Today Is A Special Day..I'm Opening A..

Well....Susan is doing steak and the grill guy will be on the scene...so it'll probably be an Ojai or Jaffurs Syrah.
Today is, of course, a very/very Special Day....the discovery of the Higgs Boson..the God particle. At the LHC in CERN, Suisse. At the 5-sigma level. Our lives will never be the same. Life don't get no better. Once again, we physicists are returned to the center of the news world. Chicks around the world will be trying hit on every physicist they see walking down the street. I'm planning on strapping my Post slide rule to my belt, dress up in my finest polyester leasure suit, resplendent with my vinyl pocket protector with five...count 'em...five different-colored ball point pens, neatly tucked in front of my punched cards; and stroll the streets of SantaFe and hit up all the Singles bars down there. Today is my day!!!
Ohhhh...and happy 4'th of July to all. Drink well.
Tom

the discovery of the Higgs Boson..the God particle.

Aaaargh! Just call in the Higgs boson. There's nothing supernatural about it. Leon Lederman is often credited with coining the term God particle, but that's actually not true. He wanted to call his book "Goddamn particle" but his publishing editor censored that name and unfortunately the censored version stuck - especially in sensationalist news outlets. But really, lets stop calling the God particle, ok?

Other than that, yes, I'm excited about the news too. And happy 4th of July to all of you in the US!

the discovery of the Higgs Boson..the God particle.

Aaaargh! Just call it the Higgs boson. There's nothing supernatural about it. Leon Lederman is often credited with coining the term God particle, but that's actually not true. He wanted to call his book "Goddamn particle" but his publishing editor censored that name and unfortunately the censored version stuck - especially in sensationalist news outlets. But really, lets stop calling the God particle, ok?

Other than that, yes, I'm excited about the news too. And happy 4th of July to all of you in the US!

Yup....Leon's "God Particle" was widely reviled by physicists around the world. But firmly embraced by the talking heads on TV
as they try to make sense of something way over their head...so it's not gonna go away.
That'll be my line in the singles bar...."Ahem.....we just discovered the God's Particle today". The chicks'll swoon.
Tom

Chicks around the world will be trying hit on every physicist they see walking down the street.

Okay Tom. You guys may have discovered my particle, but that ain't happening even in my life time.

- God

I had meant to post on the Higgs myself, but never got around to it. For the non-physicists, this is likely to be regarded as one the greatest scientific breakthroughs in history, and somebody WILL get a Nobel for it. It is the particle that gives other particles, like protons and neutrons, their mass. This is seriously fundamental stuff!

Great post!
Good luck with all the physicist groupies out there, Tom! Had Cynthia still lived on her own in Albuquerque, no doubt she would have been there.

Cheers, from one physicist to another,
Anders