What do they do at CERN? From Holly O at theburningplatform.com:
Two physicists walk into a bar—actually, they stroll into a government office in a crumbling-concrete, linoleum-floored brutalist building styled on-the-cheap after Le Corbusier during the boomtown rush of the post-WWII nuclear frontier. They are prepared to pitch an idea that goes roughly like this:
There is something we cannot precisely describe, nor are we able to quantify its dimensions, nor how it behaves, or whether it has any commercial application. We don’t even know if it actually exists but we think the people of the world owe it to themselves to find it, name it and pin it to the mat. We’ve got ten nations signed up and expect the rest to fall into line. Want a piece of the action?
Bien sûr! the bureaucrat replies. Here’s a blank cheque—no—wait— just take the chequebook and let us know if you find anything worth selling. Bonjour! Bonne chance!
For the past sixty-four years the people of earth not involved in CERN have been urged to accept the apocryphal tale above as gospel. We’re also recommended to overlook the compulsory purchase at rock bottom prices of enough villages and farmland on the border of Switzerland and France to enclose a one hundred and twenty-seven kilometre circle bored out of solid rock to a depth of one hundred metres and lined with the most expensive custom-purpose equipment ever invented. Like many of the most important things on earth you rarely hear about it on the nightly news.
