Visit to Shangai

Many things have happened in the last few weeks, including the Centenary of General Relativity. On November 25th, I wanted to write a post on this event, but I couldn't because I was visiting Cosimo Bambi's gravity group at Fudan University in Shangai and, as it is infamously known, Google products (including this webpage) are inaccessible from China. None of the standard workaround really worked for me so, as a part of my Chinese trip, I have experienced how one feels being without access to gmail, google maps, facebook, etc... (it turned out to be not that bad in fact..)

During the visit, we had a mini-workshop with astrophysicists Javier Garcia-Martinez (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), Thomas Dauser (Erlangen-Nuremberg) and Matt Middleton (Cambridge) who are working on different aspects of the electromagnetic emission from accretion disks as a possible way to measure the black-hole spin.

Shangai's skyline as viewed from one of the skyscrapers of Fudan University. The city is simply ENORMOUS..

Recommended by us: Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity postulates explained by a teenager

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Eighteen-year-old student Ryan Chester has just won US$400,000 for this video explaining Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity as part of the inaugural Breakthrough Junior Challenge - an international competition that aims to inspire the next generation of scientists and science communicators. And it’s not hard to see why. If you heard the words, "Einstein’s Special Theory of--" and tuned out because it’s all too hard, we have a feeling Ryan will change your mind.

 Original Sciencealert article here

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TAUP 2015 or On my first international conference

Mr. What and Mr. Why

Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics (TAUP), is an international biennal conference arrived at its XIV edition. It covers topics from cosmology and particle physics, to trans dark matter and neutrino physics and to continue with high energy astrophysics, cosmic rays and gravitational waves. Theoretical perspectives as well as experimental strategies and developments are included.

TAUP is born at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) and we are equal in
age, besides that, because of the biennal frequency, it is a sparkling teenager. About me, well...  I am already a PhD student and I have attended the conference with a nice group of colleagues.