MEMORIES from the 2007 European School of High-Energy Physics, Třešť, Czech Republic, 19 August – 1 September 2007

Ninety-three regular students coming from twenty-six different countries attended the fifteen School in the new series of the European School of High-energy Physics, which took place in Třešť, from 19 August to 1 September 2007.
In addition, there were 15 Czech listeners. Seven attended the regular discussion sessions and eight attended a special session led by a Czech student who participated in the 2006 School in Sweden.

The School was co-chaired by Rupert Leitner, Charles University and Jiří Hosek, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic who both did a great job as local Directors.

Most of the students took advantage of the transportation organized by the School from Prague to Třešť and back the last day.

The School was hosted in Zamecky Hotel in Třešť (also known as Třešť Castle) a Chateau Hotel ranked among the most popular tourist resorts in the Vysočina Region.
Třešť is situated between Prague and Vienna in a calm environment surrounded by the hills of the Czech-Moravian Heights. Třešť is the birthplace of  J.A. Schumpeter, one of the most influential 20th century economists, the first Austrian Minister of Finance and the father of the Japanese post-war economic miracle, Šimon Partlic, an exceptional Renaissance astronomer and mathematician, František Radkovsky, the first Pilsen diocesan bishop,  and actor Otto Šimánek. The bronze bust of Franz Kafka reminds visitors of the writer’s frequent stays in the town during the years 1900 - 1907.

Hotel Zamecky, (Zamek in Czech means Castle) is a Renaissance Castle built in the 16^th century that together with the adjoining park (15 ha) became the property of the Academy of Science of the Czech Republic in 1984. After ten years of intensive restoration works, the castle was transformed into a conference centre in 1994.
It was entirely reserved for the participants in the School. According to the tradition of the School, the students were sharing twin rooms, mixing nationalities and in particular Eastern students with Western ones.
The lectures were held in a conference room located on the first floor. Tea, coffee and cookies were served in a nice area just in front of the restaurant, and smaller rooms were used for the discussion sessions.
Tatyana and Danielle were omnipresent in the School Secretariat located next to the lecture room. They are very grateful to Zdenka Broklova from Charles University for her efficient and kind support.  During the whole School Zdenka not only was a great help to the Organizers but also assisted the Students in particular acting as the go-between each time a “logistic” or “linguistic” problem appeared.

Excursions and Special Events were organized during the school.
On the first Monday, Professor Rostislav Mach, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and Egil Lillestol, Director of the CERN Schools of Physics, greeted the participants with short speeches during a welcome drink that was served just before dinner.
The dinner was followed by a beautiful Concert of chamber music performed by “The Martinů Quartet”: with Lubomír HAVLÁK - 1st Violin, Irena HERAJNOVÁ - 2st Violin, Jan JÍŠA - Viola and Jitka VLAŠÁNKOVÁ, Cello.
The Martinů Quartet has given concerts in most European countries, in the States, Canada Japan and Cuba. It has performed many famous international festivals and venues. It broadcasts regularly on the Czech Radio and Television and has made numerous recordings. The Quartet’s repertoire includes works from the mainstream of the string quartet literature. Naturally, it specialises in the works of Czech composers and the selection for this concert was the String Quartet in A Flat Major, Op. 105 fro A. Dvorak and the String Quartet No 2 “Intimate Letters” (1928) by L. Janacek.  It was very interesting to hear about the circumstances that led L. Janacek to write this piece of music dedicated to a young woman with whom he fell in love.
The four musicians received big and long applauses from the delighted audience that was, a lot younger than their usual public.

The first Wednesday afternoon was a visit to Jaroměřice and Šatov.
The extensive Jaroměřice Baroque chateau complex with the parish church of St. Markéta is surrounded by a French garden and an English park. The stylish equipped interiors with a valuable collection of musical instruments and porcelain remind one of the period connected with the personalities of Jan Adam of Questenberk and F. V. Míča, when the chateau was the centre of cultural life with its own theatre and orchestra.
There was a guided tour of the Castle and also some free time in the gardens. 

Šatov:
The town of Šatov lies just before the Austrian border. The town and its surrounding vineyards have long produced some of the country's finest Moravian wines. The excellent soil conditions and Continental climate make it perfectly suited for grapes.
The participants were split in two groups visiting one after the other the “Painted Cellar” most likely carved out in the late 19th century but that took on its current form when a one-armed man named Max Appeltauer took to the tunnels and began his work there in 1934. Not an artist by trade, Appeltauer set to carving and then painting into the sandstone walls an eclectic set of scenes portraying everything from Prague Castle to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as well as the Šatov coat of arms.

All his work was dedicated to a 15 years old girl, we was in love with.
Inscription in the dark cellar: VÍNO, ZENY A ZPEV, ZAHLADÍ VESKERÝ HNEV ("Wine, women, and song will remove all anger") indicates that the cellar was at one time a popular place, where people gathered after Mass, girlfriends and all. Wives searching for their husbands would often enter, sending girlfriends scurrying into the subcellar.
Then, in another large wine cellar the participants visited long tunnels leading to small rooms where one can rent a private storage box. The wine bottles are locked in a barred storage space where wines mature in ideal temperature conditions. The participants were invited to a generous wine tasting (different white and red wines). The “Yes” wine, a Traminer, was the most popular!

