The Higgs Boson found: a triumph for plumbing
Another historic blog.... Last month Rio+20 Conference , this month we, the international fraternity of plumbers, discovered the Higgs Boson (well probably), and maybe are getting design conditions wrong? Two things spoilt the momentous event in plumbing history. The first was so much media material suggesting scientists had built the supercollider. As far as I can see they just did some programming. The second was the sight and sound of some very distinguished science journalists explaining why our engineering triumph was in any way important to keeping civilisation going. Some explanations were blatantly dishonest, comparing discovering the Higgs Boson with discovering the electron. The difference of course is that no one had a clue what made up cathode rays in 1899. In contrast, within normal engineering certainty we knew that the Higgs was there anyway. So physicists’ Standard Model (of something) that had been taught for twenty years was now 100% OK – an increase...