Princeton Student Finds Bug In LHC Experiment 243
An anonymous reader writes "A Princeton senior has found a bug in the hardware design for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In the hardware used to record and capture events in the LHC, she discovered errors that were leading to the appearances of double images because of particle streams known as jets. 'Xiaohang Quan '09 was working on her senior thesis when she found a miscalculation in the hardware of the world's largest particle accelerator. Quan, a physics concentrator, traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, last week with physics professors Christopher Tully GS '98, Jim Olsen and Daniel Marlow for the annual meeting of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). This year, however, they also came to discuss Quan's discovery with the designers of the hardware for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, which, as part of the Large Hadron Collider, has the potential to revolutionize particle physics.'"
wha? (Score:4, Funny)
Her last name is "09" and she is a "concentrator?" Who wrote this?
Re:wha? (Score:4, Informative)
Her last name is "09" and she is a "concentrator?" Who wrote this?
It's from a student newspaper. Hence the 09 which refers to her graduation year. Also the concentrator part means that she's concentrating on physics. Some universities call it concentrating on a subject rather than majoring.
A concentrator! (Score:5, Funny)
Some universities call it concentrating on a subject rather than majoring.
That's because years ago, teachers found out most students don't concentrate on anything.
But this girl is definitely the exception, she's obviously concentrating very hard.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I've found thousands of bugs... Why aren't anyone writing stories about me? ;(
Re:A concentrator! (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you found thousands of bugs on billion dollar projects announced by the media as world-sucking black-hole producing machine?
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I have found a handful on the CMS experiment. While the physics and actual hardware is solid, the computer side of it is written a lot by grad students and others without any formal CS training. Bugs pop up.
Re:A concentrator! (Score:5, Insightful)
...the computer side of it is written a lot by grad students and others without any formal CS training. Bugs pop up.
I really don't think that's a valid statement. Bugs pop up in anything, CS trained or not. In fact, some of the best coders I've come across have been untrained.
Arrogance like that is a reason why there are bugs in programs...
Re:A concentrator! (Score:4, Interesting)
Is there a way for experienced coders to volunteer to help?
Re:A concentrator! (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree that Physics is probably the hardest of the Sciences (unless you class Math as a science rather than as it's own area of study). I also agree physicists are almost certainly intelligent enough to learn to be great programmers.
The problem is that a lot of physicists I've met don't want to be programmers or don't have time to learn to be good programmers on top of everything else. They want to use computers to help them solve problems but they don't want the hassle of dealing with memory allocation and all that.
Just as many great physicists have required the assistance of great mathematicians through the years, I think the dawn of computing does bring a place for computer scientists to work alongside physicists.
It's also worth pointing out it's not just about writing effective code, it's about writing zero/low defect code, efficient code, possibly even maintainable and reusable code. A physicist may be able to learn what's needed to solve his problem, but if his problem is one that with his solution may take weeks on the university computing cluster then it makes much more sense for him to work with a computer scientist who may be able to tweak/re-write his program to solve it in days or even hours instead.
Computer scientists are important to science not because they can necessarily contribute directly to science itself, but because they have invested the time, likely years and years into learning how to use computers in the best way possible, sure a physicist can learn to use and manipulate them, but there's no way on top of their own discipline they can learn the ins and outs a computer scientist does.
Mathematicians, Computer Scientists, Physicists, all have their place and all augment each other well, none are as effective alone as they could be with others. Even Steven Hawking, arguably our finest living physicist has always had (even before he became so severely disabled) to work with the great mathematicians are Cambridge and computer scientists.
Re:A concentrator! (Score:5, Funny)
Have you found thousands of bugs on billion dollar projects announced by the media as world-sucking black-hole producing machine?
I found some bugs in Tim Geitner's bailout plan, which seems to match the second part of your criteria...
Re:wha? (Score:5, Funny)
What a load of horsecrap. Do you even go to Princeton?
At Princeton, students are labeled by their preferred method of problem-solving.
Some students are "blackboardists" (though this label is being phased out for a more color-neutral label, since some students use whiteboards. Also something about racism. "Vertical writing surfacist" is just unwieldy, I think they'll settle on "writist".) Some students are modelers -- but these tend to be chemists.
This student is a concentrator, a la Feinman.
When asked how Feinman would solve a specific theoretical physics problem, a famous physicist (I can't recall who it was), said, "He'd close his eyes for a minute or two, then write the solution on the blackboard."
