because everyone loves the large hadron collider

[rm]

I'll just link you to this gem from tanuki_green:
http://tanuki-green.livejournal.com/299259.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/science/space/13lhc.html (and hey, in the NYT)

Short version? Two camps of physicists hate each other. So one camp theorizes as a theoretical actual contribution to the academic work that the reason the LHC is broken is because the universe's powers that be hate the other camp of physicists and sent the particle the LHC is trying to discover into the future so that the project will fail.

Yeah, really.

Stuff this cracktacular makes me want to love physics.

Comments

[soundingsea.livejournal.com]

Physicists are totally smoking the good crack. One class I took, the two elderly gentlemen teaching it would climb on lab tables and launch projectiles at one another, all in the name of getting undergrads to learn.

(And I'm requesting Manhattan Project fic in Yuletide. Two *different* sets of Soviet spies! Dubious sexual liaisons! WWII geek girls!)

[vegablack62.livejournal.com]

So is this theory a joke or what? I'm so confused.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'm unclear as well. I suspect that may be the point. I _really_ don't get physics.

[vegablack62.livejournal.com]

I guess it matters wether they think the Universe is sentient.

[drfardook.livejournal.com]

As former physics student, they're totally serious and totally not. Concurrently. Its all the courses in quantum mechanics.

Yeah, they're totally nuts.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

It's Schroedinger's Physics? *is confused*

[sethg]

I vote "joke". The physicists know that the mainstream press is so mystified by high-energy physics that any sufficiently deadpan bullshit delivered by a sufficiently impressive Ph.D. will get printed as fact.

There is precedent, sorta.

[morinon.livejournal.com]

It's a bit of both. The LHC is trying to find a scalar boson that should exist according to current field theory. Current field theory could be wrong. Every scientific attempt to find the Higgs boson has been 'cursed', so this is mostly a joke. Except that time travel is completely legitimate in physics. And the creation of this boson could result in it not being detected, and sending something back in time to prevent its proper detection.

Welcome to physics, where if your head hasn't broken yet, you don't belong here.

[sykii.livejournal.com]

It's like fan-physics. This is totally adorable.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

As a plot bunny, that article is amazing. Almost sounds like a Doctor Who episode.

That, or physicists know where to score the good weed. Carl Sagan flat out said he used it, and I can totally see Feynman sparking up a doob before rockin' out on the bongos...

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

It is SUCH a Steven Moffat idea!

[weirdquark]

In LEXX, there was a group led by a theoretical physicist trying to sabotage the LHC because the physicist had realized that the discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle would collapse the earth into a small, pea-sized object*. (Having failed to do anything to the LHC, the group switched to trying to contact alien life so they could leave the planet before this happened.)

* And was totally correct that this would happen, as apparently, all planets in the LEXX-verse at the stage Earth currently is at are in danger of destroying themselves through war or discovering the Higgs-Boson particle.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

When I worked for astrophysicists it was very clear there were two rival "gangs" working on the cosmological constant and my boss published a book that recounted a shoving match the "gangs" got into at a professional conference and someone ended up with a broken arm. ASTROPHYSICS IS SRS BZNS. (which is true considering the money involved.)

[czarchasm.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, That. Is. Awesome!

As far as I can tell, it's a legit paper. To be on the safe side, tho', I've sent it to my Friends of Physics.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

All I have to say is this.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

:D

Much fun!

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Man, next year I'm nominating all these physics people for Yuletide RPF.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

I can totally picture J. Robert Oppenheimer and Richard Feynman in some wacky "The Odd Couple" scenario.

[virginhuntress.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of a Big Bang Theory episode (at a physics talk, two of the main characters get into an awkward but hilarious fight). Science is AWESOME.