Can somebody explain me the difference between a tax amnesty and a tax haven?
2012/05/29
2012/04/13
Spanish brain exodus
Spanish economy is not living the bests moments, we have to complain with austerity, understanding the necessary cuts as a need to save to country... Who the hell believes that? Specially when someones are not affected by this cuts: the ones who "decide" this cuts, and the ones who order this deciders to do this cuts.
One of the results of this cuts has been mention in science. In the synchrotron we are not special. Not for the good, neither for the bad. We are only another more in the same case. We only are another example of what's happening.
From the lasts years, many of the workers in this facility left the project to find better work conditions in terms of salaries, conciliation of family live and work, better perspectives in jobs and qualifications. When the perspective is the sadness of your career and the only way to improve is to scape of the country, the result is very bad. Alba is becoming a training camp for other institutes. A non negligible percentage of the workers left the project to go work in other big facilities, when this had not been finished yet, with the consequent lost of knowledge.
Before Easter an important part of the workers of the synchrotron have lived what the last workers statute law modification (badly named labour marker law, a worker is not a product or this "market" word is insulting us). The accelerators group have had unilaterally modified their work conditions. Yes, the management agreed to negotiate this modification with the workers representatives, but it wasn't so real. Also due to that, many internal tensions has been generated and increase the sadness of the workers. And this was for free, because from 2011 the workers representatives were asking to talk about the shifts regulations, the on-call service, and who experiments can cover their support service to the users. Only one of this three aspects have been "fixed" with this "substantial work conditions modification".
But, we don't have real management! We have an acting director and another two open positions in key places: accelerators and experiments division heads! Only service divisions are still having the same head (administration, engineering, and computing). The time have given us more calm and quiet corridors and meetings with the new acting director, but the real issues didn't change so much.
Back to the Spanish situation, with cuts in the very basic columns of a society: I say education and health. Followed by cuts every where else where the 90% of the citizens are with the silly support of 9% of the richness thinking that they can become on the 1% of the sickening richness. But without doing anything to the ones of themselves who steal and embezzle the "poor" resources of this country.
90% of the people have to suffer to maintain the level where the 10% is accustomed. I understand that everyone who can, at any small opportunity, left this country.
One of the results of this cuts has been mention in science. In the synchrotron we are not special. Not for the good, neither for the bad. We are only another more in the same case. We only are another example of what's happening.
From the lasts years, many of the workers in this facility left the project to find better work conditions in terms of salaries, conciliation of family live and work, better perspectives in jobs and qualifications. When the perspective is the sadness of your career and the only way to improve is to scape of the country, the result is very bad. Alba is becoming a training camp for other institutes. A non negligible percentage of the workers left the project to go work in other big facilities, when this had not been finished yet, with the consequent lost of knowledge.
Before Easter an important part of the workers of the synchrotron have lived what the last workers statute law modification (badly named labour marker law, a worker is not a product or this "market" word is insulting us). The accelerators group have had unilaterally modified their work conditions. Yes, the management agreed to negotiate this modification with the workers representatives, but it wasn't so real. Also due to that, many internal tensions has been generated and increase the sadness of the workers. And this was for free, because from 2011 the workers representatives were asking to talk about the shifts regulations, the on-call service, and who experiments can cover their support service to the users. Only one of this three aspects have been "fixed" with this "substantial work conditions modification".
But, we don't have real management! We have an acting director and another two open positions in key places: accelerators and experiments division heads! Only service divisions are still having the same head (administration, engineering, and computing). The time have given us more calm and quiet corridors and meetings with the new acting director, but the real issues didn't change so much.
Back to the Spanish situation, with cuts in the very basic columns of a society: I say education and health. Followed by cuts every where else where the 90% of the citizens are with the silly support of 9% of the richness thinking that they can become on the 1% of the sickening richness. But without doing anything to the ones of themselves who steal and embezzle the "poor" resources of this country.
90% of the people have to suffer to maintain the level where the 10% is accustomed. I understand that everyone who can, at any small opportunity, left this country.
2012/03/06
Linac Coherent Light Source
Is there other, synchrotron like, light sources? Other tools different than a ring accelerator?
The answer is yes: an LCLS.
If I'm not wrong, I understood it's a 12GeV linear accelerator (Alba's linac is 100MeV about 2 orders of magnitude bigger). It looks similar but much more enormous, and it "includes" our rings in it. We go up to 3GeV in the storage, and some beamlines have undulators. But neither our undulators, in the best case, can be as big as they have to produce coherent light like they do.
The answer is yes: an LCLS.
