Higgs Boson and the Protons, ladies and gentlemen. Let's hear it for our great house band.



Well, is everybody ready?



The LHC -- aka Large Hadron Collider -- comes online near Geneva, Switzerland, in less than one month now, on September 10, to be precise.



Yes, you may WELL say "Ooh!" since the atom smasher in question could produce a miniature black hole into which the entire world could disappear without a trace -- since even the traces would presumably be sucked up by this voracious primordial vacuum cleaner of the European physicists' own creation.



Of course the scientists at CERN (Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire, aka the European Organization for Nuclear Research) insist that there's nothing to worry about, but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize that something's rotten in the state of Denmark, or rather in the states of France and Switzerland, where this 17-mile-long doomsday machine is located.



Wow! This is a tough crowd tonight. Perhaps I should have stipulated that Physics 101 was a prerequisite for attending this comedy routine, because trust me: if you knew the least thing about the Quantum Field Theory as it applies to Curved Spacetime, you'd be laughing like a banshee right now -- either that or you'd be heading to Switzerland to protest the atom smasher's upcoming activation for fear that Chicken Little may have finally gotten it right this time.



Not that I'm calling you guys dummies, of course, but it does seem to me like I may have prepared this comedy routine without a just apprehension of your background knowledge in this area. (My, my.)

Well, let me put it this way, um...

Yo, Maestro Higgs: How about a soft, jazzy, upbeat but generally nondescript sound pattern to run under my narration here?

And a 1, and a 1, 2, 3, 4....



Our scientists tell us that the world is made up of tiny particles called "atoms."





Great! Now the bright kids in the class are getting antsy. It looks like I'm going to have to "leave a few children behind" here tonight or I'm going to please absolutely nobody with this routine of mine!

Okay, then, I now proceed -- with all due apologies to our resident dimwits, of course (speaking of whom, you guys can see me after class for a largely monosyllabic repetition of what I'm about to say).



You know, I used to avoid referring to audience members as "dummies," but ever since the mass acceptance of those "dummy guide" books on every subject under the sun, I figure that an onus no longer applies to being stupid -- either that or folks only mind being called "dummies" if they're singled out as such, whereas the advancing of a collective epithet leaves them unfazed. I mean, if everybody's buying books whose very titles peg them as morons, they can't be particularly angry with me for essentially seconding their own de facto opinion of themselves. I mean, Ecce dodo, right? "Behold the moron."

Still, I'm afraid I might bore you with even a brief introductory lecture on atom smashers, so I'll tell you what I'm going to do: I'm going to let the Department robot here at Egghead U. bore you instead.

Helga, come out here, would you? Helga the Robot, ladies and gentlemen.

Prime Directive - Beep - to Party Down - Beep In addition to Helga's intimate familiarity with advanced astrophysical concepts such as space-time, singularities, and gravitational lensing, she has been programmed to 'lighten up' on her off-hours. Here she is, shaking it like she means it in the Users' Center Lounge in Fermi Village, where she is rumored to play 'a mean game of Ping-Pong' as well.

Helga, these fine people would like to know just a tiny bit of introductory information about particle accelerators, also known as colliders, also known as atom smashers.

VERY WELL.

So if you would be so good as to quench their modest thirst in this regard, you may proceed. (There's a quart of fresh oil in it for you back at the lab.)

BEEP. HELLO. BEEP. ATOM SMASHERS ARE CIRCULAR RINGS THROUGH WHICH SUBATOMIC PARTICLES ARE CAUSED TO COLLIDE AT SPEEDS APPROACHING THE SPEED OF LIGHT. BEEP.

Very good. And why, pray tell, would physicists want to make these particles collide at speeds such as this? (Isn't Helga wonderful, folks? She really "knows her onions," as my grandmother used to say.)

Rhonda Rhobot, ladies and gentlemen. Oops! There she goes!

THE PHYSICISTS ARE IN SEARCH OF A THEORETICAL PARTICLE CALLED A HIGGS BOSON, WHICH, IF EXISTING, WOULD BE THE SMALLEST QUANTUM PARTICLE OF THEM ALL.

Oh, I see. And so they no doubt think that a collision between two slightly larger particles (a pair of hadrons, say, such as a neutron and proton) might produce wreckage wherein they can find this itsy-bitsy little Higgs Boson of theirs.

CORRECT. BEEP.

And why is that important? (Oh, Helga is marvelous!)

IF A HIGGS BOSON WAS DISCOVERED, IT WOULD HELP CLINCH A THEORY OF EVERYTHING, INSOFAR AS THE HYPOTHESIZED PARTICLE IS THOUGHT TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FACT THAT MASS ITSELF EXISTS. BEEP.

