The Baguette Incident

A few weeks ago, I wrote an essay outlining the mysterious problems with the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC is a 17-mile long machine that scientists want to use to reproduce the Big Bang, all in search of the Higgs-Boson particle they have nicknamed the God Particle. The Higgs particle is theoretically supposed to have existed at the time of the Big Bang and it allegedly holds the universe together. Experimental detection of the Higgs boson would help explain the origin of mass in the universe. But how to test the theory since the Big Bang is non-reproducible, one-time event. Or is it?

Undeterred by the implications of reproducing the Big Bang, scientists built a huge machine under the Alps, straddling France and Switzerland. Last September they put in subatomic particles, sped them up, and crashed them together, downplaying the potential side effect of this experiment would be to accidentally create a black hole, into which the earth and all known matter would be sucked. I hate when that happens. Aside from that possibility, all proceeded well with LHC and last September the big switch-on commenced. And immediately stopped. The machine, calibrated to the tune of billions of dollars, overheated in a moment and the experiment to find "God" in a collided particle was over before it began. Undaunted, scientists repaired and tested the machine and deeming it in tip-top shape, tried again. It immediately exploded. Or, rather, a chamber exploded, filled with helium and had to be shut down.

The interesting thing is, every time since then that the machine has geared for start-up, something has happened. So many things have happened, inexplicably and perplexingly, that last month they came out with a theory as to why. "A future time traveller is coming back to prevent us from killing our grandfather" or something like that. The other lead scientist simply said "God doesn't want us to do this. He rather hates the God-particle and attempts to avoid it." Cheeky, aren't those guys?

STILL undaunted, the next start-up was due to begin this week. All systems were go. The machines were being cooled down to 1.9 degrees above absolute zero, when one chamber suddenly started overheating. And here is the delightful part.

Though most of the machine is below ground, a cooling unit inside a building that is surrounded by high voltage wires is above ground. So what caused the overheating of one of the units? A baguette. You heard me. A baguette.

"Nobody knows how it got there,” she told The Times. “The best guess is that it was dropped by a bird, either that or it was thrown out of a passing aeroplane. Obviously this was slightly surprising. Within the team there was some amusement once they had relaxed after initial concerns.” The bread was discovered on a busbar - an electrical connection inside one of eight buildings above ground on the 17-mile circuit in the Swiss countryside."

Did you get that? INSIDE. Obviously their theory that the bread had been tossed from a passing airplane (BTW, when was the last time YOU threw something out of an airplane??) or had been dropped by a bird defies known physics. Is no one asking how it got INSIDE the building? A building that is surrounded by high-voltage wires? In the Alps? In the countryside? Guarded?

"A spokeswoman for CERN confirmed that baguette was responsible for the latest hiatus, but she conceded that mystery surrounded the way it got into the vital power installation, which is protected by high security fences." 

Here is another article, and another. But most of the stories I've read (except for The Times) do not mention that the bread was found in a locked building. Here is what a busbar looks like and some facts about it: "Busbars are typically either flat strips or hollow tubes as these shapes allow heat to dissipate more efficiently ...A busbar may either be supported on insulators, or else insulation may completely surround it. Busbars are protected from accidental contact either by a metal enclosure or by elevation out of normal reach. [B]usbars are typically bolted directly onto any metal chassis of their enclosure. Busbars may be enclosed in a metal housing..." and on one of these; locked, protected, insulated, elevated...a baguette was found.

God was gentle and funny last time this happened. When the rebellious ones on the Plains of Shinar ignored God's command to remain rural and agricultural and arrogantly built a tower (likely to the zodiac), it was like spitting in God's eye. Rather than choosing at that time to smite them all, God simply confused their languages and they drifted off from building the city. Imagine that scene for a moment. We are so inured to the fact of the Tower of Babel story, imagine how it was that bricklayers are working away, shouting directions to one another, and suddenly no one understands what anyone else is saying. The key to the intervention of this event is in the phrase 'let us make a name for ourselves.' The tower was a monument to man's defiance, arrogance, and personal endeavors that seek to supplant God. The same is true of the LHC.

The scientists brazenly search for a theoretical dot that they irreverently name the "God Particle." They claim that God was not the initiator of the universe but a bang started it all. They brazenly say that this subatomic theoretical particle is the glue that holds the universe together, not the Word of God. And they make fun of God saying, "He hates this particle and rather attempts to avoid it." Yet again, merciful God chose not to smite them. Instead, He sent a baguette.

John 1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God, all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." And Colossians 1:17- "He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."

Ya got that? Now, pass the bread.