The Force has proven a popular research tool for the CERN beams department (Image: Max Brice and Daniel Dominguez/CERN)
Update 2 April 2015: Enjoy our April fool? But seriously folks, this week CERN is busy with restarting the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
Researchers at the Large Hadron Collider just recently started testing the accelerator for running at the higher energy of 13 TeV,
and already they have found new insights into the fundamental structure
of the universe. Though four fundamental forces – the strong force,
the weak force, the electromagnetic force and gravity – have been well
documented and confirmed in experiments over the years, CERN announced
today the first unequivocal evidence for the Force. “Very impressive, this result is,” said a diminutive green spokesperson for the laboratory. CERN
librarian Tullio Basaglia has learnt to harness the Force to return
reference books to their shelves (Image: Max Brice and Daniel
Dominguez/CERN)
“The Force is what gives a particle physicist his powers,” said CERN
theorist Ben Kenobi of the University of Mos Eisley, Tatooine. “It’s an
energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us; and
penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.”
Though researchers are as yet unsure what exactly causes the Force,
students and professors at the laboratory have already started to
harness its power. Practical applications so far include long-distance
communication, influencing minds, and lifting heavy things out of
swamps.
Kenobi says he first started teaching the ways of the Force to a
young lady who was having trouble revising for her particle-physics
exams. "She said that I was her only hope," says Kenobi. "So I just
kinda took it from there. I designed an experiment to detect the Force,
and passed on my knowledge."
Kenobi's seminal paper "May the Force be with EU" – a strong argument
that his experiment should be built in Europe – persuaded the CERN
Council to finance the installation of dozens of new R2 units for the
CERN data centre*. These plucky little droids are helping physicists to
cope with the flood of data from the laboratory's latest experiment, the
Thermodynamic Injection Energy (TIE) detector, recently installed at
the LHC.
"We're very pleased with this new addition to CERN's accelerator
complex," said data analyst Luke Daniels of human-cyborg relations. "The
TIE detector has provided us with plenty of action, and what's more it
makes a really cool sound when the beams shoot out of it."
But the research community is divided over the discovery. Dark-matter
researcher Dave Vader was unimpressed, breathing heavily in disgust
throughout the press conference announcing the results, and dismissing
the cosmological implications of the Force with the quip "Asteroids do
not concern me".
Rumours are growing that this rogue researcher hopes to delve into the Dark Side of the Standard Model,
and could even build his own research station some day. With the
academic community split, many are tempted by Vader's invitations to
study the Dark Side, especially researchers working with red lasers, and
anyone really with an evil streak who looks good in dark robes. CERN
physicist Valerio Rossetti harnesses the Force for more mundane tasks,
such as reheating coffee (Image: Max Brice and Daniel Dominguez/CERN)
"We hope to continue to study the Force, and perhaps use it to open
doors with our minds and fly around and stuff," said TIE experimentalist
Fan Buoi. "Right now, to be honest, I don't really care how it works.
The theory department have some crackpot idea about life forms called
midi-chlorians, but frankly I think that poorly thought out explanations
like that just detract from how cool the Force really is."
With the research ongoing, many at CERN are already predicting that the Force will awaken later this year.
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