Recently, I attended a conference with many talks of theoretical particle physicists. It was extremely entertaining, although I normally do not even understand the title of talks. It is just fascinating to watch these people and hear them talk.
For me, all the talks always sounded approximatley like this:
‘It seems mathematically pleasing to suggest the ‘hyper-gravioli holographical symmetry’. If we do this, then also the problem with some nasty infinities somewhere in the standard model is solved. Unfortunately, it also makes the electroweak vacuum unstable and destroys the Universe as we know it. To save the theory, we have to introduce eight new gauge bosons, a new field, and a time-perturbation metric. Then however the Universe as we know it is still destroyed. More work is clearly needed.’
How great must it be if you work on some equations every day in which the Universe is played with and destroyed, and you try to save it! This must feel amazing.
Heh heh… somebody should make a computer game out of this.
No wonder that physicists like fantasy novels. It is not enough to have a story about a family and their problems. It always has to be the final battle between good and evil, which may destroy the world. This is some serious megalomania that we are suffering from.