Waaaagh!

The Ides of May - traditionally the end of the school year and the beginning of summer... Bastrop may have avoided the worst of the first big summer storms last night - but I'm sure more will come before the end... wait - what? the end? Yes Virginia, there is an end... you see, this summer we're going to do something to try to prove the Higgs field exists, that there are 10 dimensions of space and 1 dimension of time, and that the universe is bounded by very good math. There's only one problem...



ok, it's not a likely scenario, in fact - it's only theoretical - and even then the probability isnt high -- about like being the only winner of the texas lottery -- but that doesnt stop people from paying the stupid tax on wednesday night. The theory works like this... taking you back to the atomic structures you're probably familiar with from school, atoms are made of protons, neutrons, and electons... protons and neutrons are made of three quarks... after that odds are you're lost. Ok - well - there are different sorts of quarks - and one sort of quarks is called a 'strange' quark. Now in theory - strange quarks should be able to bond with other strange quarks and be stable at a lower energy state - but to get them to do so would require extremely high energy input... so when they crank up that hadron collider this summer - people believe there's a chance that they'll cause strange matter to be created.

So - why is that a problem? Well - once strange matter hits other regular matter - it will liberate the energy and convert it to strange matter. It's an ice-nine problem... meaning if things go just right - they'll be turning the earth into a very hot and very dense ball of quarks.

So enjoy your summer - it may be your last...