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First LHC Data Hint At New Particle

Anonymous Dupeur writes "Only 12 hours after the start of operation of the Large Hardon Collider at an unprecedentedly high energy level, a discovery had been made. Today, in its press release, CERN disclosed the observation of a new class — paleoparticles. 'It's awful,' explains Alain Grand, still shocked by the discovery. 'It left horrible tracks inside the detector that made the physicists on duty at the time feel quite sick.' No wonder. The particle consists of two strange quarks and one top quark but no beauty or charm quark. The physicists have nicknamed it the 'neutrinosaurus.' This marks a first success of the — finally — started experiment."

30 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. ahh yes, the "Devil Particle" by thomasdz · · Score: 4, Funny

    ahh yes, the "Devil Particle"
    although wouldn't the existence of a Devil Particle prove the existence of the God Particle?

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    1. Re:ahh yes, the "Devil Particle" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      They say the Devil Particle's greatest accomplishment was convincing Fermilab it didn't exist.

    2. Re:ahh yes, the "Devil Particle" by tepples · · Score: 2, Interesting

      According to Negentropism, the devil is entropy.

    3. Re:ahh yes, the "Devil Particle" by characterZer0 · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, it would just prove that the God Particle existed at one point in time. It was there for the big bang, but then it turned into the Topeka Particle.

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    4. Re:ahh yes, the "Devil Particle" by physburn · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Funny April fool, but done, over at that scienfic blogging they had the LHC discovering the graviton. Paleo particles, dinosaur hadrons, thats funny. Not LOL but funny. I have to be Pedantic though, Top quarks don't live long enough to be bound to anything else.

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    5. Re:ahh yes, the "Devil Particle" by Locke2005 · · Score: 2, Funny

      "The greatest trick the devil particle ever played was convincing people that it didn't exist..."

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      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    6. Re:ahh yes, the "Devil Particle" by mcgrew · · Score: 4, Funny

      I am a Top quark, you insen

  2. April Fools! by haggus71 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Like the thing is gonna make such a fast discovery...

  3. Pics or it didn't happen. by SOdhner · · Score: 5, Funny

    Aww, I was expecting a funny picture of a CERN scientist being chased by a velocineutron. Bah.

    1. Re:Pics or it didn't happen. by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 5, Funny

      *Looks left*

      Clever girl...

  4. Just Sad.. by mace9984 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is just sad...

    1. Re:Just Sad.. by Low+Ranked+Craig · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What will be really sad is when press organizations that don't know any better publish this as real news...

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    2. Re:Just Sad.. by John+Hasler · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes, it is. When are those idiots going to realize that the whole "quark" thing was an April fool's joke?

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    3. Re:Just Sad.. by eleuthero · · Score: 4, Funny

      Quarks? It's all been one extended April Fools joke from the first "discovery" of atoms - get with reality people. It's all about the four Aristotelian essences.

  5. A new history of the universe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Some even speculate a series of avian particles evolved from paleoparticles as the universe cooled.

  6. Large Hard-on Collider by Ohio+Calvinist · · Score: 5, Funny

    I know it's 1 April and everything but did anyone notice anything strange in the spelling of `Large Hardon Collider`?

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  7. This particle is so devious by presidenteloco · · Score: 4, Funny

    It reached back through time and disabled the LHC several times just so that it could ensure it would not be discovered until April Fools day.

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  8. My favorite part of this made up story... by MistrBlank · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Hints of the new particle had already been glimpsed in two events at Fermilab but the statistics were too low to be published. The four events observed at the LHC generated an exponential increase (2^2=4) in the statistics, allowing the physicists to announce the discovery unequivocally. "

    That made me laugh out loud at work (I'm on lunch, give me a break).

  9. AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!! 4-1 is bad news day! by jkinney3 · · Score: 2
    I'm going to have to start putting a squid block on slashdot on Aprils fools day.

    got all excited about finding a new particle...

    1. Re:AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!! 4-1 is bad news day! by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Lol April Fools!

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  10. Lighten up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    April Fool's is one of the only near-universally-celebrated, meaningful, capitalism-unencumbered holidays on this planet. It only requires you to have a sense of humor. For one day out of 365.25, everyone tells silly jokes. It's not about trolling and it's not about making people miserable. It's one of the only good things left in the world. I can't understand people who are just incapable of handling it.

    1. Re:Lighten up by lordandmaker · · Score: 3, Informative

      Here, in the UK, it's not people telling funny jokes. It's people pulling practical jokes on other people.

      Perhaps this is another of the US/UK differences (or maybe US/everywhere else). All my other (UK-based) news sources took the opportunity for some reasonably clever and subtle jokes but otherwise carried on as normal, Slashdot just spends the day 'telling silly jokes' as you put it. Having an entire site dedicated to neither believable nor particularly funny jokes kinda ruins the idea in my mind, but it's nice to see that someone enjoys it.

    2. Re:Lighten up by Clandestine_Blaze · · Score: 3, Insightful

      THANK YOU.

      We're overwhelmed by bad news every day of the calendar year, so it's nice to have ONE DAY where you can just sit back and be entertained. You guys and gals can all go back to whining about Apple's newest review (slashvertisement), MS FUD articles, or correlationisnotcausation articles tomorrow.

    3. Re:Lighten up by mooingyak · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The problem is that a good April Fool's joke can masquerade as something legit and will genuinely fool some people. And while a number of the articles that have been linked to from Slashdot might actually qualify individually, it diminishes it somewhat when your default expectation is a prank. It'd be better if there were one or two spoof stories hidden amongst a stream of legit stories.

      Slashdot is kind of like the kid who doesn't quite understand the idea that sometimes once == funny, twice == funnier, three times == less funny, four times == overkill, five times == annoying.

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    4. Re:Lighten up by Jangchub · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well, I for one totally bought into the complex ploy that Slashdot was populated by mature individuals that could take an unfunny joke or a slight inconvenience and not rage and piss their pants all over their keyboard! I mean I've believed it for months! Good show Slashdot! I'm the biggest April Fool!

    5. Re:Lighten up by biryokumaru · · Score: 2, Interesting

      In astronomy, the Julian year is a unit of time, defined as 365.25 days of 86,400 SI seconds each.

      - Wikipedia

      Interesting.

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  11. Calling in sick next 4/1 by Liquidrage · · Score: 3, Funny

    and unplugging. Not even worth going on the web at this point. All news is crap jokes that are fooling no one. Part of the 4/1 joke should be that it might fool someone.

  12. Re:How many fucking more April Fools posts? by Irontail · · Score: 2, Funny

    Parent obviously contains too many grumpy quarks.

  13. Re:As Asimov said, by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Funny

    More exciting than "that's funny" is "No no, that's impossible, everyone RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

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  14. Re:As Asimov said, by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

    At least you get to hear it more often. There are a few things you do not want to hear in a nuclear lab. One of them is "Now that's odd, that shouldn't happen..."

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