The 'Satan' Particle

Necuno

Necuno

Court Jester
Joined
Sep 27, 2005
Messages
58,567
The 'Satan' Particle


While the world gets all excited about the God particle, I'm keeping my eyes peeled for something more sinister - the Satan particle which, having tired of backing the Communists, has gone on to bring Lady Gaga to South Africa.

The world has been getting all excited about the discovery of the God particle. Many religious people, especially, seem to like the idea that religion and science can work together, that it is possible to believe in God without believing that he is a distinguished old gentleman sitting on a throne with a long white beard waving a magic wand up in the clouds.

But, internationally and in South Africa, many religious people have skipped over this discovery, because, let’s face it, science makes religion much less fun. Many of the most entertaining stories in the Bible, like the one about the world being created in seven days and the one about how it's possible to live comfortably inside a giant fish for three days, are just flat out ruined when you get all scientific.

But while the God particle may take a while to catch on in certain SA churches, according to some deeply religious South Africans there is a Satan particle that exists in any living organism, situation or occurrence. Just the other day, North West province human settlements and public safety MEC Nono Maloyi blamed a string of the region's most hideous crimes on the devil, proving that, though, there may be no textbooks in Limpopo, North West province at least has plenty of Bibles.

While Satan has been quiet for a while, he has been causing trouble in South Africa since way back. During Apartheid, he was often mentioned by the authorities as being up there with communism as one of the leading causes of trying to bring evil forces such as human rights to South Africa.

After we got free, you would have thought Satan would have done the proper thing and emigrated to Australia. But no. In 2008, he forced an 18-year old kid in Krugersdorp to go on a rampage with a sword. And in April this year, a pastor in Evaton was accused of turning children into snakes, a crime that has Satan's hoof-prints all over it. Just a look at how many times he pops up in South Africa's most credible news source, The Daily Sun, on any given day, is proof that Satan is still at large.

Famously, in 2000, Satan even got involved in South African sport, when he convinced Hansie Cronje that match fixing is okay, provided it makes you really, really rich. And, while he hasn't directly been blamed, it is extremely difficult to understand Bafana Bafana's performance for the last 10 years, at least, if we don't hold Satan responsible.

Cronje was a follower of pastor Ray McCauley's Rhema Church, and the poor pastor himself has been known for becoming a victim of Satan from time to time, with Satan having to face accusations of forcing McCauley to have sex with women younger and more attractive than his wife. Clearly, Satan has a helluva lot to answer for.

It doesn't stop there. Satan is also guilty of a number of lesser crimes that, while not nearly as bad as the murders, he should still be held accountable for. I hear his voice in my head, telling me I must masturbate and eat KFC. On top of this, Satan has a long history of playing evil practical jokes on me. Just the other day, Satan hid my keys behind the couch in full knowledge that I was late for a show. So I can fully appreciate that he needs to be stopped.

If you see Satan (he's pretty easy to spot - bright red skin, large horns, pitchfork, tail and little goatee like the ones popular in Welkom) please do not hesitate to contact the authorities. While the temptation to form a mob and necklace him is understandable, vigilante tactics are just the sort of thing Satan himself would condone. It is important to respect the correct legal processes. Like Wouter Basson, Satan is entitled to his day in court. Let’s just hope that he doesn't get let off on a technicality.

POSTSCRIPT

Satan has also been instrumental in one, final unspeakable act: Causing Lady Gaga to come to South Africa. If you don't believe that this is the fault of Satan, see here. There's even a special Facebook group trying to stop her from coming. But before the group was even started, and proving that I am always ahead of the curve in the fight against Satan, I posted the following on Facebook after seeing an alarming YouTube video:

I have shocking news for those who were planning on attending Lady Gaga's concert. This YouTube clip offers proof that she is a satanist. The clip is guaranteed to be 100 % factual for the following reasons:

1) It's on the internet. Everything on the internet is completely true. I read it on this one blog.

2) It has really creepy music. Any clip with music as creepy as this MUST be for realsies.

3) It is a CONFESSION!!! This is much more serious than a plain old “confession”. It is in FULL CAPS with three exclamation marks, and anything written out like that demands to be taken SERIOUSLY!!!

4) In the clip, Lady Gaga says she had a dream about the devil. Everyone knows that everything that happens in dreams is real. A friend of mine once had a dream in which Napoleon turned into a ham sandwich and he ate him, which means my friend, sadly, is guilty of cannibalism, treason in the 18th century and breaking the Jewish laws of kashrut.

I am sorry that Lady Gaga fans had to find out like this. I trust you will all do the right thing and boycott the concert.

-DM
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E

Elimentals

Honorary Master
Joined
Dec 11, 2010
Messages
10,819
LOL why did they not call it the Lucifer particle?

Anyway came here to post http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428428/higgs-boson-may-be-an-imposter-say-particle/?ref=rss

Higgs Boson May Be An Imposter, Say Particle Physicists

Higgs%20imposter.png


The news coming out of CERN in recent weeks has been hard to miss. At first, there was a dripfeed of gossip which turned into a firehose of 'Higgsteria'. Finally, last Wednesday, CERN announced that it had found a new particle that is "consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson".

Note the phrasing. CERN has been careful not to claim that the new particle is the Higgs, only that it could be.

But if not the Higgs, what else might it be?

Today, Ian Low at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois and a couple of buddies comb through the data in an attempt to throw some light on this question. Their conclusion is that the data is consistent with at least two other particles that are not the standard Higgs boson.

Particle identification is not always an easy task. Physicists use a theory known as the Standard Model of particle physics to predict how particles should behave. In 1964, Peter Higgs and others used this theory to predict the existence of the Higgs particle. They said it should be heavy and that it should exist only fleetingly before decaying into various other particles.

In fact, its existence is so fleeting that the only way of spotting the Higgs is to look for the signature of particles that it produces, such as pairs of photons or pairs of other heavy particles called Z bosons.

The trouble is that this signature is not unique, at least not given the amount of data that CERN has so far collected.

Low and co say that given various assumptions about the data, there are several theoretical possibilities. One of these is that the data shows the Higgs boson as predicted by the Standard Model.

But another equally likely option is that the data is evidence of a more exotic theory in which the Higgs boson exists in several different forms. So the new particle might be one of these, examples of these are a generic Higgs doublet or a triplet imposter.

A final option is based on the idea that particles can exist in mixtures. So the new data does not show the Higgs but a mixture of it and some other particle.

Low and co analyse the data and come to the following conclusion. "A generic Higgs doublet and a triplet imposter give equally good fits to the measured event rates."

In particular, they say that the predicted signatures of the Higgs boson and the triplet imposter are both within one sigma of the measured value. And by one measure, the CERN data even favours the triplet imposter.

However, Low and co are quick to add that the Standard Model prediction is a slightly better fit overall.

The message here is that the data at this stage is far from conclusive and could support the existence of any of these three particles.

So now there is much to do to clarify exactly what it is that CERN has found.

As Low and co point out: "This is only the beginning of a challenging program of “Higgs Identification”.

Let the Higgsteria continue.
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