I met a Swiss
dude last night who I thought was mad at first because he seemed very strange.
After speaking to him for a while though I realized that he was just brilliant.
He was a genius. The Swiss man's name was Gabriel and he is a
mathematician and a Particle Physicist. Once we got talking I quickly
established that he was a very smart and interesting person.
Uber
interesting in fact.
He was very
shy and it took a while for him to engage with me but I persisted. I generally
do. Once we got talking about his job he opened right up. I asked Gabriel lots
of questions and he gave me lots of answers. I wrote some of what he told me
down. I scrawled notes on both sides of a serviette. The serviette got damp
from beer and wine and melting ice as we were in a social setting.
I am trying to
read some of my blurred notes now and it is not easy for the ink has run and smeared.
Gabriel and I were both drinking iced water so we were sober but we were
surrounded by loud and rowdy drunks.
We didn't
mind.
The word
serviette is French. It's English translation means 'napkin' or 'towel'.
Interestingly the word 'napkin' also has French origins - although
to me it sounds a bit Scottish. It is a derivation of the French word "naperon'
which is some form of apron thing. The French are obviously big on the use of
such items and serviettes are very useful. They keep crumbs off us and can also
be used to write notes on. Don't get them wet though if you write on them as
the ink runs and blurs and it is then difficult to read.
I suspect that
Gabriel has Asperger Syndrome. Many very smart people do - well some at least.
The syndrome is actually a type of autism that was unremarkably named by an
Austrian pediatrician called Hans Asperger. Hans suffered from a vanity complex
and he named the syndrome in 1944. This was at the tail end of the Second World
War. I have not established if Asperger had any Nazi connections or whether he
was involved in any of the horrific experiments conducted by Josef Mengele -
the infamous and absolutely evil Doctor of Auschwitz.
I could find
no literature to support this.
The Second
World War was often referred to as 'the war to end all wars'. More than
sixty million people were killed in the conflict and it did not end all wars
either. Far from it. War rages still across the planet.
It is an
abomination.
Modern day
medical and psychological practitioners argue that persons with Asperger do not
'suffer' from the condition. Some have difficulties coping with social
interactions but they are also often blessed with incredible cognitive
abilities. I found Gabriel to be a little socially awkward but he was most
definitely brilliant. He was remarkable in fact and he is working in a
fascinating field.
When I asked
Gabriel what exactly it is that a Particle Physicist does he told me that there
are a number of different fields of endeavour. He told me that his main area of
interest and expertise was in the study of Dark Matter. Gabriel spends much of
his time in the Swiss city of Cern where he works with more than 7,000 other
scientists on the Large Hadron Collider. He refers to this as an acronym - it
is the LHC.
Gabriel
informed me that the LHC is the largest machine ever built by man. I told him
that I already knew this because I have read about it before. The LHC is an
enormous twenty seven kilometer tunnel of super conducting magnets and it is
constructed more than one hundred meters underground. Gabriel told me that if
you didn't know that it was there you wouldn't notice it. Apparently cows graze
in fields directly above it. These are Swiss cows with bells around their
necks.
He told me
that the machine cost more than $9 billion to construct. When I asked him if
that was in US dollars he confirmed that it was. The machine was turned on in
September 2008 but it took more than eight years to build. I am not sure what
the value of the US dollar was back then but it is atrocious now. America has a
grossly dysfunctional economy with a very weak currency at the moment.
Gabriel
informed me that the LHC was turned on in September 2008. He told me this
several times so I have also repeated it. Perhaps I am also Asperger’s? Ten
days after it was turned on it blew up. A minor fault in an electrical circuit
triggered a huge discharge of liquid helium that destroyed a large part of the
machinery. Gabriel told me that he was there when it happened and it occurred
on his birthday. He told me that his party was ruined.
The machine
was repaired at a cost of more than another one billion dollars and has been
running beautifully ever since. The machine smashes particles called protons
into each other at near speeds of light and then scientists analyze the
results.
I asked
Gabriel to try and dumb down his explanations of the machine and his work for
me. I told him that I was not very bright. He told me that he would try and I
think that he did try - however a lot of what he said still went over my head.
Gabriel
informed me that many people think that the world and the universe is made up
of particles and matter but it actually is not. He told me that everything is
made up of fields and they hold everything together. The LHC is actually a
study of fields and waves and Particles are just a part of this. Gabriel told
me about protons and neutrons and electrons and he explained quarks and quantum
mechanics. He endeavored to explain what Chaos Theory was all about but I found
it incredibly difficult to follow his train of thought and explanations even
though I was riveted.
I made a lot
of notes on the paper serviette.
I told Gabriel
that I had heard that the illusive Higgs boson particle had recently been
discovered and identified at the LHC and he confirmed that it had. He got a
little excited when he told me this and he became a bit animated. Gabriel told
me that this happened in July last year and another boson had also since been
discovered. When I asked what exactly a boson was he told me that it was a
sub-atomic particle that didn't spin like other particles did. When I asked him
if the Higgs boson particle was in fact the "God Particle" he
scoffed. He told me that there was no place for religion in science but he was
confident that further experiments and investigations of these discoveries
might make for an understanding how everything and everyone came to be - and
what holds it all together.
Gabriel
informed me that the LHC is now closed for further upgrades to increase it's
already massive energy inputs. He said that it will not open again for another
couple of years and Gabriel hopes to then continue his studies on Dark Matter.
Dark Matter is
mysterious energy that absorbs all light and is something that is impossible to
see or feel. It is nothingness that has a powerful force but has the ability to
consume everything. Black holes are made of Dark Matter. Gabriel told me quite
a lot about his Dark Matter studies and he talked about space time continuums
and things like time travel and anti-matter and parallel universes. I listened
intently and with great interest but I had ran out of space on my serviette to
take any more adequate notes.
I had run out
of continuum as well.
I asked
Gabriel whether Dark Matter really did matter and he looked quite puzzled so my
poor attempt at humor was wasted. The Swiss are not known for their wit and
neither are Asperger people so I told him to carry on.
At another
point in our conversation I asked Gabriel whether the LHC was being used to
conduct any type of weapons development and he told me that he didn't think
that it was. He told me without asking that I shouldn't fear extremist Muslims
using the LHC to make any super weapons. I told him that I would be more
worried about the Americans using it this way. I told Gabriel that the
Americans have a long history of war mongering and developing and deploying
weapons of mass destruction and he nodded his head in agreement.
Then I went
home with my damp serviette crammed with my scrawl of amazing facts and data
stuffed in my pocket.
I was very
tired and my head is still spinning with interesting and new information.
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