A massive surge of electricity brought Geneva to a halt yesterday as computers and trams crashed. The cause was an emergency shutdown at the nearby Large Hadron Collider, where panicking scientists joined forces to throw the impressively-large master switch to ‘off’ before their worst nightmares became reality. The LHC has been decommissioned and will be sold to the European Parliament for use in the development of circular arguments.
Initially reluctant to talk, scientists are now admitting that conspiracy theorists were right all along. Professor Elliot von Schlippe, leader of the clandestine team, conceded that the Higgs Boson stories had been a smokescreen to hide the real object of their quest: the Homeopathic neutrino, or H-particle.
‘It is a well-established fact that at increasing dilutions, homeopathic remedies become increasingly powerful,’ said von Schlippe. ‘The most potent dilution normally encountered is roughly equivalent to one molecule of active ingredient per known universe. But the H-particle itself has zero size and mass, in our dimensions at least, providing the potential for literally infinite dilution and hence infinite power.’
The professor said the only H-particle ever to exist in nature had actually created the universe. ‘Quantum homeodynamic relativistic warp field theory asserts that a single H-particle was the source of the Big Bang itself,’ he said, stroking a duelling scar on his right cheek, a slight smirk ruining his attempt to look cool.
‘My team were actually looking for a lesser particle called Son of H, or H2, thought to be capable of triggering a Small Bang – perhaps creating a few asteroids or, properly channelled, entire planets made of oil, natural gas or wind turbines, providing humanity with all the energy it needs as well as an excuse to develop the technology to fight wars in space.
As their latest experiment reached its final stages, worrying traces began to show in the detection chambers. A quick glance at the health and safety manual caused the team to initiate a shutdown in order to avoid the annihilation of time and space as we know it, permanently disabling billions of euros-worth of kit.
Faced with news that a renegade technician collected an entire test tube full of the particles in the seconds before shutdown, the professor said that of course they might be completely safe at normal concentrations. When told that the tube’s contents had burned with a squeaky pop, he was heard to mutter, ‘Oh shit, we banged all those protons together and all we got was hydrogen.’
