Wednesday 23 June 2010

The Higgs will eat your soul.

Some of the billions of dollarpounds going into the LHC are being given to the same kind of people who actually put a monkey in a cage with a typewriter and waited for it to produce a sonnet. (It threw its shit around and pressed "s" a lot, apparently.)

According to this article over at the BBC, a "sonification team" (oh my lord) are working on a way to convert the LHC data into sounds so that scientists can identify the Higgs via "listening to the data".

"The aim is to give physicists at the LHC another way to analyse their data," apparently. Clearly we haven't been doing enough:

"Dear God. The powerful supercomputers, hugely sophisticated algorithms and achingly exauhstive statistial analyses which have been devised aren't going to be enough to prove the Higgs exists!"

"Sir! What do we do, sir?"

"Jenkins? Jenkins! Find me a god-damn hippy and get it inside that control room, STAT."

"A hippy, sir?"

"That's right, man, a hippy. We need some flower power loving hippy chick with grass in her hair, sitting in the lotus position and listening to the sound of the universe. If the Higgs is out there, only a hippy will be able to hear its cosmic rhythm."

"By god, sir, you're right!"

"Permission to speak freely sir!"

"Go ahead, Daniels."

"Sir... a hippy, sir? It's... it's not right, Sir!"

"I know, Daniels, I know! By god, do you think I don't feel the shame? Hippies make me sick to my stomach but it's the only god-damned hope we have of detecting the Higgs."

"Sir. Yes sir."

"Stiff upper lip, men! Now, we don't have much time. Get me that hippy. And we're going to need her stoned. Off. Her. Tits. before that machine fires up."

"Sir, YES SIR!"

"Carry on, men."

On the plus side, if you take a listen to the Higgs on the BBC site, you'll find it sounds just like Aphex Twin, which is always good. I look forward to the first high energy collision which results in a twisted voice screaming "I will eat your soul!" from inside the machine.

Rather that than supersymmetry.