Wow! Helga the Robot, Ladies and Gentlemen. That is all, Helga. Thank you very much, Helga. You're going to absolutely pig out on 10W-40 tonight.

How about a hand for her, folks. The wonders of modern technology!



So we see, then, that the LHC is going to be looking for these teensy little Higgs Bosons.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Why are we letting Europe have all the fun and glory while we sit back and twiddle our protons here in America?

Well, that's easy enough: A certain President of ours has neglected to adequately fund science over the past 8 years here in the states. Fortunately, however, I'm above politics, so I won't mention the name of the President to whom I refer. I will merely point out that our very own 5-mile-long collider at Fermilab just west of Chicago (where we've been smashing our own domestic atoms now for over 45 years) is in danger of shutting down in 2010 due to budget cuts. And I need hardly add that a previous 20th-century plan for an even larger stateside collider got caught in the black-hole called the Congressional Budget Process in 1993 and was never heard of again. (Happy now, Cato Institute? Hmm? Happy now? Wait till Europe finds the Higgs Boson instead of us -- then you'll be laughing out of the other side of your melodramatic press releases about government overspending!)





Wow! I actually managed to extort a few titters from these frosty mugs out here.

Incidentally, I had intended a no-doubt hilarious allusion here to "A&W Rootbeer" and their LITERALLY frosty mugs, but I just remembered that I used that pun in my last gig here just last week.

Remember? "I've never seen so many frosty mugs since I visited an A&W Rootbeer stand"?



What? I'm just giving you guys a glimpse into the creative process.



I should probably be gratified by these ongoing titters I'm hearing, but I can't help but wonder when anybody out there is going to just plain laugh outright!



But then I probably put a damper on the general gaiety when I led off with that prediction of doomsday. (I'm always doing that, by the way. My manager, Craig Listo, is always after me, talking about: "Brian, baby, you've got to stop putting a damper on the general gaiety!" Point taken, Mister Man. Point taken.)

But where was I?



But then the real question is, where will I BE after September 10th, 2008, when the Large Hadron Collider goes online in Europe. (Indeed, where will ANY of us be -- including the babe at table 8 -- though in fairness I'd like to know where SHE'S going to be at that time, apocalypse or NO apocalypse. Whoo-hoo!)

Ahem. Right.

So let's end on a high note, shall we? Let's invite Helga the Robot back one final time to respond to our probably unjustified fears on this head.

Helga? Come hither, my love! Helga the Robot, ladies and gentles.

Now then, Helga, sweet: We don't REALLY have to worry about the world ending on September 10th, 2008, do we?

BEEP. HOW DO YOU MEAN?

Well, there's talk that when the tiny particles called hadrons collide near the speed of light in Europe come September 10th, that they will create a miniature black hole into which the entire world will disappear.

ONE MOMENT. I WILL PERFORM THE NECESSARY CALCULATIONS TO RESPOND TO YOUR QUERY.

Hey, did Helga the Robot just call me a "queery"? (No, just kidding, Helga: Ha! I'm good to go up here, babe!)

ACCORDING TO THE HAWKING RADIATION EQUATION... BEEP... THE RATE OF LOSS OF ENERGY OF A BLACK HOLE MUST BE... -DE/DT... THEREFORE...

Yes, Helga? Yes????

I AM PERFORMING CALCULATIONS NOW. LET US SEE. BEEP. 5 MINUS 4 IS 3... CARRY THE ONE...

Oh, come on Helga!

WHEN WE REWRITE THE EQUATION TO ACCOUNT FOR EINSTEIN'S MASS-ENERGY EQUIVALENCE...

Yes?

T1 MUST EQUAL M30 DIVIDED BY 3K.

Um, I see. But what does that mean to us simple humans, Helga?

THE EQUATION REVEALS THAT THE FORMATION OF A BLACK HOLE WOULD NOT BE CONSISTENT WITH EXISTING DATA.

So then, don't let me put words in your mouth, Helga, but I think I hear you saying that the world as we know it will not -- I repeat, NOT -- disappear on September 10, 2008.

HE SHOOTS, HE SCORES. BEEP.

Helga the Robot, ladies and gentlemen. Now if you'll forgive me, I'm going to exit stage right to give the old girl a well-deserved pint of motor oil.

AWESOME... BEEP... DUDE.

Oh, Helga, you are a gas. (Who's been programming you recently, by the way: Bart Simpson?)

G'night, everybody.



Oh, come on, laugh louder than that: We're all not going to die, remember? I mean, jeepers!



LAUGH, KOOKABURRA, LAUGH, KOOKABURRA, GAY YOUR LIFE MUST BE!

Would you listen to Helga?! Talking about getting in the spirit. It sounds like she's had a little too much motor oil to drink already!