My favorite old fart of the day: Dr. Peter Higgs.

[ColbertWatcher]

This is Dr. Higgs standing inside the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

He is best known for his work on sub-atomic physics and his search to explain how particles get their mass.

He even has a particle named after him, the "Higgs-boson", that is considered the most elusive particle (ever!) and one of the things the LHC will be looking for.

Dr. Higgs is 79 years old (born on May 29, 1929) and, as some of you may have heard, the LHC was switched on early this morning (September 10, 2008). Two separate beams of protons were shot through the LHC tubes, one counter-clockwise, then a little bit later another clock-wise. When all the testing is done (October maybe?), two more beams will be shot through the tubes, but this time simultaneously and at each other at nearly 99.9999991% the speed of light. The impact will reveal not a big bang, but marks and swirls showing the tracks of the resultant scattering atoms and what-not. Researchers will take months (maybe years) to go over the data from that first collision.

To get at this pure science the European science group, CERN, persuaded the powers that be to fork over €6.4 billion ($9.2 billion) to simply see what they will see.

Imagine spending $9.2 billion on pure science.

Congratulations, Dr. Higgs, you old fart! You theorized the existence of something and science will soon find out if you're correct.

I can't wait.

[cyberpj]

1. the "Higgs-boson" - aka the "God particle" ? yes?

[ColbertWatcher]

3. I try not to use those kinds of terms, but yes. n/t

[BelgianMadCow]

2. Indeed. I heard bosons smell like old farts, too

luckily, they travel fast and don't linger.

[ColbertWatcher]

4. LOL! n/t