The Heavy Ion Physics Program with ATLAS at the LHC

The first Pb+Pb collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrts_NN = 5.52 TeV are imminent. Heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide an extended energy lever arm to the existing measurements made at RHIC and SPS, especially in hard (large-Q^2) processes. In this contribution an overview of the ATLAS detector is given and the current physics focus of Heavy Ion Working Group is discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, prepared for the 23rd Winter Workshop on Nuclear Dynamics, Big Sky, MT, Feb 11-18, 200

American History X, Cinematic Manipulation, and Moral Conversion

American History X (hereafter AHX) has been accused by numerous critics of a morally dangerous cinematic seduction: using stylish cinematography, editing, and sound, the film manipulates the viewer through glamorizing an immoral and hate-filled neo-nazi protagonist. In addition, there’s the disturbing fact that the film seems to accomplish this manipulation through methods commonly grouped under the category of “fascist aesthetics.” More specifically, AHX promotes its neo-nazi hero through the use of several filmic techniques made famous by Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl. Now most critics admit that, in the end, the film claims to denounce racism and attempts to show us the conversion of the protagonist to the path of righteousness, but they complain that nonetheless the film (perhaps unintentionally) ends up implicitly promoting the immoral worldview it rather superficially professes to reject in its final act. This charge of hypocrisy is connected to another worry: the moral conversion in the film is said to fall flat because the intellectual resources on display to support the character’s racism are not counterbalanced by equally explicit (but superior) arguments for the anti-racist position ultimately embraced by the character. In other words, just as the devil is said to get all the good lines in Milton’s Paradise Lost, in AHX the racists get all the arguments. This has been taken to be a morally problematic flaw of the film. Critics lament that Derek’s conversion seems to result not from relevant logical inferences and valid rational argumentation but from overly simplistic and arguably egoistic insights (e.g., “has anything you've done made your life better?”) combined, perhaps, with a hackneyed cliché (in prison, one of his best friends is a black person!) In this paper I’ll attempt to rebut these charges and defend the film as a powerful, and powerfully moral, work of art. I’ll be suggesting that the seductive techniques employed allow for many viewers a degree of sympathy towards the protagonist that is crucial, both for making that character’s more horrific actions especially unsettling, and also for making his eventual conversion plausible and ultimately compelling. I’ll also argue that the manner in which his conversion is presented is in fact subtler than many critics have allowed: Derek’s transformation is not artificial or implausible but is depicted as resulting from a cumulative series of emotionally powerful life events and personal engagements. It is certainly true that it is not represented in the way some would seemingly have preferred, i.e. as straightforwardly resulting from a process of gradual intellectual improvement in Derek’s reasoning on questions of race and politics. However, I’ll argue that the decidedly emotional basis of his moral evolution is both refreshingly realistic and no hindrance to accepting his conversion as rational. Finally, properly understanding the legitimacy of the emotional foundations of much moral thought will also allow us to appreciate the ways in which our initial worries about this film’s (not insignificant) ability to persuade viewers through the engagement of emotions need not, in itself, be seen as a barrier to endorsing the film as a morally praiseworthy work

The Art of the Interface in Mixed Realities: Predessors and Visions

The approach of this paper is broad and historical; it attempts to expand a narrow technical view by looking at historic art media together with contemporary media art. By focusing on recent art against the backdrop of historic developments, it is possible to better analyze and grasp what is really new in media art and, using cornerstones from the history of media of illusion and immersion, it is a material and theoretical contribution to a new, emerging discipline: the science of the image. Where and how does the new genre of virtual art fit into the art history of illusion and immersion in the image, that is, how do older elements continue to live on and influence this contemporary art? What part does this play in the current metamorphosis of the concepts of art and the image

Love and history

In this essay, I argue that a proper understanding of the historicity of love requires an appreciation of the irreplaceability of the beloved. I do this through a consideration of ideas that were first put forward by Robert Kraut in “Love De Re” (1986). I also evaluate Amelie Rorty's criticisms of Kraut's thesis in “The Historicity of Psychological Attitudes: Love is Not Love Which Alters Not When It Alteration Finds” (1986). I argue that Rorty fundamentally misunderstands Kraut's Kripkean analogy, and I go on to criticize her claim that concern over the proper object of love should be best understood as a concern over constancy. This leads me to an elaboration of the distinct senses in which love can be seen as historical. I end with a further defense of the irreplaceability of the beloved and a discussion of the relevance of recent debates over the importance of personal identity for an adequate account of the historical dimension of lov

Moral Status, Speciesism, and Liao’s Genetic Account

This paper offers several criticisms of the account of rightholding laid out in S. Matthew Liao’s recent paper “The Basis of Human Moral Status.” I argue that Liao’s account both does too much and too little: it grants rightholder status to those who may not deserve it, and it does not provide grounds for offering such status to those who arguably do deserve it. Given these troubling aspects of his approach, I encourage Liao to abandon his “physical basis of moral agency” account of moral status and instead adopt a position closer to a traditional “speciesist” view

Elucidating Jet Energy Loss Using Jets: Prospects from ATLAS

Jets at the LHC are expected to provide the testing ground for studying QCD energy loss. In this contribution, we briefly outline the strategy that will be used to measure jets in ATLAS and how we will go about studying energy loss. We describe the utility of measuring the jet $R_{AA}$, the fragmentation function, and heavy flavor jets. Utilizing the collision energy provided by the LHC and the nearly hermetic and highly segmented calorimeter, ATLAS is expected to make important contributions to the understanding of parton energy loss using fully reconstructed jets.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures - To appear in the conference proceedings for Quark Matter 2009, March 30 - April 4, Knoxville, Tennesse

Irreplaceability and Unique Value

This essay begins with a consideration of one way in which animals and persons may be valued as “irreplaceable.” Drawing on both Plato and Pascal, I consider reasons for skepticism regarding the legitimacy of this sort of attachment. While I do not offer a complete defense against such skepticism, I do show that worries here may be overblown due to the conflation of distinct metaphysical and normative concerns. I then go on to clarify what sort of value is at issue in cases of irreplaceable attachment. I characterize “unique value” as the kind of value attributed to a thing when we take that thing to be (theoretically, not just practically) irreplaceable. I then consider the relationship between this sort of value and intrinsic value. After considering the positions of Gowans, Moore, Korsgaard, Frankfurt, and others, I conclude that unique value is best understood not as a variety of intrinsic value but rather as one kind of final value that is grounded in the extrinsic properties of the object