Geek Alert!

Fermilab, one of those monstrously huge underground particle accelerators that smashes stuff together at nearly the speed of light, will offer tours of parts of the facility in July and August. People who wish to participate should be able, it says, to walk up three flights of stairs and should wear comfortable shoes.

Fermilab is in suburban Chicago and among its many experiments is the creation of anti-matter. The Daily Herald story explains a little about anti-matter; I went hunting for some more detailed info but the crossing of my eyes and pain in my head varies directly with the degree of detail offered, so I quit.

What I did find was that anti-matter is produced in very, very small amounts, and when it meets real matter, both particles blow up. Which makes it good that anti-matter is produced in very, very small amounts. Scientists have theorized that many previously unknown things could happen in and around Chicagoland if large amounts of anti-matter met large amounts of real matter:

-- A Northwestern University bowl win
-- A poor Chicago alderman
-- The Cubs in the World Series
-- The Cubs winning the World Series*
-- A Republican mayor
-- An alcohol-free St. Patrick's Day
-- Rod Blagojevich's hair (Uh-oh. I think the scientists have been hiding something!)
-- Barack Obama's humility
-- An Illinois governor handing power over to an elected successor without benefit of indictment.

*In researching this, I asked the scientists about these possibilities, and they said nobody would sign off on this one ever happening except the guy who'd been sniffing too many positrons, and he had this problem of appearing and disappearing at irregular intervals.

(ETA -- H/T to University Diaries. Must remember not to blog on Sunday morning because I forget things like this!)