During the wine and cheese party that concludes the first day of the workshop, it is a good moment to review it.

Today we took off on our venture to facilitate mutual communication and appreciation between the fields of particle physics on the one hand and noncommutative geometry on the other. The talks of the day immediately spanned that entire spectrum.

After a welcome, Alain Connes provided the participants a conceptual birds eye view of noncommutative geometry. This all started with the simple but intriguing question ‘where are we?’. From there he took us along some of the key concepts of the field, showing that the Standard Model of particle physics is essentially a gravitational theory, but on a more complex space.

After lunch, Patrick Decowski set some experimental bounds by shedding light on the current status of the hunt for Dark matter particles. The need for their existence is truly compelling but to date, there is no conclusive evidence from experiment. Where are we currently, and what can we expect in the next years?

His talk was followed by overviews of the status at the LHC from Paul de Jong and Stan Bentvelsen. Now the Higgs has been found, what aspects remain to be unveiled? To what extend do we possibly see effects of Beyond the Standard Model physics and what might we expect in the next years? Undoubtedly important boundary conditions for those that want to do noncommutative model building.

After the introduction of the study group subjects and the lively discussion that followed, it is safe to say that the stage has now been set, and the actors are are introduced. Let the play begin.