Them scientologists over in Yerp want to find a teensy tiny particle called the Higgs Boson. Hey, there's a dude called Higgs here in Embra, I wonder if he's heard of it? Nah, what are the chances?
Seems the Merkans were too poor to afford both a Space Station and a Particle Smasher, so they abandoned their own little spermint after spending just two billion dollars on it, and concentrated on something that can only be reached by the soon-to-be-decommissioned Space Shuttle and the Dirty Commie Soyuz rockets. I ain't sayin', I'm just sayin'.
Anyways, the science part.
The universe is made up of stuff. Most of that stuff is completely invisible and therefore cannot be seen by astrologers with even the most powerful telescopes, even the one buried underneath the ice at the South Pole. (Hey Cletus, you sure about that part?)
But these boffins
Ok, let's make it really simple.
Atoms are thought to be made up of quarks.
Which are held together by gluons.
According to String Theory, every particle has a super-partner.
The electron is matched by the selectron, the quark has the squark, the lepton has the slepton etc.
But none of this splains the existence of Mass.
And without mass there would be no gravity.
So Professor Higgs (anybody remember him?) posited the existence of a field - let's call it the Higgs Field - permeating the entire universe, and as we all know from quantum physics, every field comes with a side order of particles. So the Higgs field imbues matter with mass, and the Higgs Boson, if discovered, will prove this impotent theory.
So far, all that has been tested is that a clockwise beam and an anticlockwise beam of protons can be sent around the loop. Next month the eggheads will make their first attempt to cross the streams.
If it all goes tits-up, the absolute worst that can happen is that the Earth and anything else made of matter or energy, like the universe, will be sucked into a black hole.
And if not, well, there'll be plenty more pretty pictures like this one, so stop whining.
Any questions?
