The Sun* has undertaken a rare venture into the worlds of philosophy and fundamental science. OK, it has the advantage of a couple of scientists with exotic names (to the Sun that is, we already know someone called Holger). These scientists have suggested that it is not the Large Hadron Collider itself, or even God, that is preventing the doom machine from working. No - it is scientists coming "back from the future " to protect themselves against us destroying their past.
My initial thought, that the Sun only took an interest in Hadrons for their anagram potential, I immediately condemned as unworthy.
But if they are scientists from the future, just causing electrical faults and leaks is hardly impressive. The piece of baguette is cheekier. I look forward to it being a beret next time, or a signed photograph of Toulouse Lautrec turning up in the place they insert the protons [insert own joke here]. Or, if they're being particularly cheeky, they could obstruct a ventilation shaft** with Richard Dawkins' epoch-making 2012 work "Why the World was made in 6 days - My Apology".
But we'll know if the theory is right if, next time they try to boot it up, they discover a De Lorean car in the collider. Even more amusing if the future scientists materialise in the Collider, drive it round a few times, and then, having reached 88 miles an hour (which I believe is somewhat slower than will account for relativistic speeds), disappear leaving a spinning number (or, as I believe our American cousins would call it, "licence") plate.
* I would like it noted that I did not pick this piece of news up during my daily read of the aforesaid news-sheet. I would like to give a hat-tip, as I believe it's called, to a tweet from Robin Eccles.
**they surely must have ventilation shafts in the LHC? If not, where do they climb to escape the aliens?
ROFL, as they say: archdruid, you are the best!
ReplyDelete(Of coures, the piece of bread fell not in the LHC itself but in a common power station that just happens to provide power to the LHC as well, but let's not spoil the fun. Still, isn't it amazing that the damn thing has such obvious system faults?)
Having said all that, I just realized how much money all this LHC bullshit costs. I stopped laughing at that point.
Your American friends would call it a "license" plate.
ReplyDeleteThank you Steve, when they say it I can't tell the difference. Worryingly I asked an American friend but he wasn't sure how to check it. Once he'd looked it up he could confirm that you are indeed correct.
ReplyDeleteI shall leave my post uncorrected, in the hope that I can encourage other Americans to adopt the correct spelling.
Holger, according to Cern our contribution to the LHC is equivalent to less than a pint of beer per adult, while the total contribution to Cern is about three times that.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lhc.ac.uk/about-the-lhc/faqs.html I didn't know the end of the world came so cheap.