A buffet dinner was served in a former barn. The food was excellent and wine was served without limit.  A group of folk musicians stood on a wooden stage, playing traditional instruments in particular cymbalo. 

On the way back to Třešť it was clear that the wine tasting had also been a test for some students to determine their tolerance limit to alcohol…

POSTER SESSION
On Thursday the students displayed their work in the form of posters at a special evening session.  The posters, of very high quality both technically and in content, were put up on display panels in the Music Room where they stayed on display for the remaining part of the school.

During the Poster Session a pronunciation competition was organized by Ronald and a price was given to the participants who pronounced Třešť with the most appropriate accent.

A full day excursion was organized to Prague on Saturday, 25 August.
The participants were split into four groups each with an official guide, and the tour went across Pohorelec (famous antiques), Strahov Monastry (founded in 1140 – famous library), Cernin Palace (one of the most important Baroque buildings in Prague) and Loreta (pilgrimage site) and the Prague Castle.
At the Prague Castle we came across a ceremony with distribution of awards that was accompanied by an famous orchestra, the Prague Garrison band. For a while we listened at Latino rhythms and looked at the local drum majorette dressed a white costume.
We arrived at Karolinum in Center town. The Charles University in Prague (Universitas Carolina Pragensis), is the oldest and largest Czech university and among the oldest universities in Europe (established in 1347-48). We were served refreshments.
Then, Ivan Wilhelm, former Rector of the Charles University told us about the place in the large lecture room still in use for special ceremonies.
A small group was guided by Jiří Langer, on a tour named ¨Prague and Physics¨.  The book entitled “Prague and Physics”, edited by Jiří Janta and Jiří Niederle, presenting some of the names of the physicists whose lives and work are associated with Prague, was offered to each participant upon arrival in Trest. .
After some free time in town we all reconvened at the Mayor’s Residence. The Vice-Mayor welcomed the participants in the School as well as some other distinguished guests, in particular Prof. Hampl, rector of Charles University and Prof. Musilek, vice-rector of Czech Technical University.
We were served a delicious and abundant buffet dinner accompanied by Champagne and good wine.

The Mayor’s Residence constructed in 1925-1928 is beautiful building with a neo-classical façade. The apartments were designed by the architect Frantisek Roith who also executed the ceiling paintings and designed the carpets, tapestries, and furniture and textile wall hangings in the late Art Nouveau style.

On Monday 27 August there was an after dinner lecture, “From the Peas of Gregor Mendel to the Human Genome” by Professor Václav Pačes, President of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Professor Pačes is engaged in genomics. His research group was one of the first to completely sequence a genome, namely DNA of a bacterial virus. The audience was extremely interested by his comments about “ the comparative genomics of certain regions of the human genome and the genome of our closest cousin, the chimpanzee. We have most of the genes identical, or very similar with identical functions. And the question is: where is the information that makes us humans and that makes chimpanzees apes?”.
Numerous questions followed his lecture showing how much the thin border between bacteria, animals and men puzzles us.

On Wednesday, 29 August was a visit to Telč, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1992.
Telč is a medieval planned town, preserving its original layout and the castle-settlement relationship very clearly. The quality of its architecture is high, particularly the Renaissance market place and chateau. The triangular market place possesses great beauty and harmony as well as great cultural importance, surrounded as it is by intact and well-preserved Renaissance buildings with a dazzling variety of facades. There was a guided tour of the Telč Castle.
The castle is a big Renaissance masterpiece (originally Gothic, reconstructed in High Gothic style). Several remarkable rooms have stucco, fresco and graffiti decoration and beautiful wooden panel ceilings with impressive figurative wooden carvings. The tour leads also through the flat of the last castle owners, the Podstatsky-Lichtensteins. Its furnishings, mostly in their original conditions, represent a significant testimony of the appearance of noble interiors. Among some very interesting exhibits special attention should be paid to the collection of historical faiences and many African hunting trophies.

Visit of Třebíč:
This town also became a UNESCO World Heritage in 2003 (because of the ensemble of the Jewish Quarter, the old Jewish cemetery and the Basilica of St Procopius that are reminders of the co-existence of Jewish and Christian cultures from the Middle Ages to the 20th century).  But the participants found the venue disappointing.  We would have liked a guided tour, and Telč, which we had just left, was definitively much more pretty.
On the way back to Třešť we stopped at a Brewery in Jihlava.

There was a guided tour and a beer tasting. An abundant dinner was served in the nearby restaurant being part of the Jihlava brewery Ježek. All the visitors were offered a set of four small bottles of beer as well as a nice large glass that can hold half a litre of beer!

