“Lasers”
The greatest thing about the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study (STIAS) is undoubtedly the catering. It makes conferences a pleasure. I’ve never eaten so well so consistently before. I’ve eaten better food, but if one was to take the time averaged taste factor$<f>$ then it would be far higher than my usual veggie hotdog lifestyle. Anyway, the conference in question was a 4 day workshop on lasers and accelerators. The topics ranged from using lasers to accelerate electrons to GeV energy levels to using lasers in fusion reactions for energy production (unfortunately way away from being viable at the moment). It’s always nice to see a completely different section of physics and the speakers did an excellent job in giving those of us who had little idea on the applications of lasers an overview and an understanding on how and why people are building such enormous lasers.