Wednesday, 11 January 2012

The Higgs Boson Diet Plan

I know you will all have been thinking "I wonder when Bertie is going to get back to blogging about challenging scientific subjects. He really has been slacking lately".

Fear not, dear readers. I promised before Christmas that I would turn my attention to the Higgs boson, and I am not one to renege on my promises.

Now I suspect that many of my friends, both canine and human, will have made some sort of a New Year resolution which involves trying to lose weight, am I right?

(Please bear with me, I am not going off track).

The thing is, with the thrilling recent announcement from CERN that, following painstaking analysis of high energy proton collisions in the Large Hadron Collider, this elusive missing elementary particle has possibly been spotted, I am increasingly confident that I shall soon be in a position to patent my new invention, the Higgs Boson Diet.

I hope you won't think I'm insulting your intelligence by reminding you that the Higgs boson is the particle that imparts mass to all other particles.

So, the way I see it, if you can rid your body of a few stray Higgs bosons, then you have a pain free way of losing weight which involves absolutely no cutting back on treats, cookies, bones, or whatever.

Up until now, the stumbling block has always been that it is hard to get rid of something that no-one has ever been able to detect.

I expect you are now beginning to understand why the imminent discovery of this boson, the existence of which was predicted by Prof. Peter Higgs of Edinburgh University, Scotland in 1964, is causing such a wave of excitement in the physics community.

My own ingenious idea is that if you just hang around inside the Large Hadron Collider whilst all those protons are whizzing by at 99.9999991% of the speed of light (remembering to wear a jacket 'cos it's -271.3ºC in there) then there's every chance that a passing proton will bash into and annihilate a few of your very own personal Higgs bosons and, as if by magic, the pounds or kilograms will dissolve away in the time it takes to say "particle accelerator".

Beautiful, isn't it?

Oh what now?  Gail is saying that she's thinks I might need to check my calculations as she's worried you might be losing mass but not volume.....

Really, geniuses don't want to be bothered by such petty details.

And those equations do look awfully difficult.


  1. Bertie - We disapprove of any diet . Higgs Boson or not. Bring on the Tunnocks biscuits .

  2. well Bertie, as long as I can still have my treats then I am fine with it!!


  3. Bertie, you've lost us. If you find the proton that looses weight, can you mail us one?

    -Bart and Ruby

  4. Bertie - OK you go first into the collider.... and if it works for you and your higgs bosons....I'll be next in queue!!

    Tail Wuggles, Rubie

  5. Bertie,

    If you consider the God particle from a different direction it really could be the Dog particle, so there really mightt be something in your approach to this.

    Of course your comment "it is hard to get rid of something that no-one has ever been able to detect" could also be refering to my own level of IQ about this matter.


  6. Don't worry, you can't insult our intelligence because we haven't got any.....

    Is it time for a roo chew?

    XXXOOO Daisy, Bella & Roxy

  7. The word diet makes a bit nervous and math makes our heads hurt, but those equations do look very impressive.

  8. Hey Bertie!
    Wow, I may not be losing any weight, but I think I burned up a brain cell or two with this! BOL. If you get this perfected, let me know...I'm all skinny, but my Mom sure is interested! BWAR HAR HAR
    Grr and Woof,
    Sarge, COP

  9. Does this mean that we will be able to eat all the snacks we want and this thingy will just ZAP away any..
    of the after effects??? Whoooooie.
    THAT would be grrrrrreat buddy.

  10. Oh dear...thats some hard Maths right there...maybe dieting is too hard for our heads :)


  11. diet is not in our vocabulary
    Benny & Lily

  12. We thought the Higgs boson was more like a force field than an actual particle .. which indeed gives all other particles their mass [resistance to being moved]. So maybe the force field could repel unwanted avoir de poids? But is there any danger of the Higgs boson eliminating some other, useful particle, besides excess poundage? We are composed of many particles we would like to keep, thank you. However, your grahics are super impressive and should ensure that you can find funding - say from a venture capital firm interested in making a quick killing in the diet products market, which should be most of them. It's a multi-million [if not billion] dollar market in the U.S. alone.

    Jed & Abby

  13. Pee Ess: Do you need an agent? Or a good attorney, for your U.S. franchise?

    Jed & Abby the Legal Beagle[mix] Extraordinaire

  14. Sorry Bertie, but as soon as we read the word 'diet' then saw a mathematical equation we vagued out. Sorry. Can you just explain that again about the diet stu zzzzzzzzzzz
    No worries, and love, Carol (Stella and Rory who seemed to have dozed off).

  15. My Mom has a good friend who lives in Boson, Massachusetts. She said she would ask her if she knew about this and could send something on.


  16. DIET, DIET! Oh Bertie it really isn't nice to swear...............

    We do hope you won't waste away with this Higgs bloke.

    We are seriously worried about you Bertie.

  17. We don't do well with the word diet. But Bertie you are so clever.. it all looked so complicated to us we tried & tried to understand it. We need to go lie down in a darkened room to recover from our effort!
    Big Nose Pokes
    The Thugletsx

  18. Diet?! You Bertie??... Nooooooo... But I agree with the idea of being healthier for the new year! Maybe you can call it that instead :) And wow, you are a clever dog... maybe more clever than your mommy and daddy (and they are humans!)? I'm having a hard time figuring out your calculation, but I trust that you got it right since you're so smart! :)

    All4UrPet Representative  


  19. Our mama wants to know when you have definitive proof of this so she can be first in line to get rid of mannnnny pounds of ugly fat!!
    BTw, we put our new Cracker Critter video up for MM2012 and it works this time!!
    Smooches from pooches,
    BabyRD & Hootie

  20. Gee Bertie you is smarter this year than you was last year!

    Mom says she don't understand hardly anythin you've said but when you can splain it to my ding dong Mom in baby english she will be VERY happy to loose her quite large Higgs bottom! BOL

    woos, Tessa

  21. Sounds like you've been pretty busy, both mentally & physically since I was last here mate! Liked the look of your Sherwood Forest trip. Mum knows it well but I've never been. Belated best wishes for the New Year. Deccy x

  22. According to our calculations, a Higgs Boson is smaller than a piece of kibble and a single piece of kibble is the smallest object of any significance. Hmmm, thinking about food is making us hungry!
    Alanis & Miro

  23. Over my head Bertie, over my head.
    Tess has no problem getting rid of things from her body!!I reckon the Higgs are flying out !!!
    See Yea George xxx

  24. While you get this all figured out, we'll keep begging for bacon. (It seems OurMoma likes the smell of it, drifting from open doors, as she takes early morning walks on the beach. And. As a result. We've had bacon for breakfast for the first time in YEARS! Consequently, we may be in need of this Higgs Boson Diet Plan. Soon.)

    Fergi and Jake