STOCKHOLM, Sweden—Last week, researchers from MIT, Cambridge, The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and other renowned institutions met at the World Astrophysics Conference in Stockholm, where many of the greatest minds in astrophysics debated the properties of dark matter, the existence of multiple universes, and what happens to matter as it passes a black hole’s event horizon.
RIGHT: This is the Hubble telescope’s famous “Ultra-Deep Field Photograph”. Taken over many months from the dimmest pinky-nail sized patch of the sky, it reveals over 10,000 previously unseen and unimagined galaxies, each containing as many as 100 billion stars. Civilizations may have risen and fallen. Life in untold forms may have well lived and died in this dim patch of our sky… and yet for all these amazing 13 billion years of history, I’m still stuck here in this God damned cubicle staring at a monitor.
By the end of the week-long conference, the distinguished attendees reached consensus on one point: The universe is straight-up nuts, both man and otherwise.
“Have you ever thought about it?” asked Dr. Ignatius Waldgrave of CERN during his presentation on the recent discovery of what researchers believe to be the long-sought Higgs boson. “I mean, shiz,” he added.
Throughout the conference, astrophysicists could be seen sitting in the hallways with their heads between their legs, muttering obscenities and trying to make sense of it all. Dr. Susana Petkova of JPL was found shaking her head and gazing at the sunset over Riddarfjärden Bay.
“In the beginning, the universe was an impossibly hot and dense mass of gluon-quark plasma,” she said. “Then, it expanded and coalesced into the bullshart we see today.”
The highlight of the conference came when Dr. Richard Harbarth of Cambridge presented his recent essay titled, “Are You Shiftarting Me?: Applying Quantum Information Theory to Black Holes.”
While explaining the black hole information paradox—which suggests that physical information could simply “disappear” inside a black hole, thus challenging the notion that all information in the universe is conserved—Dr. Harbarth assumed a sweaty pallor and vomited into a 3D model of a black hole.
The science community’s awe, incredulity, and anger at the scope and mystery of the universe goes back centuries.
After observing the moons of Jupiter for the first time, it is said that Galileo Galilei transported all his clothes to the Euganaean Hills outside Padua. A contemporary account describes a naked Galileo standing next to a burning pile of clothes while beating his chest and screaming at the night.
Outtakes from Carl Sagan’s landmark PBS series Cosmos show many instances of Mr. Sagan “losing his shizzle” while explaining various natural phenomena.
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who hosts the latest rendition of Cosmos, claims he “couldn’t get through a day of filming without downing a bottle of Pepe Lopez [tequila].” When asked why, Dr. Tyson pulled a flask from his jacket pocket, took a pull, and said “You try saying shiite like ‘We are a way for the cosmos to know itself’ while sober.”
This week, the world’s greatest astrophysicists return to their places of study with childlike reluctance. “I guess I’ll just look through my stupid telescope some more,” said Dr. Umberto Montevideo of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, “See if that uncovers more shi`znizzle. Probably won’t, though.”
“Don’t even get me started on dark matter and dark energy,” said Dr. Petkova before hocking a loogie into Riddarfjärden Bay. “The idea that we can in no way detect 95% of the matter and energy in the universe really pisses me off. I want answers and I want them now.”
God, the Almighty creator of all that is and was and ever will be, declined to comment.
I think I’m beginning to understand the problem.
yeah, meant it. You’ve written some good stories, but again, it’s just me saying that, and that ain’t worth, well the price of a dunce cap or a corner.
Fair enough. I’ve never been able to edit a comment but I guess editors have that ability.
Can you explain one thing? What did you mean when you said “There’s a place for you at Glossy”?
Do you view me as the special Ed kid?
FWIW I’ve never been good at wearing the dunce cap and sitting in the corner.
I was not intentionally trying to do anything one way or the other. I was trying to take a comment back, and the site wouldn’t allow that, therefore I had to put the ellipses. I had wanted to defend myself as I have not ever held your right leanings against you, but never mind. I’m not going to be able to defend myself anymore anyway, so what is, is.
Why do you do that? If you got something to say, say it. If you don’t then don’t fall back on dog whistle calls.
…
That made me laugh deeptrout. Hang in there u can handle it.
Damn, I should have quit when I was behind. Sorry, I won’t comment anymore on the subject.
