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Scientists To Announce Signs Of "God Particle" On July 4, Nation's BBQ Plans In Peril
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Jul 2, 2012
Modified Jul 2, 2012
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Jul 2, 2012
Modified Jul 2, 2012
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On Wednesday scientists at the CERN complex in Geneva plan to announce that they have found evidence of the Higgs bosen particle, which may hold the key to understanding the very fabric of existence. "We think the Higgs boson is a manifestation of the fact that the universe is filled with a force that we haven't been able to detect yet that gives other particles mass," scientist Joe Lykken told NPR, implying that it is therefore tangentially related to Katie Holmes. "It exists for a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second," Lykken adds, presumably referring to both the Higgs boson particle and a human's attention span in 2012. "And then [it] falls apart into other particles."
"Think of it as a smoking duck," one of CERN's senior scientists Oliver Buchmueller tells Reuters of the not-quite-discovery. "If it walks like a Higgs and it quacks like a Higgs, then we would have to at least consider the possibility that we have a prominent new member of the Boson family on our hands," he says, raising the important question of whether that $12.99 Peking Duck lunch special would be worth it today. Wait, isn't our cousin's band called Subatomic Particles?
So if there's no concrete evidence that scientists have pinpointed the Higgs boson using the Large Hadron Collider, what are they going to announce on Wednesday? "We will all just have to be patient till Wednesday," scientist Pauline Gagnon says, referring to the day on which most Americans drink cheap beer, eat copious amounts of processed meats and sever their digits with explosives. Maybe we'll turn on CNN during beer pong halftime, or something.
Tagged
large hadron collider
origins of the universe
peking duck lunch special
subatomic particles
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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