If I'm not wrong, I understood it's a 12GeV linear accelerator (Alba's linac is 100MeV about 2 orders of magnitude bigger). It looks similar but much more enormous, and it "includes" our rings in it. We go up to 3GeV in the storage, and some beamlines have undulators. But neither our undulators, in the best case, can be as big as they have to produce coherent light like they do.
2012/03/02
Without consequences for the guilty
Spain have recently changed the party in the government. The budget deficit have suffer a deviation of ~27 billion euros. The outer government have closed the numbers in the 6% (~64B€), and the inner government says 8.5% (~91B€). Who can this be possible? What the hell have happened with the money?!
Mathematics are an exact science, and it look macro economics doesn't use mathematics (what the hell means creative financing, can I use it with my salary?). If I made a mistake in my domestic economy of around a 2'5% I'll have a problem. And my problem will have consequences for me (only hoping not to my family).
But in the case of the politician-economists, the consequences are not for them. After this calculations they start with cuts. They apply the consequences to somebody else: to the citizens.
In Greece, they organize a rescue in April 2010. The news have said the the Greek doesn't have the skills to manage their country and its democratic government has been deposed and substituted by some technocratic people from the market election: being a marketcracy. But two years after, too much blood, sweat and tears spilt by the citizens: a second rescue has been "necessary".
All the suffer has been in vain. Markets wants more. This wasn't enough! But does this have consequences for the "inventors" of the first rescue? Are they judged due to their fault?
It's easy to do this adjusts, knowing that to fail doesn't have consequences for you. A normal worker of any company will be fired due to an error of a millionth part of this deviation!
In Spain, the last labour reform (check if it's really the last when you read this, there are too many in short times) have reduced the price to fire a worker. The reason? To create more job positions. Even if they look antonymous, it is an insult to see the bankers millionaire compensations when they have failed in their tasks. And the consequence goes to the base of the workers.
When a worker cannot pay the mortgage, all the family suffers a eviction, but this worker cannot pay because s/he has been fired as a consequence of the more powerful person does a mistake. This more powerful person (politician, or a corporation manager) receive an extra prize for the mistake (in the other of M€) when the worker are evicted.
This worker have this heavy debt forever. Being impossible to pay that even if s/he works again. The consequences due to lost the job are enormous. But a budget deviation of billion euros doesn't cause consequences for the ones who did this numbers.
Have we lived over our possibilities? Or the issue when the rich doesn't have enough, and they like to continue living better and better, and having more and more; event if the consequence is that the poor must live (an die) worst?
Mathematics are an exact science, and it look macro economics doesn't use mathematics (what the hell means creative financing, can I use it with my salary?). If I made a mistake in my domestic economy of around a 2'5% I'll have a problem. And my problem will have consequences for me (only hoping not to my family).
But in the case of the politician-economists, the consequences are not for them. After this calculations they start with cuts. They apply the consequences to somebody else: to the citizens.
In Greece, they organize a rescue in April 2010. The news have said the the Greek doesn't have the skills to manage their country and its democratic government has been deposed and substituted by some technocratic people from the market election: being a marketcracy. But two years after, too much blood, sweat and tears spilt by the citizens: a second rescue has been "necessary".
All the suffer has been in vain. Markets wants more. This wasn't enough! But does this have consequences for the "inventors" of the first rescue? Are they judged due to their fault?
It's easy to do this adjusts, knowing that to fail doesn't have consequences for you. A normal worker of any company will be fired due to an error of a millionth part of this deviation!
In Spain, the last labour reform (check if it's really the last when you read this, there are too many in short times) have reduced the price to fire a worker. The reason? To create more job positions. Even if they look antonymous, it is an insult to see the bankers millionaire compensations when they have failed in their tasks. And the consequence goes to the base of the workers.
When a worker cannot pay the mortgage, all the family suffers a eviction, but this worker cannot pay because s/he has been fired as a consequence of the more powerful person does a mistake. This more powerful person (politician, or a corporation manager) receive an extra prize for the mistake (in the other of M€) when the worker are evicted.
This worker have this heavy debt forever. Being impossible to pay that even if s/he works again. The consequences due to lost the job are enormous. But a budget deviation of billion euros doesn't cause consequences for the ones who did this numbers.
Have we lived over our possibilities? Or the issue when the rich doesn't have enough, and they like to continue living better and better, and having more and more; event if the consequence is that the poor must live (an die) worst?
