This week, it was announced physicists had found the "strongest indication to date" to establish the existence of the particle known in scientific circles as the "Higgs Boson," and known in most Media outlets as "The God Particle."
Evidence for The God Particle follows about a year after discovery of "The Jesus Jot," "The Muhammad Morsel," and "The Ganesha Grain," all of which marked physics milestones when it comes to peeling back the onion of the subatomic world. Physicists also briefly thought they discovered "The Buddha Bean," but that particle suddenly disappeared after attaining pure enlightenment.
The very nature of The God Particle makes it very difficult to locate, requiring a huge machine called a Large Hadron Collider (LHC), not to be confused with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), although many physicists maintain ingesting THC actually helps them to better "understand" The God Particle, which they often describe as "a really trippy subatomic particle, man."
Even with the LHC and some of the most innovative technologies available today, The God Particle is extraordinarily difficult to isolate and locate. Physicists estimate the only thing more challenging to find than The God Particle is employment in today's economy.
So, what does discovery of The God Particle mean, exactly? Well, for one thing, it means scientists are becoming very good at finding very small things, so it's just a matter of time before they determine the number of men who maintain an active Pinterest account, or the number of people who think "The Matrix" sequels were genuinely good, or the chance a Tom Cruise marriage will actually last.
Further, discovery of The God Particle means news outlet personnel have to pretend to know something about subatomic particles and quantum physics, which has to amuse actual physicists to no end. If I were a theoretical physicist--and I could be, theoretically--and a journalist interviewed me about The God Particle, I'd have a hard time not having some fun with it.
JOURNALIST: So, could you tell me a little bit about The God Particle?
THEORETICAL PHYSICIST ME (TPM): Certainly. Well, as the name implies, The God Particle is a particle of God. We accelerate all the world's major religions to nearly the speed of light using the Large Hadron Collider, and smash the religions together to break them into their component particles.
JOURNALIST: Seriously?
TPM: Oh, absolutely. Now, faith particles are fairly common, as are dogma and ritual particles, but to actually slam religions together hard enough to shake loose a particle of God requires an immense amount of energy. To be perfectly honest, God isn't all that happy about losing His particles, either. Well, who would be, really?
JOURNALIST: *checking notes* But. . . I thought The God Particle had to do with quantum mechanics or. . . something.
TPM: That's why I'm the theoretical physicist and you're just a journalist, I guess. Trust me. It's science. You wouldn't understand.
Posted by Ryan at July 6, 2012 12:27 PM | TrackBack
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