Science is Awesome and Makes Me Smile

What follows is a news story so awesomely awesome that it gives me a nervous giggle from the sheer awesomeness of it all.

Ahem...

The New York Times just published an essay, The Collider, the Particle, and a Theory About Fate, discussing the theoretical possibility that The Future itself is sabotaging the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Here's how it breaks down:

Two (previously) well-regarded physicists, Holger Bech Nielsen of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, began posting papers with titles such as "Test of Effect From Future in Large Hadron Collider: a Proposal” and “Search for Future Influence From LHC” on a physics website postulating the idea that The Future would keep science from detecting the presence of the Higgs boson.

What?

The Standard Model of particle physics, the generally accepted model of How It All Works (by generally accepted, I mean that it is likely not accepted by Young Earthers, birthers, or this guy (although, to be fair, plenty of people have donned tin foil hats and are perfectly sane)), describes the essential particles that make up our universe such as photons, gluons, and fermions* like quarks and leptons.  Every piece of the Standard Model has been observed and supported by years of scientific study... except the Higgs boson.  It is the last piece of the puzzle and continues to elude scientists.

The Higgs boson** would help explain the origin of mass in the universe and would basically explain the fine details of how electromagnetism and weak nuclear force really work.  It has been called the "God Particle" in popular culture.  Nielsen has even suggested that if there is a God, He hates Higgs bosons and tries to avoid them.

So, yeah, it's kind of a big deal.

The Higgs boson would also probably wear this shirt 
out to bars on the weekend and put on way too much cologne.

And, apparently, the Higgs boson might just be aware of its status.

Nielsen and Ninomiya predict that the Higgs boson could be such a big deal that merely bringing one into existence might have disastrous results.  Maybe even worse than crossing streams...




So, Nielsen and Ninomiya theorize that somehow the universe, through some sort of unknown fail-safe mechanism, is reaching back in time from The Future to halt experiments and prevent Total Protonic Reversal.  They started writing about this back in 2007, citing examples of failed projects and experiments like the United States Superconducting Supercollider, which were designed to find the Higgs boson.

They were openly mocked for this theory.

Then, last September, the Large Hadron Collider was turned on and began to experiment (finding the Higgs boson was its first goal) but was quickly came to a screeching halt just over a week later due to a malfunction which caused massive amounts of damage.  They planned to bring it back online within two months but problem after problem have kept that from happening.

Of course, Nielsen and Ninomiya are still openly mocked.  Probably having something to do with the fact that they have proposed, as an experiment to see if The Future is attempting to keep the Higgs boson from being discovered, that CERN create a giant deck of cards (as in number of cards... not gimmicky, over-sized, magic trick props) with a tiny fraction of the cards marked as "Abandon the LHC Higgs boson experiments"... or something similar.  They say if The Future is trying to prevent us from crossing streams, we will keep drawing the "Abandon the experiments cards".

And that is why science is awesome.

Because, as far out there as this theory is, I still find it absolutely fascinating and exciting.  Some scientists risking their careers to talk about some batshit crazy scenario which doesn't seem to have any chance to ever be proven correct.

And that's why it is so much fun.  Because we live in a world full of reckless individuals, spouting all kinds of batshit crazy theories which are based on hatred and agendas.

"Finally, a man who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking."

I look around on a daily basis and find myself in a world where people say ignorant, inflammatory, and downright dumbshit things.

Thankfully, there are some people around to help counteract it all... people who help me get my giggle on almost as much as the story I was originally writing about.

See, because in the end, believing that The Future coming to our present to keep us from destroying ourselves is more than just a side story in an amazing Pynchon novel.  It's also fun-filled theory about possibilities that, while potentially batshit crazy, are ultimately harmless.  And exciting to read about.  And utterly devoid of hate.

Besides, as we all know:

There is a theory that states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another which states that this has already happened.

*Fermions respect the Pauli Exclusion Principle - yet another piece of science created by Wolfgang Pauli.

**Seriously, if you have any problem with information pulled from Wikipedia, why the hell are you reading a blog entry by me, of all people, about the latest crazy idea in physics?  Hell, if I don't have enough information for one of these, I just make stuff up and I don't even give credit to people when I use their pictures.