we'll always be (advanced) students

What is an advanced studies institute? What do you expect from this?

There are a variety of flavours in nuclear and astro conferences. In one end - at least in nuclear physics - there are the DNP meetings in the USA (Division of Nuclear Physics). Mega-church style reunions where everybody shows up, and every grad student who has shown a bit of hope of some day finishing and defending a dissertation gets their 10 min talk in one of the many parallel sessions, and where naive undergad students are lured into the field by the promise of free coffee, cookies, and a poster display. From then on the conferences get smaller, the range of topics more narrow, you have less speakers, and more participants are sent to the poster sessions in exile. At some point the thing becomes a workshop or a summer school, and the emphasis no longer is on showing off the latest results, but on transfer of knowledge or on debating open problems. In my imagination this advanced study institute would be closer to the latest group, as I think it's also stated in the PASI webpage.

Without any intent of cheap covert advertisement, the most fruitful summer school/workshops I've attended were part of the so called "tools and toys" series of JINA (the joint institute of nuclear astrophysics www.jinaweb.org). The first, about nuclear reaction networks, was held in the University of Notre Dame many years ago, and the second was about nuclear masses in Argonne Lab, near the windy city. Both had a similar format: two weeks, only two or three lecturers, about 25-30 participants, the morning dedicated to lectures, and most afternoons to homework. The lectures were great, and so were the first couple of sessions of the homework.... then disaster stroke!

Soon we realized there was not much control on our homework, self motivation being the guiding principle... and the afternoons mutated in long futbol or frisbee games in the sun. At least we were decent enough to wait until the dusk to head for Coronas at the mexican bar on the edge of ND campus. And let me tell you, the gardens of Argonne National Lab are not the most suitable place for recreatinal activities. In the conditions we are today the lure of a sandy futbol game and a splash in the Atlantico could be catastrophic! My advice to the conference organizers, even if unpopular: rule with an iron fist, and give us some treats. For example, I've herad rumors that students in the loooong Trento summer school this year were awarded grappa bottles to celebrate their hard work... a bottle of popoKelvis or some other local cachaca would do wonders ;) Probably also just following up in whatever are the task the working groups have prepared for us. Those are my two cents.

Anyway, what do you expect of our advanced studies this next two weeks? And what about the level, has it been "advanced undergraduate"? There were a few talks that already in the first slide presented some concepts I had absolutely no clue about, and I'm a postdoc! A very fresh postdoc... but at postdoc indeed.


PS: I'm collecting donations to go to the nearest supermarket and buy a futbol ball; and a big container of sunscreen with the leftovers.

PS2: with this post I emptied the stock of long blogs written in the longer flight from Darmstadt. Only readable paragraph-long entries from now on!