Drinking in the morning (4)

The excursion in Bordeaux took TSH and Diva to the wine museum. This is a very modern, interesting and well set up building – photo below. In order to hear the commentary and understand the exhibits, you need headphones and a transmit/receive device. Point the device at the indicated places around the museum and you hear the commentary in your own language. Unfortunately, no-one told TSH and Diva which bit of the device to point, so they needed help from some kind French people. In turn, they were able to help other people who had not been told how the system worked. They learned that the original meaning of ‘symposium’ was ‘drinking together’. So all those business meetings were accurately described after all.

The final part of the visit was to the Belvedere on the 8^th floor. Diva does not like crowded lifts but dug up enough schoolgirl French to ask the attendant not to allow too many people in with her. He was very sympathetic and held most people back for a later ascent. On the Belvedere, they each drank a glass of Bordeaux rose (seemed more morning-like) and looked at the views over the city. TSH and his camera went to the outside viewing platform.

Over lunch, Diva was incredibly impressed to hear people discussing the recently found possible discrepancy in the mass of the W boson (Particle’s surprise mass threatens to upend the standard model (nature.com)). This potentially overturns the standard model of particle physics. And one of the people on the next table had been involved in the work at Fermi Labs!!!

Later, outside Panorama lounge, there was discussion about the advantages of the James Webb telescope over the Hubble telescope. Silver Moon is a physics ship.