real information since none of these rumors was true. It is strange to have to search the newspapers for an update on what is going on at your workplace.
Anyway, getting back to the emotional recovery…I felt much better after attending a meeting devoted to planning for the next 6 months on Friday. There is clearly a huge amount of work to still do to be ready to take full advantage of the data we get next year. While it would have been better to have some collisions this year, the real first chance for discoveries was always going to be next year, and that doesn’t change now. We just need to be sure we do everything we can before then to be ready. Back to work.
