Wednesday 1 April 2015

What If, Part 1

This is the do-or-die year, so Résonaances will be dead serious. This year, no stupid jokes on April Fools' day: no Higgs in jail, no loose cables, no discovery of supersymmetry, or such. Instead, I'm starting with a new series "What If" inspired  by XKCD.  In this series I will answer questions that everyone is dying to know the answer to. The first of these questions is

If HEP bloggers were Muppets,
which Muppet would they be? 

Here is  the answer.

  • Gonzo the Great: Lubos@Reference Frame (on odd-numbered days)
    The one true uncompromising artist. Not treated seriously by other Muppets, but adored by chicken.
  • Animal: Lubos@Reference Frame (on even-numbered days)
    My favorite Muppet. Pure mayhem and destruction. Has only two modes: beat it, or eat it.
  • Swedish Chef: Tommaso@Quantum Diaries Survivor
    The Muppet with a penchant for experiment. No one understands what he says but it's always amusing nonetheless.
  • Kermit the Frog: Matt@Of Particular Significance
    Born Muppet leader, though not clear if he really wants the job.
  • Miss Piggy: Sabine@Backreaction
    Not the only female Muppet, but certainly the best known. Admired for her stage talents but most of all for her punch.
  • Rowlf: Sean@Preposterous Universe
    The real star and one-Muppet orchestra. Impressive as an artist or and as a comedian, though some complain he's gone to the dogs.

  • Statler and Waldorf: Peter@Not Even Wrong
    Constantly heckling other Muppets from the balcony, yet every week back for more.
  • Fozzie Bear:  Jester@Résonaances
    Failed stand-up comedian. Always stressed that he may not be funny after all.
     
If you have a match for  Bunsen, Beaker, or Dr Strangepork, let me know in the comments.

In preparation:
-If theoretical physicists were smurfs... 

-If LHC experimentalists were Game of Thrones characters...
-If particle physicists lived in Middle-earth... 

-If physicists were cast for Hobbit's dwarves... 
and more. 


18 comments:

Vagelford said...

Amazing post. +1

Alex Small said...

If physicists were in Middle Earth we would have been recruited to work at Isengard on a project to make an even more powerful ring.

Theo Nieuwenhuizen said...

April jokes aside, I am still most impressed by the accurate figure on the present status of the X-ray bananas in an earlier post on Resonaances. Expectably, nothing changed since then, so it also fits today's status quo.

Tom Weidig said...

Haha... very funny

"Shecky Riemann" said...

Luv it!... but who is Big Bird???

Uncle Al said...

Luboš certainly deserves the double dip, for he tolerates no flapdoodle in any venue. Alas, all the Euclid in the world will not draw an undistorted, unfolded, uncut map of the world. Get a testably better founding postulate, physics. Bee is much more elegant than Miss Piggy, whose humor derives from contradiction of appearance and deeds. Needs more of "The Countess."

Dr. Strangepork? Quantum Diaries. Heavy gauge copper piping or self-annihilating PEX, a plumber will sell you anything.

Anonymous said...

Oscar the Grouch: Peter Woit
Always grouchy about SUSY and String Theory and he wants SUSY and String Theory and basically any BSM physics to fail and not show up at the LHC.
Grouchy

Who agrees with me? I may be wrong.

Anonymous said...

Sesame Street Martians ("yip yip yip"): Uncle Al
Nobody understands him.

Anonymous said...

Jacques Distler is Oscar the Grouch. Always grumpy, has rarely be seen on the show in recent years, is compulsively hoarding Macs.

Jester said...

Come on guys, no one is grumpy. We are all one big loving family ;)

Anonymous said...

Great post!

Anonymous said...

Distiller is no Oscar. Under the grouchy exterior, oscar is a good guy.

Anonymous said...

I sometimes ask Peter Woit, on his blog, about what he would prefer happen at the LHC:

1. SUSY is discovered, leading the way to a better understanding of what's happening beyond the standard model

and

2. Nothing is discovered, nothing at all, other than a plain SM Higgs

and he always deletes my comment. I'm guessing because he doesn't want SUSY to be discovered (that's, after all, one of the main themes of his blog - that SUSY is not gonna happen) and because he doesn't want people to know that he wants only the SM to be at the LHC and doesn't want to appear like he's against progress.

Anonymous said...

So, if he picks 1, then it goes against his crusade against SUSY. But if he picks 2, then he looks like a bad guy. So it's a no-win situation for him, so he just deletes the comment.

I think I even asked him how he would feel if evidence for string showed up in the LHC and he didn't reply. Not surprised.

Jester said...

:)
How mean of Peter! Such a poignant and relevant comment and he doesn't appreciate it ;)

Anonymous said...

Ha ha ha...

I will survive, Jester. :-)

Mitchell said...

Anonymous, you are a bit like a Christian who talks with a critic of the religion, and then says, 'But what would you prefer to happen when you die: you go to Christian Heaven, or you just cease to exist'. If the critic refuses to play that game, that is neither evidence for Christianity, nor is it evidence of the critic's moral or intellectual turpitude.

Woit's fantasy seems to be that the SM will be obtained from a twisted form of N=8 supergravity. Ask him about that and maybe he'll answer.

Xezlec said...

I nominate Gerard 't Hooft for Bunsen.