Colliding into an alternative reality
IF you managed to see last weeks column, a light hearted romp around the wonderful world of conspiracy theories, have I got news for you. Excellent news. Even includes a bit of local colour and flavour. If physicists can be said to have colour and flavour, that is. Either way, let me explain.
Seems I missed the very best conspiracy theory of all in last weeks lap around the block. Hot diggedy dog. Didn’t even get round to giving it a mention. Sigh.
In truth, that was mainly because I only stumbled across it a couple of days ago. But fear not, gentle reader, I shall share with you. Immediately.
Must admit, that I heard it from someone else. It’s no theory of
mine. But I do love it. Even though I can’t claim any responsibility for its simple genius, being nothing more than a humble admirer from afar. But enough pre-amble. To business. To the conspiracy. Goes like this…
I’m sure we can all agree that the world has gone super weird and whacky over the last couple of years. Wherever you find yourself on the spectrum, either loving the lockdowns or hating them. Whether you welcome the draconian power grabs that supposedly liberal governments are coming up with, or loathe them. If you think the whole covis thing is a ruse to bring about a new world order or just a mild bug that we are over reacting to. Destroying large sections of society along the way just for kicks, there is one thing I think we can all agree upon. The world we live in now is not the one that we all lived in a few years ago. Never will be again.
Too much water has poured under the bridge, round the bridge and over the bridge. We are living under a brand new order, for better or for worse. So far, so good. Not much conspiracy theory there. Now here’s the twisty bit. Bit of a subject change, but bear with me. We’ll get there in the end.
A few years ago, the news was full of excitement over the Large Hadron Collider. Remember it? Must admit, never fully understood what it does. So I googled it, obviously. Which is how I learnt that it is, in fact, a particle accelerator that pushes protons or ions to near the speed of light. It consists of a 27-kilometre ring of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures that boost the energy of the particles along the way. Phew. Bit of a mind numbing mouthful right there. But you get the drift. It’s the stuff of science fiction.
However, be that as it may, the important bit to focus on right now, is that a few years after the thing was up and running, some exciting news came out. Apparently, they were going to use it to look for a brand new type of particle. The so called, God Particle. The Higgs Boson thingamajig . A really, really teeny tiny beastie. Sub atomic. Part of the mysterious and shadowy world of quantum physics.
Again, must admit I have no real clue as to what the Higgs Boson particle is, what it does, or why anyone would want to look for it. What I do know is that Professor Higgs, the world renowned physicist after whom it is part named, came from Bristol. Went to Cotham Grammar School, which is where my children spent a lot of time whilst growing up. So, speaking personally, that’s rather a nice touch. An enjoyable dash of local colour and flavour. But I digress.
Point is, the Large Hadron Collider decided to look for this particle and after a while, they found it. Yippee. Well done them! Thing is, some folk were worried by all this meddling in physics. thought the whole process might produce some kind rip in the time space continuum. In short, they reckoned that finding this particle could set us off on the road to the end of the world. Or worse.
Long story short, my new favourite conspiracy theory reckons that is exactly what happened. The world did end. Without knowing it, we all jumped through to an alternative parallel universe. This universe. A rather unpleasant one. Where governments are run by authoritarian dictators, most of the people they are crushing beneath their jackboots love it and anyone who thinks the whole world has gone mad is accused of denying the science.
Which is why, these days, the news sounds more like the plot of some mad sci-fi movie than reality. We’re living in a parallel universe. Sigh. Gotta love a good conspiracy theory.
Hope you and yours are well and happy.
Until next time, all the best