Ciao! I just returned to CERN from a few days in Milan. It was a very productive trip (unfortunately that meant I didn’t see much of Milan). I met with two people from Milan and one who came from the US, and we basically sat in a conference room for 3 days working together.
This was a very effective way for us to work because we were able to discuss our long term plans (for the ATLAS MissingET software), and to design and even write some software. We ended by coming up with a plan to carry out the rest of the work.
This trip highlights the positive and negative aspects of the international character of particle physics. It is positive because it brings together the best people from around the world, but it is also negative because it sometimes requires people to travel halfway around the world just to talk together for a few days.
It also reminded me that even in the modern interconnected world where everyone is a phone call or email away, there are certain advantages to meeting in person. One of the big advantages is that it is hard for someone you are talking to to be too distracted by other things. A meeting like this forces a focus that is really useful.