2012/02/20
marketcracy and demodure
Occidental countries when on wars like modern crusades to propagate the democracy. Occident have imposed the democracy to the "retarded" countries. We have imposed by force, what we say it's the best way of government. We have deposed tyrannies to impose democracy by the words of the guns. Replace dictadures by demodures.
But at the same time, when the citizen people are requiring something to the governments, they are not listened. People is illiterate and the enlightened is only in the hand of the government. Event if the people is requiring the things pacifically or by violent protest, the lit have it's tools to quiet the protests.
Markets are forcing countries to suspend the democracies (with casino practices). Now is the market abstraction who talks with our representatives and they translate to the people what have been transmitted to them.
In the marketcracy, we vote to choose the interlocutor to the oracle of the market. And our representatives obeys to its designate justifying the sacrifices that the people must do (not apply it to the representatives or the rich).
In the name of the gods money and debt, we have to kill a virgin worker every hour or they will became angry and the consequences will be worst.
I have to insist, this gods doesn't exist.
But at the same time, when the citizen people are requiring something to the governments, they are not listened. People is illiterate and the enlightened is only in the hand of the government. Event if the people is requiring the things pacifically or by violent protest, the lit have it's tools to quiet the protests.
Markets are forcing countries to suspend the democracies (with casino practices). Now is the market abstraction who talks with our representatives and they translate to the people what have been transmitted to them.
In the marketcracy, we vote to choose the interlocutor to the oracle of the market. And our representatives obeys to its designate justifying the sacrifices that the people must do (not apply it to the representatives or the rich).
In the name of the gods money and debt, we have to kill a virgin worker every hour or they will became angry and the consequences will be worst.
I have to insist, this gods doesn't exist.
2012/02/06
Chasing the higgs
Since December many words has been written about the Higgs search in the high energy physics. Recently I have read in the Spanish translation of the "Scientific American" (called "Investigación y Ciencia") a text (not a peer reviewed article) about the Higgs that I think is specially good for newbies in this field.
Usually the blog who talks about the Higgs often uses many technical words and graphics. Nothing to say about the images drawings like:
In my words (I'm a computer scientist, neither this is peer reviewed!). When you remove everything from a portion of the space to have it in the highest possible vacuum, there is still something there. This vacuum have some entity, a non zero field that fills everything. This field, dramatically can make you think in the idea of the ether, but it's should be completely different.
The standard model have some mathematical transformations (usually named symmetries) who not only gives beauty to the theory, it has many behaviour consequences specially in between the interactions.
Physicist knows very well the fundamental interactions (electromagnetic, nuclear week, and strong, and also the oldest we know even if it's the one we know less about, the gravitation). This forces are a consequence from this mathematical symmetries in the standard model. This explains many properties of the particles, except one "small" detail: the mass.
This symmetries in the model says that the mater particles shouldn't have mass, but we know it's there. Even more, the force carrier particles shouldn't have mass, and in general they hasn't, but the bosons W and Z have mass.
In the 60's, Sheldon Glashow, Steven Wienberg and Abdus Salam (they are 1979 Physics Nobel Price) introduces the Higgs mechanism (proposed 1962 by Philip Warren Anderson and developed in 1964 by three independent groups, in one of them were Peter Higgs). The idea is simple, this field can be imagined like a viscose liquid who fills completely all the space, and the friction on this liquid gives to the particles what we see as mass. The waves made on this liquid when the particles agitates it, are the the higgs particles.
Some particles flow better in this higgs field, and looks like they have a very small mass. Some others have a big interaction and looks like very massive. And there are particles who didn't interact at all with it, being unmassed.
What are high energy physics colliders searching for? It's highly difficult to detect the higgs particles itself, and much more complicate because they decay very fast. But what it's possible to detect are the products of this disintegrations. What the LHC (and its predecessors) is trying to see in the detectors (specially Atlas and CMS) are this subproducts of the disintegration. Even that this events where they appear, are very difficult to detect.
The LEP (LHC predecessor were the tunnel is the same) has set a lower limit in 114GeV and the highest level would be at 800GeV. But with the results published in the 13th of December, this window has been reduces with a trust of the 95%, in two smaller windows. One between 600GeV and 800GeV (but other experimental results may exclude this window). and the most hopped window is between 115GeV and 128GeV (indirect results of the LEP studies also points to this window). Even more, this window have a substantial probability to have the higgs in between 125GeV and 126GeV.
