New Science

I'm a great fan of neo-pseudo science magazines, I think they're wonderful. They offer hours of entertaining answers to all sorts of questions I may or may not ever have had. In Holland I had my favourites, Triv and Quest, but I've been struggling to find alternatives in England.

That's how I came to pick up a copy of New Scientist this week, in which I found an interesting article about a hypothetical kind of particle, specifically a type of photon, which, if used correctly, could shine all the way through the Earth. And I don't mean a soil sample, but the entire planet. Apparently the idea is to aim a special laser at the earth so that someone at the other end, who has the right equipment, can decode it. It would be nearly impossible to intercept, and therefore excellent for, for instance, submarines or other military installations. These miracle particles might even be able to take messages where standard radio signals could not go. The dark side of the moon, for instance.

One scientific commentator says: '...these particles, if they exist, would have potentially useful real-world applications.' Imagine that, a particle with a real-world application. Another commentator states that the signal capacity would be so low that it would take '...about a year to download an mp3 file, so I'm not sure who would use it.'

Now I'm positively ignorant when it comes to quantum mechanics. I've been trying to read up on quarks, muons and besons, and I just don't get it. To me, it seems that trying to smash two particles into one another in order to see what happens (and spending trillions of Euro's building the equipment for it) is just the most elaborate (and expensive) way to show our prehistoric, cave-dwelling roots. I imagine the conversations would go just about the same: 'ooh, I wonder what would happen if I smash this particle into that particle '. I generally have the greatest admiration for people with intelligence, so I'm sure there's some underlying reason that I'm missing, but it has yet to be explained to me.

But with all my ignorance, I spotted something in this whole article that, apparently, the brainiest of scientist has missed:

Guys... these particles are hypothetical?!?!?!