The traditional Farewell Banquet was organized on the last evening. Invited guests were, Professor Jirˇí Niederle, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Dr. Alexei Sissakian, Director General of JINR, Dr. Jos Engelen, CERN Chief Scientific Officer, Professor Zacek and Prof. Stuchlik, rector and vice-rector of Silesian University, Opava.
After dinner Nick Ellis (who took over the School since Egil had to go back to Norway) invited all the participants to join the conference room where a party was set up.
Professor Niederle (ASCR) gave a short speech expressing thanks to the Organizers and the participants for the successful School.
Nick gave a short farewell talk expressing special thanks to the local Organizers and their team, to the staff in the hotel who had helped in making the two weeks so pleasant. Mrs. Lechnyrova, the Hotel Manager, highly deserved a big applause and received a very nice book offered by JINR.
Anecdotes collected during the two weeks of the School were turned into reasons to congratulate some "deserving" students, and small prizes were offered by JINR and CERN.
After this "official" part it was time for the great master of ceremony, Denver Whittington, elected by the students to present the “students’ show”.
Students continued their performances with sketches and songs accompanied by good wine and beer.

We enjoyed the “Beauty contest” sketch performed by Zdenko van Kesteren (the nerd), Rossella Romita (the Bimbo), and Jan Kaspar (the drag queen) and competing for the Miss Charm, Miss Strange and Miss Summer School 2007 titles.
5 questions/performance:
- Mime your favorite Feynman diagram
Ils ont fait un qq->e+e-

Below are the lyrics of the song: "Wonderful School".
(Mike Flowerdew, Frederik Ruehr, Janet Dietrich, Andrée Robichaud-Veronneau, Zdenko van Kesteren and Emmanuel Turlay, playing guitar)

Don't know much about SU(3)
Don't know much supersymmetry
Don't know much about cosmic rays
Don't know much about B decays But I know we all need QFT
And if we could include gravity
What a wonderful world this would be

Don't much about Heavy Ions
Don't know how the strong coupling runs
Don't know how a Monte Carlo works
Don't know much about exotic quarks
But I know neutrinos do have mass
And if I listened in discussion class
What a wonderful world this would be

Now I don't claim to be an A student
But I'm tryin' to be
Oh maybe by being an A student baby
I could break gauge symmetry
I can't calculate most basic trees
Don't know much about GUTs
I lost track around Newton's law
Don't know what the Green's functions for
But I know I've had enough of ham
And if we didn't start at 9 am
What a wonderful world this would be
(guitar solo)
But I know I've had enough of ham
And if we didn't start at 9 am
What a wonderful school this would be
(Apologies to Sam Cooke)
(special thanks to Andrée who sent the lyrics).

The “12 days of Summer School” performed by Rob Lambert, Colin McLean and  Emmanuel Turlay, with help from Catherine Wright, Annefleur Barfuss, Nick Austin and Nick Styles was excellent.
To give you the run down from the top:
On the 12th day of summer school the lecturer taught me:
12 fermion fields
11 sub detectors
10 to the 20
9  -teen free constants
8 gluons gluing
7 TeV colliding
6 types of quarks
5 Golden Modes
3+1 Dimensions
3 Generations
SU(2) Left
and a quark loop in a strong tree

And for the reprise:
On the last day of summer school a theorist told me:
12 Susy partners
11 Dimensions
10 to the 20
9 -new free constants
E8
7 neutrino questions
6 real scalars
SU(5)
4 Generations
3 sigma searches
SU(2) Right
But experiment will never agree
(special thanks to Rob who sent the lyrics).

Not to forget the movie* directed by Seth Zenz and Cyril Topfel "Swinging'n Singing" where it's raining men!

Also the “staff” contributed to the show, Helmut Eberl playing his bagpipe (with a special dedication of one piece to Egil who was missing the evening) and the performance culminated by John Swain commenting on a slide show with random physics problems.

Rock Concert

LINKS to the official photograph and the corresponding names.

LINKS to some of the student’s photos:
Erik Adli:
http://www.pvv.org/~erikad/Themepages/Travel/Trest/Trest.html
Dmitri Shtol
http://wwwsnd.inp.nsk.su/~shtol/photos/Czechia/
Cyril Topfel
http://www.elementary-particles.net/trest.html
Andrée Robichaud-Veronneau
http://home.student.uu.se/elco7347/FirstDay.MOV
http://home.student.uu.se/elco7347/Karaoke.MOV
Florent Robinet
http://florent.robinet.free.fr/Index_photo/CERNschool.html

THANKS
We are sure that all the students join us in thanking the lecturers and discussion leaders for their inspiring lectures and discussions.
The local organizers of the school deserve a big thanks for the fantastic job that they did during the last two weeks. We would also like to thank Milos Lokajicek, Jan Svec and Lukas Fiala in particular for their computing support, Jaroslav Cvach who organized the trips, Jirˇí Dolejsi especially for the arrangements of the visit to the Prague Mayor's Residence, Milos Pachr, Vojtech Petracek and their team of students, responsibles of sports and other activities and Eva Uhrova who coordinated the excursions and the transportation.
Numerous mails received by the students reflected that they are grateful to the Organizers for having set up an outstanding scientific programme with top-level lecturers as well as a nice and interesting social programme.