At any rate, I'm very surprised a concentrator was able to find a hardware problem. Ususally concentrators don't bother with hardware, since the solution comes directly from their wetware.
Just to note, that there are other types of problem-solvers at Princeton as well, but they are not as common in the Physics department. In the Fine Arts, one finds "Lysergicists", in Liberal Arts one finds "Inhalors". Most dropouts are "Procrastinists", and if one is very luck, you can spot an "Osmosisist" on the green -- you can tell them from others by the fact that they always carry their books on their head.
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Where I come from, they're called potheads.
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You should have left off the Tolkein quote; even I wouldn't have been sure, then...
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Some students are modelers -- but these tend to be chemists.
I thought Psych and CogSci students were more likely to be modelers... at least she claimed it was "modelling". I thought modelling required more clothes and less dancing but what would I know?
Just to note, that there are other types of problem-solvers at Princeton as well, but they are not as common in the Physics department. In the Fine Arts, one finds "Lysergicists", in Liberal Arts one finds "Inhalors". Most dropouts are "Procrastinists", and if one is very luck, you can spot an "Osmosisist" on the green -- you can tell them from others by the fact that they always carry their books on their head.
Pure gold, 10/10.
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whoosh!
did you spend any time at all in higher education? Or was it so long ago that the PC brigade hadn't started making terms like "blackboard" into unwords?
K.
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Feinman? Surely you're joking, Mr Feynamn! Sorry just couldn't resist picking a nit.
Feynamn? Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman! Sorry just couldn't resist picking a nit.
Re:wha? (Score:5, Funny)
That's her model number. She's actually a Japanese Robot.
Re:wha? (Score:5, Informative)
Her last name is "09" and she is a "concentrator?"
That threw me, too. The '09 appears to be standard form for the Princetonian, representing her (expected) graduation year.
Who wrote this?
Tasnim Shamma
Personal Info
* Degree: A.B. in English, IPS in Journalism
* Hometown: Jamaica, NY
* Contact Email: tasnim.shamma@gmail.com
Personal Bio
Princeton '11, Brooklyn Technical High School '07, Daily Princetonian news/blog/multimedia staff, Orange Key tour guide, Daily Princetonian Class of 2001 Summer Journalism Program Alum'06/ Program Staff Associate '08 (www.princeton.edu/sjp), Aspiring Reporter (if there are jobs left when I graduate) ;)
Off topic: Miss Quan is cute.
Re:wha? (Score:5, Funny)
Off topic: Miss Quan is cute.
Funny how the site got slashdotted right after your comment appeared.
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It's not just Princeton. Every college publication I've ever seen mentions the grad year after a student's name, at least on first reference.
And she's not bad. But if I understand Chinese naming properly, Quan is her given name, not her surname.
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But if I understand Chinese naming properly, Quan is her given name, not her surname.
That's a good point, except that "Quan" is a surname and "Xiaohang" is a given name. It's a pretty safe assumption that this is the case here, much like assuming the name "Stephanie" is given or the name "Miller" is a family name.
Re:She is hot!! (Score:5, Funny)
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Pity the "anonymous reader" didn't go the extra nine yards and become an invisible writer. Then we'd never have known what a waste of oxygen he was.
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Her last name is "09" and she is a "concentrator?" Who wrote this?
Seven of nine.
Oops. (Score:2)
Guess LHC better get in for a checkup. Like so many major observatories of late, this one is also near-sighted. ^_^
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at this rate someone had better double check the James Web before it takes off for orbit.
If you know what it is (Score:2)
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Great story. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great story. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Great story. (Score:4, Informative)
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but she's certainly not the only undergradute to have made a contribution such as this.
Woah woah woah there. Didn't anyone tell you undergraduates aren't good for anything and undergraduate degrees are only useful to show you can "complete something?" Get with the latest talking points there please.
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"She just made her career, and rightfully so."
Yeah, but is she hawt?
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Incidentally, my girlfriend falls squarely in the category of "hot nerd." They're really hard to find, owing to their tendency to be fairly reclusive. I got lucky with her
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If it smells, it's chemistry, (Score:5, Funny)
if it moves, it's biology. If it doesn't work, it's physics.
Re:If it smells, it's chemistry, (Score:5, Funny)
if it moves, it's biology.
Or gravity.