But this doesn't mean that the higgs exist. There is also a probability that the higgs doesn't exist and the excesses detected are statistical fluctuations and systematic errors... This 2012 the analysis will have much more data. Last week there were the LHC performance workshop where has been decided the setup for the collider this year. Beams energy increased to 4TeV (collisions @ 8TeV), bunches separation of 25ns (they were 50ns, means the double of bunches in the beam, with a pile-up effect), and reduced the beta-star parameter to increase the luminosity (from 1m to 60cm).
21th of March will start again the beam operations.
Update 20120213: Some news point to 4 TeV beam (colliding at 8TeV) with 50ns bunch separation and beta-star at 0.6. Not very different that 2011 configuration, but enough to have the 16.5/fb collisions predicted to be enough to find the Higgs.
Usually the blog who talks about the Higgs often uses many technical words and graphics. Nothing to say about the images drawings like:
 |
| From cms web site |
The standard model have some mathematical transformations (usually named symmetries) who not only gives beauty to the theory, it has many behaviour consequences specially in between the interactions.
Physicist knows very well the fundamental interactions (electromagnetic, nuclear week, and strong, and also the oldest we know even if it's the one we know less about, the gravitation). This forces are a consequence from this mathematical symmetries in the standard model. This explains many properties of the particles, except one "small" detail: the mass.
This symmetries in the model says that the mater particles shouldn't have mass, but we know it's there. Even more, the force carrier particles shouldn't have mass, and in general they hasn't, but the bosons W and Z have mass.
In the 60's, Sheldon Glashow, Steven Wienberg and Abdus Salam (they are 1979 Physics Nobel Price) introduces the Higgs mechanism (proposed 1962 by Philip Warren Anderson and developed in 1964 by three independent groups, in one of them were Peter Higgs). The idea is simple, this field can be imagined like a viscose liquid who fills completely all the space, and the friction on this liquid gives to the particles what we see as mass. The waves made on this liquid when the particles agitates it, are the the higgs particles.
Some particles flow better in this higgs field, and looks like they have a very small mass. Some others have a big interaction and looks like very massive. And there are particles who didn't interact at all with it, being unmassed.
What are high energy physics colliders searching for? It's highly difficult to detect the higgs particles itself, and much more complicate because they decay very fast. But what it's possible to detect are the products of this disintegrations. What the LHC (and its predecessors) is trying to see in the detectors (specially Atlas and CMS) are this subproducts of the disintegration. Even that this events where they appear, are very difficult to detect.
The LEP (LHC predecessor were the tunnel is the same) has set a lower limit in 114GeV and the highest level would be at 800GeV. But with the results published in the 13th of December, this window has been reduces with a trust of the 95%, in two smaller windows. One between 600GeV and 800GeV (but other experimental results may exclude this window). and the most hopped window is between 115GeV and 128GeV (indirect results of the LEP studies also points to this window). Even more, this window have a substantial probability to have the higgs in between 125GeV and 126GeV.
But this doesn't mean that the higgs exist. There is also a probability that the higgs doesn't exist and the excesses detected are statistical fluctuations and systematic errors... This 2012 the analysis will have much more data. Last week there were the LHC performance workshop where has been decided the setup for the collider this year. Beams energy increased to 4TeV (collisions @ 8TeV), bunches separation of 25ns (they were 50ns, means the double of bunches in the beam, with a pile-up effect), and reduced the beta-star parameter to increase the luminosity (from 1m to 60cm).
21th of March will start again the beam operations.
Update 20120213: Some news point to 4 TeV beam (colliding at 8TeV) with 50ns bunch separation and beta-star at 0.6. Not very different that 2011 configuration, but enough to have the 16.5/fb collisions predicted to be enough to find the Higgs.
2012/02/02
Work from home or what you like
Today, due to the snow in the vicinity, the loudspeakers in Alba's facility have order an unscheduled shutdown of the machine and its beamlines. All the workers had to left the building to go home. Further information to the workers will be sent by email.
Situation like that had happen the past 8th of March in 2010 (picture taken @ 15:12):
It's not usual to have snow in the area of Barcelona, but the pictures are very similar. I hope we will not live the chaos of 2010. We would had to learn something...
Update 20120203: Finally the snow wasn't chaotic. Even that the photos are very similar, in 2010 the picture has been taken at the time when the storm went to worse. It was the beginning. After 1 hour the storm was harder, and at 2 hour huge transport problems collapse communications.
Yesterday, the picture has been take when, after we saw, the maximum of the precipitation. At midday, the news says that in the afternoon would have something like an storm. But the clouds went throw the sea, with any other problem for the people.
We've been lucky this time. You only know if it's overreacting or underreacting when you look it from the future. But if you have to choose, it's better to decay to overreact than underreact.
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