Actually Brian, Until recently I did not know this was a lefty website heavily into politics. Since then I have done some research and discovered many of the contributors skew left, but I still find that only maybe 1 out of 10 articles are political heavy hitters.
It was shortly after I outed myself as a skew right NRA member that I got excoriated by a site editor and I have to wonder now if that had anything to do with it.
Ah, so Mad Max, you were making fun of philosophy by contrasting it with science. That’s fair game. In fact, the Cosmos episode did the same by saying that Bruno was just “guessing” about the size of the universe, because Bruno had no evidence and therefore wasn’t being scientific about it. But actually, there’s something in between guessing and science, and it’s called philosophy (a priori reasoning, to trot out the fancy words). Bruno had an argument in support of his speculation, an argument borrowed from Lucretius, as the Cosmos episode said.
But the Cosmos host, Tyson, belittled philosophy because he was focused on glorifying science to stop the rise of fundamentalist Christianity in the US.
Anyway, there’s a lot of material here for satire and I plan to write some more of it. Thanks to TJ for putting cosmology on the table.
Well that certainly wasnt the reaction i expected frm my comment. I just thought asking a philosopher quantifying scientists if he counted them kind of ironic humor. Then it went all political. Like nuclear physicists say: a controlled reaction is a power plant. Everything else is juSt a bomb!
Last time I checked, it’s neither a comedy website or a political website. It’s a satire website that features all kinds of humor writing, leaning toward the absurd in politics, current events, and everything in between. I prefer to write fake news articles, but I appreciate the political articles, and of late, the scientific articles from T.J. Rusty is putting up some real thought-provokers as well. I hope it continues in this direction as it appears to bring in a more sophisticated reader base–based on the last few comments anyways.
> Wow. Is this a comedy website or a political website?
Really? You know very well this is a lefty place fairly heavy into politics. I hope this doesn’t sound creepy, but I’m writing this from my phone standing outside your window right here on 45th street! (about 1/10th of a percent chance I just blew your mind!)
Trout, we all have our beliefs. If I went with you to a political rally, I might not support what you feel passionate about. But this is first and foremost a humor site, so as long as you stay funny, I’ll let you share whatever means the most to you, ideology aside.
Good call on the link, BC. I got ‘er linked up now. Thanks!
That’s a fascinating study.
I probably should apologize for off topic comment. Lately, on this website, I feel like I’m a Roulette ball spinning around a wheel and wondering “Do I land on red, or do I land on black?”
In this instance I might have landed on the “00”.
Analyze that Doctor.
None at all. Knock yourself out.
Deeptrout, who’s the “ideological opponent” here? I agree wholeheartedly that both liberals and conservatives should be skewered. I skewer them both in my satires here and on my blog.
But I think it’s simplistic to speak of a satire website as being about “pure comedy” as opposed to any political or other serious matters. Satire is a didactic form of comedy. This is because satire is indeed about skewering worthy targets, as you say. This is also why a lot of people feel they can get their news mainly from The Daily Show. Satire’s not just about making people laugh for no reason at all.
I agree we shouldn’t lose sight of the goal of making satires funny, but what’s wrong with discussing the ideas implied by a satirical piece?
Wow. Is this a comedy website or a political website? If its political that’s too bad because there are about 10000 of those out there.
Pure comedy websites are hard to come by.
IMO liberals and democrats, conservatives and republicans, all deserved to be skewered.
It’s a target rich environment and someone needs to tell the kings, all the kings, that they have no clothes.
And no matter which side of the Rubicon you fall, as humorists, we should be able to say to an ideological opponent “good one” when they hit the bullseye.
It’s just good sportsmanship.
I haven’t counted them, but academics in general are disproportionately liberal and most scientists are atheists. Liberalism plus atheism equals secular humanism.
Who says the multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics is a generality?
Most are secular humanist? Did you count them? Or that just a generality like the multiverse?
Some funny stuff here. But the annoying thing is that most cosmologists are liberal secular humanists who ignore the counter-intuitiveness of the reality they model, so they can live as upstanding citizens in our artificial worlds which take our intuitions and even our whims to be of central importance.
By the way, TJC, you should make your website a clickable link in your bio. I had the same problem when I wrote mine and Brian, the editor, fixed the link for me.
You have a way of dumbing down and ‘modernizing’ the deepest ideas for our readers. You’ll go far. Ever think of working for Fox News?
Dr Neil Tyson hates u. You do know that dont u?