Gianluca Varisco

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a gigantic scientific instrument near Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France about 100 m underground. It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles – the fundamental building blocks of all things. It will revolutionise our understanding, from the miniscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe.

Two beams of subatomic particles called ‘hadrons’ – either protons or lead ions – will travel in opposite directions inside the circular accelerator, gaining energy with every lap. Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang, by colliding the two beams head-on at very high energy. Teams of physicists from around the world will analyse the particles created in the collisions using special detectors in a number of experiments dedicated to the LHC.

There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions, but what’s for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator, as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe. For decades, the Standard Model of particle physics has served physicists well as a means of understanding the fundamental laws of Nature, but it does not tell the whole story. Only experimental data using the higher energies reached by the LHC can push knowledge forward, challenging those who seek confirmation of established knowledge, and those who dare to dream beyond the paradigm.

Source: http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/LHC-en.html

The first attempt to circulate a beam in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be made on 10 September 2008. Further information are available here.

I got my diploma in Computer Science later this June (final graduation: 78/100): exams went well and I’m quite satisfied about my final results, considered that I spent the whole year doing many (probably too much) things and working part-time for Red Hat. It has been a great year as I also had the great opportunity in February to join the awesome community behind The Fedora Project and been able to work in many fields with a group of very talented and smart people: day by day I’m prouder to be a Fedora Ambassador!

And now? What are my future plans?

This morning I took a (probably unexpected for everyone who knows me) decision: I immediately filled all the paperwork required and paid the first fee: 670 EUR. You can probably already guess what I’m talking about!

Starting in late September, I’ll be a fresher at University of Milan (Faculty of Humanities and Philosophy): As undergraduate degree course (three years long plus two of specialised degree course in European and non-European languages and literatures) I chose Foreign Languages and Literatures.

It has been a decision that I’m very, very proud of! Will be, definitely, a big challenge for myself, but… isn’t a life without challenges worth living?

The term ‘University’ sounds to me also as a good chance to “hire” new Fedora Ambassadors. There are a lot of potential guys that are only waiting a path to follow: I will try to act as a mentor: by training/guiding/teaching, if needed, everyone who would like rather to change the world instead of going along it!

Robert Knoth (dutch photographer) and Antoinette De Jong (journalist) published, in collaboration with GreenPeace, a hearth-breaking reportage about nuclear devastation in Kazakhstan, Belarus, the Urals and Siberia called “Nuclear Nightmares: Twenty Years Since Chernobyl“.

More about the project:

The project has covered four locations in the former Soviet Union where major nuclear accidents or atomic testing have taken place. It shows how millions have to live with the social, environmental and economic consequences and of course with the detrimental effects of these disasters on their health.

Starting in April 2006, at the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl-disaster the project will stress that Chernobyl was by no means exceptional: it was just another example in a series of devastating nuclear accidents that have taken place in the last 45 years in the Former Soviet Union.

The project is very much linked to the current discussion about climate change and the need to secure our energy supply of tomorrow. Nuclear energy is being presented as an alternative to fossil energy sources. Further development of a nuclear industry will prove to be difficult without Russia.

I am shocked beyond belief at the horror and misfortune that the people of those regions have had and continue to endure, but we should try to educate our generation and the ones yet to come in the future. Nuclear power and its proliferation won’t never be “under control”; Will our governments as well muddle on as we are going, accepting a few other deaths in the name of the “greater good”?

• Italian slides created by GreenPeace are available here.

What happen if major Hollywood producers turn their attention to a Creative Commons-licensed artist and his music?

Jamison Young, originally from Australia and now based in Oslo, Norway, did it!

One of his songs was selected for the soundtrack of the movie “The X-Files : I Want To Believe”, which was released worldwide late July. You can go and check out Jamison’s work here.

The song you can hear in the X-Files movie is “Memories Child”.

Great work Jamison, keep up the great work!