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Which was the inspiration for my discipline-crossing Zombie Slacker!
Behind her back.. (Score:5, Funny)
They are calling her "Gordon" and are scheming to get her to be the guinea pig in the resonance cascade scenario test.
Re:Behind her back.. (Score:4, Funny)
He is already there
http://www.gotogrado.com/sistema/data/upimages/Gordon_Freeman_Spotted_At_CERN.jpg [gotogrado.com]
Re:Behind her back.. (Score:5, Funny)
Someone actually did [google.com] send him a crowbar.
It's the Universe! (Score:2)
It's quite clear that these issues will never cease. This is simply the result of the Universe preventing a causality paradox. If the LHC were turned on (Let there be light!) then existence as we know it shall cease to exist.
Oh yeah, I went there.
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Job prospects (Score:5, Funny)
I would have to say that this student will not have a problem finding a job after graduation.
CERN: Now Xiaohang, Sherry is going to show you around the place. She can answer any questions you might have about fringe benefits or dress codes or anything and I'll see you back upstairs when you're done, okay? Sherry, take good care of this young lady. She's one of the ten finest minds kin the country.
XIAOHANG: Someday I hope to be two of them.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure that was a design problem.
Not a hardware bug (Score:5, Informative)
A Princeton senior has found a bug in the hardware design for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The bug was in the algorithm analyzing at the data from the CMS and not the hardware.
Re:Not a hardware bug (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, not a bug at all. It's a design choice.
The CMS Global Calorimeter Trigger hardware uses a 3*3 sliding window algorithm to find local maxima (jets) in the calorimeter regions. These 3*3 windows can partially overlap, meaning some energy is double-counted. Having a small amount of double-counted energy has no real consequence on the validity of the triggering, but does greatly simplify the firmware.
God made women to debug (Score:2)
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I believe finding and removing bugs from their offspring's fur has been a longstanding job for mothers.
Re:God made women to debug (Score:5, Funny)
I've seen this happen too much professionally to think of it as a trend.
I've seen this sort of anecdotal nonsense too much on Slashdot to think of it as statistically significant.
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Oh, and judging from my wife, they're not really good at debugging, they just take great pleasure in pointing out mistakes made by men...
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So, she's more of a play tester.
Eliminate bugs BEFORE the experiment: +1, Helpful (Score:3, Funny)
via hardware verification with ACL2 [utexas.edu].
I hope this helps the LHC Experiment so it doesn't cause
a black hole to destroy THE UNIVERSE.
Yours In Physics,
Kilgore Trout
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sorry to be the one to tell you that there's already black holes slowly destroying THE UNIVERSE. They're going to the whole thing eventually; there's a giant one busily destroying THE GALAXY right now. Maybe you're more concerned with the microscopically small part of THE UNIVERSE that is necessary to sustain your own life?
Yours in Pedantry,
Ekhben
This is awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
They have a discussion like adults, they look at the math, one side is correct and they correct their experiment and thank them for the contribution.
This is what the world is supposed to be like. Not like these fucking religois nutjobs, screaming at each other, arguning who has the cooler imaginary friend, without having even a halfway decent argument. They're just like "You're stupid!". "No, you are!". "No you!"
Science for the fucking win!
Re:This is awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
Smart people think of ways to understand the world better, other smart people review it, find errors and discuss their finding with other scientists.
Absolutely. I'd be curious to know whether anything like this has ever happened in the world of Intelligent Design or any other theological science disciplines. "Regent University Senior find new method by which God created the universe!"
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't know about ID, but if you want a cleric and a scientist, try St. Albert the Great [newadvent.org]
Before my last move I attended a Catholic church named after him. The quote up on the wall was 'Use all the wisdom of man to delve the mysteries of God'
I expect he would be really excited about the LHC if he was alive today.
Re:This is awesome (Score:4, Interesting)
Absolutely. I'd be curious to know whether anything like this has ever happened in the world of Intelligent Design or any other theological science disciplines. "Regent University Senior find new method by which God created the universe!"
Actually ancient Indian spiritual literature is filled with accounts of various spiritual leaders debating each other. Often times, if one lost the debate they'd have to study under their victor. It was during this era that one of the world's great international universities, Nalanda [wikipedia.org], was created. Later it was burned to the ground by invading Muslims.
Re:This is awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup. Scientists never argue or deride the work of their colleagues without merit. Never.
