“What the Large Hadron Collider is,” by T.F. Grundle, Professor of Particle Physics at a University

The Large Hadron Collider is an awfully big, magical machine that is designed to help us scientists find the Higgs particle, which will prove once and for all a whole mess of stuff that I don’t have time to describe right now.

How it works is you load up the opening part with protons (the smaller the better) and then turn it on. There’s a giant monitoring screen where you can observe the different protons crashing into each other, which, when studied by a proper physicist, gives us all kinds of information about science. Tons.

The machine itself is quite big. Bigger even than the truck that steals our rubbish collections.* I haven’t had a chance yet to see the collider, as it is in Switzerland. The Swiss are an odd people. They speak in tongues, and Michael thinks they don’t have blood!

The Large Hadron Collider may in time answer some of the toughest questions in physics: Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there room in the debate for a Divine Creator? Are there galaxies out there other than our own? How could an atom possibly be smaller than a dot?

In his new book, A Universe from Nothing, Lawrence Krauss addresses a few of these questions. One needs only to throw the book forcefully to the floor and skim whatever page it opens up to, and a vast and wonderful world of information arises, offering intriguing bits of scientific physics, such as this:

We now call the positron the “antiparticle” of the electron, because it turns out that Dirac’s discovery was ubiquitous. The same physics that required an antiparticle for the electron to exist requires one such particle to exist for almost every elementary particle in nature.

Hmmmmm. Very, very good.

I expect my next big theory to materialize after I visit the collider—which has not yet happened, because of the Swiss. I have been invited to see the LHC, but it’s far away and my cat Michael requires daily ointments.**

Perhaps, though, our weightiest question (why is there something rather than nothing?) is a bit naïve. Perhaps we are wrong to suspect that existence is so unlikely. Why do we think nothing makes more sense than thing? Maybe nothing is stranger. After all, no one has ever encountered nothing, so why should we assume it’s even a possibility? As inquisitive primates, we often ask questions based on our misguided intuition. Just think of the millions of us who lie awake for hours each night wondering, “How come there are no unicorns? It’s so simple, just put a horn on top of a horse.”

And yet there are no unicorns.

*Tip: If you hide your rubbish out back, they won’t be able to find it. But then you can’t show it off.
**This is not the same Michael as mentioned above! Hahahahahahaha! Everything in my house is named Michael.

“What an Animal is,” a Case Study by T.F. Grundle, Biologist

Animals are those things that aren’t what humans are. They’re the ones that, when you try to speak to them like a person, react inappropriately.

Conversely, you can identify a human by gauging the level of anger when you treat it like an animal. Trying to put anything inside a cage, for instance, is often difficult. It is more difficult with a human. This is called irony.

There are lots of animals in the world, and while some estimates are in the hundreds, you will often only find a small sample in your immediate environment. These are called pets (the rats that come with houses are NOT pets). Pets are the ones you give food to—the ones that sometimes bite you when you poke them, or even when you’re minding your own business.

The ones that you don’t give food to are called wildlife, and they live outside. You mustn’t get angry at these ones, even when they pee in public. It’s illegal to yell and cry when you see this happen, unfortunately.

Animals get divided into categories. A cat, for instance, is a member of the animal family, and there’s even more than one type of cat! There’s the nice type (the one in your house is probably a member of this species, although “nice” is pushing it) and the mean type (these ones have wings. Watch out). There’s an even meaner type of cat, called a lion. They live in the forest and if you see one, run!

Koalas are gay. But there aren’t even any girl koalas anyways.

Animals are different from humans in many ways. One of the main differences is that humans have a type of consciousness that has not been discovered in any other species. This consciousness has for centuries attracted debate, and it is considered our species’ most fortunate blight. It allows us to experience the richness and wonder of our Earth, and at the same time demands that we confront our mortality. We agonize over physical pain, and agonize further over the existence of pain. This consciousness has inspired a thing called “art,” which is sometimes so powerful it can drive a person to transcendence or madness.

