4 Jul 2012

MAN AND HIS DOG DISPUTE HIGGS DISCOVERY CLAIM



A man from Lewisham claims his dog, a basset by the name of Ruffles, were the first to discover the Higgs boson lying at the bottom of a skip at the back of Lewisham University Hospital last Tuesday. The alleged discovery has thrown the scientific world into complete disarray, with questions now being asked about why so many resources were devoted to tracking down this elusive and shy particle. 

Sources say that the boson may have already been discovered by the dog in the autumn of last year, only for it to be buried again for retrieval after the summer.

“There is no doubt about it, its definitely the Higgs boson…I took it down to the lab in the hospital and they confirm that it fits the description perfectly” said Bob Scroggs proudly holding his dog to the press cameras.

As scientists were gathering in Geneva, the sense of confusion and disbelief was palpable, with scientists scurrying around to fashion a response to this unexpected trumping. Sources close to the senior management at  CERN said that the Lewisham discovery did appear to have been confirmed at the “Sigma 5” level, approximately equivalent to the chances that Adele would start talking in a posh accent after getting 8 successive number ones.    

For years two teams at CERN, the European Centre for Nuclear Research in Geneva, were competing with a US team for the discovery of something which until now only existed in the human imagination. Dr. Carl Forstwith, lead researcher at the facility stated “The discovery of the Higgs will surely open up our understanding of almost everything in the universe, such as why we exist, what it’s all about, and why you can never buy an egg boiler to produce a softie with exactly the right consistency”. 

The trumping by Bob and his dog Ruffles, however, has clearly disrupted the euphoric mood that was expected when many of the worlds leading scientists were summoned to Geneva this morning.

Years of careful planning as to how this discovery should be released to the world have now come to nothing, with world leaders now bracing themselves for the serious social unrest which will surely now follow.

It also calls into question what the CERN discovery actually is, since the original Higgs boson is currently doing very well getting chewed upon in Ruffles’s outdoor kennel.

One forlorn scientist stated “It could of course be in two, many, or even an infinite number of places at once……which makes you wonder why it took so long to find the bloody thing in the first place…”