In case you missed it, I'm being facetious. Irrational disagreements and other immature behavior are a human problem. The scientific community is no less guilty of this than anyone else.
Re:This is awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yes, but in said community counterarguments like "Here's the math and it works out, while your doesn't due to this counterexample!" work. Try that with the religious nutjobs.
That doesn't happen as often as you'd think it does though. Depending on the field, a lot of the arguments revolve around details of the data analysis which can be somewhat subjective.
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It's called philosophy. If the logic doesn't fit then your belief is in indefensible. The problem is most religious people have no foundation in philosophy beyond the philosohpy that's barely required to spread their religion.
The real problem is religion is all known religions are rapidly falling out of sync with our understanding of the universe. Far Far quicker than we're learning new things. Where the religious authorities used to have centuries or millenia to compensate for new discoveries the mod
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Scientists never [...] deride the work of their colleagues without merit.
I thought science was exactly about deriding the work of your merit-less colleagues :)
Re:This is awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
It takes a high degree of personal humility to be open-minded. Particularly when you have a vested interest in a particular outcome, (beit relgious, scientific, political, etc...) many people to greater or lessor extents need to actively pursue impartiality. There are many spheres of life such as politics, sports, business, science, etc. where you find members of those communities not engaging in meaninful dialogue, because they have a vested interest in a particular ideology or theory or methodology.
I have been in lectures where Ph.D.'s would not intellegently debate and discuss a particular set of data or therom contradictory of their own research/worldview. In some scientific fields there are positions you can take that will effectively kill your chances at a tenure-track faculty position; even if you are taken to those positions by the data against your will.
On the other hand I've been in discussions of a religious or political nature where those in discussion where members were looking for insight from other members; including those who were diametrically opposed, because they recognized that they didn't have it all figured out and they'd either be convinced of an alternate or affirmed in their existing position. This isn't to say that religious, poltical, business communities are better or more open minded, or anything to that effect, just that your generalization simply isn't accurate.
Science is great when it is really science. Science is truly lamentable when the theory trumps the data because the theorizer has far too much to lose if the theory is disproven or radically challenged; and broken theories are taught as immutable truth.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Implications for discovery of new particle. (Score:5, Funny)
Bush also found an error in Fermilab calculations (Score:5, Funny)
Carter at Three Mile Island (Score:2)
It's little-known that Bush also found some critical errors in Fermilab calculations [theonion.com].
Oh but seriously, Jimmy Carter [pbs.org]'s background as a nuclear physicist and engineer became somewhat useful during the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor partial-meltdown [history.com].
On April 1, President Jimmy Carter arrived at Three Mile Island to inspect the plant. Carter, a trained nuclear engineer, had helped dismantle a damaged Canadian nuclear reactor while serving in the U.S. Navy.
That Onion story also reminded me of this SNL sketch [hulu.com]
young physicists (Score:4, Informative)
"If you haven't done anything in physics by the time you're 21, you never will."
I've been told this quote comes from Heisenberg, and at the time I heard it, I thought it was a load of crap. However, the idea is correct. If you want to be a physicist, you have to be able and willing to jump into research right at the beginning (as an undergraduate), or you'll probably never do real research. Of course, most undergraduates don't end up finding bugs in code which has been checked by dozens of postdocs and grad students.
Re:Public Spin (Score:5, Informative)
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Once again: my buddy got shot by one of those high velocity armour piercing rounds; it went straight through him, hardly any damage at all. So there's no chance at all anyone'd be hurt by one of those namby-pamby pistol rounds. They'd probably bounce right off or something.
Did he also get shot at billions of times per second for 4.5 billion years?
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Sorry, I meant to say 'NOT representative', the mistake in doing that is, of course, representative, therefore, I was correct either way. Ha! Next, I shall go on to prove black is white.
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As an American liberal democrat atheist gay, I should say that even most of the people who aren't as awesome as me aren't as dumb as you make them out to be.
Now excuse me, I have to get back to my Truckosaurus. Yeehaw. That guy with the mullet is hot.
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As an American liberal democrat atheist gay, I should say that even most of the people who aren't as awesome as me aren't as dumb as you make them out to be.
