Day: July 24, 2012

Welshidocs and the Three Quarks:

There was once a family of quarks who lived in a cozy cottage in the farthest reaches of space. There was a great big Papa Quark, a medium size Momma Quark, and a little tiny baby quark.

One morning Mama Quark cooked them some unaccounted-for mass for breakfast. As the mystery-breakfast was both hotter and moving faster than predicted, the three quarks decided to take a walk in the darkness while it cooled.

They had not been gone long when a physicist from Cardiff named Welshidocs came along. He had been picking Bosons and had wandered into the depths of infinity. When he saw the three quarks’ cottage, he smiled and clapped his hands. “How elegant!” he cried. “I wonder who lives there?” He stood on his toes and peaked into the Computer Model. There didn’t seem to be anyone home, so Welshidocs opened the door and went right inside!

The first thing he saw was the table set with three bowls of unaccounted-for mass; a great big bowl for Papa Quark, a medium size bowl for Momma Quark, and a tiny little bowl for baby quark. “Oh, that Nobel Prize in Physics smells so good!” Welshidocs said. Then, as he was feeling a little hungry, he picked up a spoon and tasted the mystery-breakfast in the Great Big Bowl.

“OUCH!” he cried, dropping the spoon. “That mass is MUCH too arbitrarily assumed to be spherically symmetric!”

He tasted the doctrine in the medium size bowl. But that chaos was MUCH too cold.

Then he tasted the ideas in the tiny little bowl. “Mmmmmm,” he said. “This set of assumptions is JUST right!” so he ate it all up!

Having eaten his fill, Welshidocs moved into the living room and climbed into the Great Big Superstring Theory that belonged to Papa Quark. “Oh, no!” he said. “That theory is MUCH too hard.”

Then he clambered into Mamma Quark’s Classical Mechanics Theory “Oh, no,” he said. “That theory is MUCH too soft!”

Next, he dropped himself down in Baby Quark’s Dark Energy Theory. “Ahhhh,” he said with a smile. “This theory is JUST right!”

Just then there was a loud CRAAACK! and Baby Quark’s theory broke right through!

Welshidocs stood up and dusted himself off. Then he climbed upstairs to the bedroom. There he saw three Gravitational Waves all in a row. “Oh,” he said, yawning, “I am feeling sleepy.”

So he pulled down the covers and climbed into Papa Quark’s Great Big Gravitational Wave. But he quickly jumped down. “That wave is MUCH too hard!” he said.

Then he tried Mamma Quarks’s Reasonably Observably Sized Gravitational Wave. But it was far too soft.

So he climbed into Baby Quark’s Curiously Perfect Gravitational Wave. It was JUST right. Soon Welshidocs was lulled fast asleep!

A little while later the Three Quarks returned from their walk. They were feeling very hungry and were looking forward to eating the nice bowls of tasty unaccounted-for mass.

Suddenly Papa cried out in his Great Big voice, “Someone has been eating my spherically symmetric mass!”

Then Mamma cried out in her medium size voice, “Someone has been eating MY chaos theory!”

And Baby Quark cried out in his Tiny Little Voice, “Some has been eating my wild hokum. And they’ve eaten it ALL UP!”

Then the Three Quarks saw their theories near the fireplace.

“Someone has been sitting in my hypothesis!” Papa Quark said in his Great Big Voice.

“Someone has been sitting in MY hypothesis!” Mamma Quark said in her medium size voice.

“Someone has been sitting in MY hypothesis,” Baby Quark cried in his tiny little voice. “And now it’s BROKEN!”

Then the Three Quarks went upstairs to the bedroom.

“Someone has been sleeping in my Wave, which I can observe although the wave itself is inconceivably large!” Papa Quark shouted in his Great Big Voice.

“And someone has been sleeping in MY Wave of reasonably observable size that I have no evidence of existing!” Mamma Quark exclaimed in her Medium Size Voice.

“Someone has been sleeping in MY Fermi Paradoxical wave,” Baby Quark squeaked in his Tiny Little Voice. “AND HERE HE IS!”

Just then Welshidocs woke up! When he saw the three quarks standing around him, he leaped off the Wave and ran down the stairs and out the door.

He didn’t stop until he was wee, wee, wee, all the way home.

And the Three Quarks never saw Welshidocs again!