CERN 70 by Jennifer K Dick as a tip of the hat to the 2015 Nobel Prize announcements

CERN 70
by Jennifer K Dick

I dreamt that, rejected for the Nobel yet again, I decided to go on a rampage, get my revenge, show the 2014 selection committee what I was really worth. No, this was not one of those physicist-strolls-across campus shoot’em outs. Rather, during the ceremony, as everyone perked up to be enlightened by Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura’s speech on their fantastic blue LED light research in front of a large gathering of followers celebrating the 275th anniversary of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, I sent a massive pulse (blue, of course) through the tuxedo-laden room. Everyone vanished. Then, a few minutes later, they reappeared. What happened? Well, I’d shot them back in time to the original ceremony for the first prize in 1739. I didn’t leave them there for long, but upon their return they all found nice, hand-embossed cards by their seats with, in golden letters, “This time-travelling experience brought to you by 8th-time finalist for the Nobel. Feel free to take note. Hope you enjoyed the ride.” So, as you can see, I am impatiently awaiting the October announcement for the 2015 prize.

(NOTE: the 2015 prize in Physics has just been announced: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2015/ It was "awarded jointly to Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald 'for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass'". For anyone interested in the Nobel Prize for physics history, see: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/facts/physics/index.html. I guess I now need to write one of these CERN poems about my character's hopes for the 2016 prize! It is hard to stay ahead of these things!)