Did you know that some animals don’t even have arms or legs? A snail is like this.

“What a Chimpanzee is,” by T.F. Grundle, Primatologist

A chimpanzee is a big, fat, hairy, mean jerk!

I was just trying to do some research at the zoo, and the second I start making him sit in the chair for a proper discussion, he starts wapping me all over with his stupid, mean fists.

I HATE chimpanzees now!

He was being SUCH a jerk so I hit him back. It’s only fair, DUH!

And then he BIT me!

I HATE chimpanzees now and I don’t ever want to see one ever again for as long as I live!

“What a Nightclub is,” by T.F. Grundle, Professor

On a typical Friday night, men and women, all weary from a long week of laying railroad track and boiling parsnips, don their finest attire and head out for hours of ribald fun at a fancy nightclub.

But what the heck is a nightclub even? Don’t worry, I had never heard of them before, either (they’re not even mentioned in Borganschoff’s Encyclopædia Moderne!), but I’ve done some research, and this is what I learned about a growing trend in America:

– A nightclub is a place where a single woman goes to meet people she wouldn’t like during the day.
– It is a place where a woman in a relationship goes to figure out non-rude ways to tell someone that she already has a boyfriend.
– It is a place where a man in a relationship is very sad.
– A nightclub is a favorite hangout of apparent libertarians, who like to trade cash monies for alcohol and experiment with the idea of a “drink standard” for purchasing prostitutes.
– Do you ever get tired of talking, listening to good music, and being happy? Check out a nightclub.
– Do you like to pick fights, but abhor the middle and end parts of fights? You can pick as many fights as you want in a nightclub and they’ll be stopped before any actual fisticuffs commence. (Say “bro” a lot. It means “I like to punch people”)
– It is OK to rub your genitals against anyone/anything you want, so just go crazy. But if you’ve been doing a lot of genital-rubbing, and then you do not get invited over for a nightcap, call her/him/it a cocktease.
– Sometimes a urinal is for pooping in.

And that’s about everything you need to know about nightclubs! So throw on your threads (cummerbund), get smashed (drink an alcohol), then get laid! (masturbate onto the poop)

“What a Cat is,” a Dissertation by T.F. Grundle

A housecat is a tiny, domesticated lion that we keep in our homes. It’s not mean like a lion, and it won’t try to eat you, but it definitely has a lion-like walk and a lionish face. If you ever see a cat, you just might start busting up laughing right there on the spot, screaming very loudly, “It’s so tiny!”

Much too tiny to be a lion. That’s when you know you’ve found a housecat, which typically looks like this or this.

Most varieties of cat were bred in the UK, which makes sense because Britons like silly things. They like to drink hot stuff that doesn’t have very much caffeine or alcohol in it, and they only laugh when men dress as ladies. Otherwise, they are quite composed, perceptive and intuitive, affectionate and docile, occasionally shedding their fur and bathing themselves with their own tongues, and… Say! If a Briton is not unlike a cat!

Because of cat’s composed nature, people are often quick to assume he would not be a valuable asset during wartime, but in actuality the cat was bred specifically for its strength and courage, so it could rid people’s homes of mice.

In fact, a dental surgeon named Lytle S. Adams submitted a plan to the U.S. government in the ’40s to use cats as effective explosive devices against the Japanese. His ingenious plan was to attach tiny bombs to the cats and drop them on villages in the night, where they would stealthily prowl among the enemy, undetected. When the sun would come up, the nocturnal cats would naturally fly over to the nearest attic to hibernate, thus placing themselves in the perfect position for the time bombs to be detonated and… Oh, wait, I’m misreading this. It seems Dr. Adams actually used bats in these experiments.

Oh well, I feel too lazy to go back and change that last paragraph. Haha! Why, if I haven’t a bit of the old feline lethargy in myself! Well then, so be it: Cheerio, gov’na!