A perfectly workable unit

I'd like to introduce a new unit to the already rather colourful list of physics units (what do I mean, colourful? Well, what sort of a unit do call an 'inverse femtobarns'?) - the unit of 'big things to come'. It permeates my to-do list and determines absences, presences and social engagements. Last year's 'big things to come' were several orders of magnitude more abundant than those of previous years (though it never feels like nearing zero) - there were colliders to start back up, first collisions at various energies, anniversary celebrations, open days, First Physics days, exhibitions and finally an important political visit paired with a huge celebration. Now, amazingly, this is all over and it is time to cross done to-dos off the list and face the next big thing to come. For me, that is ICHEP.

I am not nearly as busy preparing for as some of my colleagues are, but it is there on the horizon as a week in Paris that might bring interesting developments for the ILC, maybe exciting news from LHC experiments, and definitely new shores in terms of particle physics communication. We'll tell you more about those later...