Nowhere did I indicate that even most 'liberal democrat atheist gays' are all, or even mostly, smart. I'm just saying the people on the other side of that equation ARE generally dumb. And I'm not saying it's their fault, even. Inbreeding will generally do that. :)
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No wonder physics is phucked in the phucking head, their goddamned bug fixes are "revolutions"
Only to a reporter that uses emoticons in her professional bio.
[Quan's thesis advisor] added that Quan's contribution was "not atypical." "Improvements to the algorithms are part of a normal process of scientific investigation that serve to improve the performance of the detectors," Tully explained. "It is this kind of work that constantly perfects the capabilities of the LHC experiments to do the best physics they can, and is business as usual for the physicists."
Mind you, it's a damned impressive contribution for a college senior. Miss Quan has opened a lot of doors for herself with this, I suspect.
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The article says that the Compact Muon Solenoid as part of the LHC has the potential to revolutionize physics, it did not say that the bug fix was a revolution.
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Humans have been breathing for thousands of years, but nobody has ever yet simultaneously breathed and thought about twelve thousand four hundred and ninety-six books about fruit all connected together by friendship bracelets.
I had to hold my breath while writing about that just now in order to be able to think about it without risking the entire universe imploding into a singularity.
Let me know if you manage to think about it and breathe at the same time. If we can get away with that, I think we can safely
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That guy at Tunguska already showed the effects weren't that that serious.
Re:they should not turn it on (Score:4, Insightful)
until enough people / scientists are SURE nothing bad will happen.
The only way to know that is if they know exactly what will happen. And if you know exactly what will happen, what's the point?
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If I flip a coin, I don't know if it will land on heads or tails.
They can land on their edges, too. Also, how did you come to that conclusion, without somebody trying it first?
Look at it this way ... (Score:2)
Unfortunately there is always the nagging possibility that tiny black holes will fail to devour us all ... but that's a risk that can probably be insured. So you can't lose, right?
Re:they should not turn it on (Score:5, Informative)
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It all depends on where you work.
I've seen businesses make decisions on thousands of lines of code in meetings after meetings, where they don't actually bring a computer, nor a line of code in. They theorize. They ponder. They wonder. They question. Then they come out of the meeting, and tell the developer how he screwed up. The theory and the reality very rarely coincide.
I like to throw them, by giving them a dozen different yet plausible theories as quick
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Yep, the universe is conducting huge physics experiments, but very VERY far away from where we are, not in the middle of Europe.
The earth is constantly being bombarded with high-energy radiation. Some of that bombardment happens above Europe. The ionosphere is about 50km-1000km away from the earth's surface. What exactly do you mean by very VERY far away?
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Maybe it doesn't turn into a big black hole, but it can explode and/or cause any other tragedy.
More likely is that any power plant you name could explode and cause a tragedy.
I know, let's shut down every single power station in existence!
At least that would have the side effect of downing the internet and we wouldn't have to listen to any more of your nonsensical tripe.
Re:they should not turn it on (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, no more research until we understand everything. Good idea.
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What I said is that more research should be done BEFORE we turn on the LHC. Fermilab is not creating micro-black-holes, but advances in "trapping" the Higgs Boson where made on it 10 days ago.
There is still a lot of knowledge we can get without playing with this big buggy monster, at least until we are sure it's not buggy and that the calculations where right.
You should not post to Slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
until you are SURE you have a better handle on the issues.
Maybe you should wait until you completely understand the basics of physics before you talk about man-made black holes wiping out our solar system?
Re:they should not turn it on (Score:5, Informative)
Also just to make clear that the LHC and CMS are very different things. The LHC is the accelerator and its what makes the particles go very fast. CMS is a detector, it just sits there and records what happens in the collision. CMS is built and designed by a completely different set of people to the LHC. CMS doesnt need the LHC to function and the LHC doesnt need CMS to function but they are a bit pointless without the other.
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There's no call for labeling scientists 'arrogant' simply because you lack belief in their silly superstitions about 'logic' and 'reason'.
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You haven't been to a farm lately, have you? There's some definate biology there. Usually enough to make you wonder how people eat meat.
(footnote: I am an avid carnivore, but farm animals are still dirty nasty things that I wouldn't invite into my house, unless served on a plate)
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There are at least 36 Slashdot comments so far, and not one of them is bitching about Xiaohang going over to America and taking all yer physicist's jobs/university places.
Yeah, unpaid research in Switzerland belongs to Americans, damn it! The INS should look into this "CERN" outfit.
Re:Har har... (Score:5, Funny)