Tag Archives: quarks

November 28, 2019

Thanks for Patterns

The Thanksgiving holiday we celebrate here in the USA has some unfortunate overtones regarding its colonial origin. Still, the idea of a festival of thanks is an ancient one — thanks for a good harvest or a good hunt. Or, in our case, thanks for helping us not die last winter.

As with Christmas or the Copenhagen interpretation, we tend to take a “shut up and calculate!” approach to the holidays. “Shut up and shop!” in the case of the Winter Solstice, and “Shut up and give thanks!” today.

One thing we can be very thankful about is patterns…

4 Comments | tags: atoms, DNA, electrons, entropy, Mandelbrot, Mandelbrot fractal, photons, quarks, Thanksgiving | posted in Life

August 16, 2012

Low-Mass Thoughtinos

By Wyrd Smythe

I’m torn over today’s topic. I’m tired (for the moment) of nattering about work (got some thanks, but no thanks messages today, and that makes me disinclined to discuss the distress; nepenthe beckons, I’ll answer the call, now 94 bottles of beer on the wall).

And I’ve spent some time in the blogsphere, which is endlessly fascinating, but time-consuming and a bit draining. After reading about the struggles of others, mine own seem pale and pointless.

So it’s time for something light and refreshing. I realized I haven’t bored anyone with science recently, so, as the good The Doctor would say, “Run!”

Leave a comment | tags: CERN, Einstein, neutrinos, OPERA, particles, quarks | posted in Physics, Writing

July 28, 2011

Sideband #19: LHC

By Wyrd Smythe

The previous article contains a bit of doggerel I wrote as an informal writing assignment on a current events/blogging site I inhabited for a while a few years back. One of the other regulars sometimes held online “parties” complete with musical playlists (suggested YouTube and other musical links) and multiple, simultaneous conversations. Basically a kick off article followed by a very long, branching tree of comments.

We all had to refresh the article a lot to see the new comments, but it was fun. Especially as the evening wore on and some of us got a bit tipsy. (All from the safety of our homes, I point out. Virtual online parties: no one drives home!)

Anyway, in the course of one such evening, the “poem” below popped out of my mind. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN was just beginning its testing, and the “it’ll destroy us all” fervor was at its peak.

5 Comments | tags: CERN, hadrons, Large Hadron Collider, poetry, quantum physics, quarks | posted in Sideband, Writing