You may recall my recollection in an earlier post about the dancing of the string theorist participants of the Strings 1998 meeting in Santa Barbara, and you may have listened to the singing of the youth of the field at Strings 2005. A good time was had by all in each case, I understand. Well, the good times continue. Last night, the participants of SUSY 2005, which is taking place in Durham (see some remarks in an earlier post) showed that they can holler and shake their collective booty too. At a barbecue in the sunny long evening, we saw a performance of the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology (IPPP)'s own Ceilidh band, (pronounced "Kaylee"), comprised of several physicists, their spouses and offspring, (see here for a list and more info) and joined by special guests and physicists Howie Haber on guitar, and David Lyth on fiddle, and led and smoothly MC'ed by the Institute's director James Stirling (also on guitar).
They were great! And a special shout out goes to physicist and graduate student Angelique Talbot, who seems to be able to play a whole lot of instruments, and then she was featured on vocals on a number of pieces! If that was not good enough, later, physicist Ruth Gregory stopped her fiddle playing and got a microphone and did one of several things she is extremely good at: organizing people. She is the caller (and instructor) for the various formation dances which took place, involving several of the conference participants.
What can I say? String Theorists, the gauntlet has been thrown down, it seems. -cvj
