A tachyon walks into a bar. The bartender says “Hey buddy, not so fast.”
Happy 4th of July, everybody! I celebrated today along with the rest of America: by hanging out with friends, throwing some meat on the grill, and discussing the breaking (and long-awaited) discovery of a Higgs Boson particle.
The discovery is touted as “five sigma,” meaning that at five standard deviations from the norm, the chances of it being a statistical fluke are miniscule. The probability of my friends being total nerds, however, is beyond statistical doubt.
For a great cartoon explanation of the Higgs particle, check out this video by PHD Comics:
And just for fun, Vi Hart’s “Sonnet on a Higgs-like Particle”:
