Life as a Physicist

There are lots of old superstitions - some of them we still live our lives by. Running a large experiment like D0 is no different. For example, there are a set of ducks along the console - the rumor is if they aren’t there then the whole system will cease to operate. I don’t think anyone has been brave enough to remove them…

I pulled the following quote from a recent shift report:

Beam was nice for a while.  Then while talking to Bill Lee about losing the beam, we lost the beam, thereby illustrating Bill’s spooky powers in the control room.

Bill has long been making our control room run smoothly, and should know the lesson: don’t talk about loosing the beam! You’ll jinx it!! [Technical reason: apparently an important power supply went out of allowed operating range].