Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Solution Geneva

When Samantha landed in Geneva, she was greeted by Jacques Luc-Paul at the baggage terminal. Jacques greeted her in the customary European way, which made Sam nervous every time.
"Greetings. Welcome to Geneva," said Jacques.
"_Merci_," said Sam. "_Comment ça va_?"
"_Bien merci_," said Jacques. "I trust your flight was not too stressful?"
"_Pas mal_," said Sam. "I am very tired, however."
"No trouble at all," said Jacques. "We are very happy to have you come to CERN to help us with some of the problems we are having. We are very close to reopening the collider and we want to avoid any unpleasant situations."
"Unpleasant?" asked Samantha. "The last time you had an accident, the collider closed for more than a year."
"Ach, yes, that is true," said Jacques. "But we will discuss it later. You are tired. Which _hôtel_ are you staying in?"
"The _Tarhôtel Genève_," said Sam.
"_Bon_," said Jacques.
Sam reached to grab one of her suitcases and Jacques leaned in to pick it up for her. "You have more?" he asked.
"I can manage," she said and grabbed her suitcase. She saw a second suitcase and grabbed it with some difficulty.
Jacques walked with her to the Unireso ticket station and they each got a metro pass.
"Bus 57?" asked Sam.
"Ah, yes," said Jacques. "But you can drop your baggage at your _hôtel_ and rest if you like."
"No, I'll be fine. It's only 8 o'clock in the morning. I slept on the plane."
"Very well," Jacques said and they walked to the bus stop.
"Tell me about the problems you are having?" asked Sam.
"We call them 'challenges'," said Jacques.
"Yes, tell me about your challenges," said Sam.
"We are having some troubles explaining some anomalies with the measuring equipment," said Jacques.
"The Swiss clocks are wrong?" joke Sam.
"No, no, no. Jacques smiled. "The Swiss clocks _son parfait_!"
"I know. So you are not going to repeat the mistakes that Didier made with the speed of light again?"
"Oh no, no," said Jacques. The bus arrived and they boarded. Samantha refused to get help from Jacques and held up the queue of passengers as she struggled with her bags.
When they were seated, Jacques continued, "No, Didier has not been involved. It was a disaster and embarrassment obviously when we could not calculate the speed of light correctly. No, this problem is a bit more strange. We have tried to calibrate our measuring devices several times and each time we do so the clocks on both sides of the collider are changing together."
"How do you think this is happening?" asked Sam.
"In the email I sent you last month, I detailed some of the results we have seen."
"I know. I have been running some tests in my lab. But I'm asking you what you think the problem is so that I can determine what you are, and are not, looking at."
Jacques sat back in his seat. "You _Americaines_ are always a bit pushy," he said. "But I agree. We need some outsider views on this problem if we are to make progress."
"It helps that I'm fat and ugly," said Sam.
"You are not _laid_," said Jacques, familiar with her routine. "No, we are sure that the problem lies with the software that calculates the measurements we get from the sensors. We know for sure that the clocks are correct, the measurements are correct to the micrometre, and the speeds and geometry of the collider are completely correct."

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