Sandra and Woo causes black hole at the LHC
Our reader Frank posted this shocking news article in the comment section of today’s strip and I believe everyone should read it:
BLACK HOLE CREATED BY COMIC THAT’S TOO FUNNY
By Frank Hightower, Fanfic NewsThe Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN) has long been feared for its ability to create microscopic black holes. This morning (Central European Standard Time), they have succeeded in doing so. Except that it was done by accident.
Karl Pierrot, Junior Researcher at CERN, was starting a typical day, checking the news and the comics on his computer while sipping coffee. Something he saw made him laugh so hard, he spewed coffee over his keyboard. Before he knew it, the LHC was starting a non-programmed experiment! “The LHC is a complicated piece of machinery,” explained Pierrot to the press; “you can’t just shut it off it starts up by mistake.”
Pierrot managed to disconnect his computer from the network before further uncontrolled orders were sent to the LHC, but the particles were already accelerating to near-light speed.
Pierrot’s supervisors, Doctors Jason Hawkings and Steve Bekenstein (unrelated to the world-famous physicists), hurried to the scene when they heard what was happening. Before their eyes, the computer’s data showed the few sub-atomic particles that were being accelerated by the collider, being turned into something with apparently infinite gravity: a microscopic black hole.
“I wouldn’t say the black hole just appeared,” declared Dr. Bekenstein to the press. “It was more a matter of a transition from a tiny star into something that could no longer support its own gravity… despite being smaller than a grain of sand.”
The Black Hole managed to “eat” a detector from the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), whereupon it “grew” to what the Doctors call “macroscopic proportions”: about one ten-thousandth of a grain of sand.
When asked about what he was reading that made him spill the coffee beans, Pierrot replied. “Sandra and Woo; it was a pretty good joke… though I don’t think my maman [French for "mother"] would appreciate it.” Sandra and Woo is a webcomic. Like the famous Calvin and Hobbes, it’s about a young child who has a pet, which only that child knows can talk. Unlike Calvin and Hobbes, Sandra’s pet is not a stuffed toy, but a real-live raccoon.
When asked if they were going to take legal action against “Sandra and Woo’s” creators, Doctor Hawkings responded, “Now, now. I think they actually did us a favor: we never thought we’d get micro- black holes this early on.” There is, however, the potential false advertising. “Sandra and Woo” claims to be safe for the workplace… ANY workplace.
If nothing else happens, the Black Hole is expected to disappear via Hawking Radiation by Thursday; when the next “Sandra and Woo” strip is scheduled to go up. However, fears that it may grow again rise everytime the Black Hole nears one of the four detectors in its journey through the collider. The Government of France is pressing Switzerland to admit the blackhole was created on the part of the collider on their side of the border. Apparently, the French Ministère de la Science et Technologie fears it may become a bigger threat.
“Threat?” asked Berkenstein when confronted with this possibility. “Well, the Black Hole HAS caused… er… considerable damage to the CMS, and that HAS delayed further experiments by another couple of years. However, black holes are inherently unstable, so the Black Hole will literally be short-lived. And the discoveries to be made from it far outbalance the near-impossible threat of it… er… getting out of the collider.”
The Government of Switzerland, on the other hand, is considering the evacuation of the area around the collider. It is also pressing “Sandra and Woo’s“ IRC chat to reveal the identity of Pokefan Frank and Birone, who on October 17 encouraged Oliver Knörzer (writer for “Sandra and Woo”) to publish “the strip after halloween” despite considering this possibility.
–FH
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This is what happens in the presence of too much awesome. Keep up the good work.
Much obliged. And remember the immortal words of Sandra North
“Mankind: Not capable of building working International Space Stations, Large Hadron Colliders and coat zippers.”
What the hell?
Well, I kinda figured this was fake, but the lack of widespread panic and looting confirmed it. Oh, and the lack of a real source.
@ Awesome Dino: Don’t worry, some conservative radical group will still use it as proof mankind shouldn’t mess with anything more complicated than a pointy stick.
@Baughbe
Welcome to Earth, where we have constant wars, people who are pissed over other people trying to give them food and idiots that think an obviously fake story is real.
It’s amazing: one minute you’re having a simple chat about a comic strip, and before you know it, it causes science to advance by leaps and bounds… even if it is by accident.
This could be history in the making for both webcomics and science.
— Bironé
@ Awesome Dino: Stop the planet, I wanna get off! That globular cluster looks like a nice neighborhood… (Yeah, I know, I’m stuck here with all the rest of the crazies!)
“This is working much better than it should.”
–Cloud Williams
Seriously, I expected a much lower receptivity. A page-long comment (yes, exactly one page) is beyond what most people write here, let alone read. The fact that anybody took it seriously is… laughable. When are people quoted down to their “er”s? Harry Potter is the only example that comes to mind. When would a newspaper say “spill the coffee beans” in a near catastrophe? And when does the Swiss Government look into people’s IRC’s? The right thing to do would be ROFL, but my conscience won’t let me. It tells me I need to apologize somehow
At the end of the day (literally) there are a couple of things I want to say. The idea to make this a “headline news” came from Bironé. The post was supposed to mock the most extreme misunderstanding possible of Novil’s explanation of today’s strip, in the most extreeme situation possible. When that explanation didn’t come, I had to change it to the guy laughing so hard, he spilled coffee over his computer.
The thing that most amazed me as I was writing this was that I actually developed characters into these people. The reporter is a guy who knows a thing or two, but would be nowhere without Bekenstein’s explanation (whose name he can’t even spell consistently). Bekenstein is a guy who understands the importance of dumbing things down for the press, but is not very good at it. Hawkings is a guy who doesn’t talk much, but likes the attention the press gives him. Finally, Pierrot (originally the “get mad over any stupid thing”) is here just a poor victim.
Kudos to Frank for providing me with an additional good laugh!
It of course helped, that I AM Swiss myself (though being born and living in the German speaking part of the country, nearly completely across the country from Geneva), thus being quite familiar with regular apocalyptical prophets, declaring black holes produced in CERN’s experiments to end the world by 2011/12.
does “the onion” know about this?
Really lovely one, I laughed almost hard enough to spill my morning coffee when reading the article. Luckily I am nowhere near the LHC ~_^.
This is proof that laughter causes black holes. Everyone, stop being funny. From now on the only thing allowed on the internet is pictures of homeless puppies and starving orphans.
It took me a while to figure it out (it doesn’t help that it’s late at night), but yes, those er’s gave it away.
Black hole still not arrived here in Biel/Bienne, either the coffee or the comic was not good enough. Try harder next time. (Please before thursday next week, having my university disappearing in a black hole would be appreciated)
That was interesting =] I’d say it gave a little too much attention to the comic and the accident to be a believable article. But other than that, it was very entertaining, made me grin in all sorts of strange ways.
I would not put it past them to experience an accident like this one.
This keeps getting better. < – One person really not getting that it’s a joke and another one that also does not seem to have understood it.
Achievement unlocked: the Large Troll Collider
I agree with Uzuma.
Epic trolling of epicness.