Summer CMS Week is always a big event: The summer has started and most people are able to get to CERN and participate in the event. I barely made it out of Boston; I had to decide last moment because of all the other ongoing travel, but I am very glad I made it because it was as usual a great opportunity to meet with colleagues and see what everybody is up to. We made some good connections talking with people about our CERN A2rchi plans and rallying the Brown and MIT undergraduates at CERN for their projects.
The Obligatory dinner at Luigia’s was of course not missing. In fact I went twice, once with the UROP students and once with Markus, Aram, Jan and Valentina. It was as usual a wonderful time.
This time CMS week really fully started on Tuesday afternoon (Monday was Whit Monday and thus a holiday) with the plenary session and it was interesting to hear the different approaches from the management team about our data analysis status … ATLAS had jumped ahead in the di-Higgs searches which had a few people in CMS concerned. Concern is always good as long as it is used in a way to motivate the troops to catch up. Check out the slides of the various presentations, maybe most importantly by the outgoing physics coordinator (Roberto Salerno).
Highlight of the session though must have been the unpacking of the Breakthrough prize of the Year awarded to the CMS Collaboration (24:22) during the spokespersons talk. Lothar and I were watching from the peanut gallery and took photos. What a high honor, congrats everybody!
Another highlight was Mark Thomson who came to visit the collaboration and gave us really a short message: LHC/HL-LHC are the highest priority and next the FCC. It was delightful to hear this and there was ample time for questions. Nothing too unexpected but the main message for me was that Mark Thomson the Director General designate—not elect as he pointed out to me when we met on the stairs in front of the main auditorium—has his mind and heart in the right place. Let’s hope we can pull this off together.
Finally, I also enjoyed my classical early CERN breakfast in the R1 spot, right where one might be able to see the Mont Blanc, if there were no mist. CERN breakfast is by now a ritual for me which started August 28, 1992.
