The Elements
It's nothing to do with the financial and economic melt down of the West and the impact that's having on your pension pot - start getting used to calling it your "pension pimple". No, it is much more serious than that.
The universe's speed cop has hung up his radar gun. Things can go faster than the speed of light! For you to understand what this means to an intellectual like me, imagine you were told that Rock Hudson was gay, or that REM were splitting up. Unbelievable and impossible, but it's true.
I can't begin to explain what this means.
No, it doesn't mean Rock Hudson didn't fancy Doris Day in "Pillow Talk"!
It means Einstein was wrong! and Kirk was right! It means Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle wasn't so flaky after all. It means I can visit a really hot girl friend of 40 years ago and know what I'd be doing..and do it!
But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself (well I can if I can go faster than the speed of light). Scientists at CERN in Switzerland fired a stream of neutrinos (sub atomic particles) towards the Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy 732 kms away. They arrived sooner than they should have - meaning they'd travelled faster than the speed of light.
You can imagine the fuss this has caused in the ivory towers in universities all over the globe. The sound of PhD theses being deleted is deafening. I'm guessing there'll be quite a few professors picking up their P45s and signing on.
CERN have checked and re-checked their figures, and they're asking the scientific community to go over their calculations such is the magnitude of this result....except I think I see where the error lies.
Gran Sasso laboratory is in Italy. They say it's 732 kms from CERN. I reckon the Italian road builder invoiced for 732 kms of road but only built 702 kms creaming off the difference. It doesn't cost much to knock up a few 732 kms road signs either, and no one is the wiser.
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