There are lots of secret fans of particle physics. My favourite tweets of all time, for example, are ex-baseball player and steroid user Jose Canseco’s incredible opinions on the Higgs boson.
Image: YouTube Screenshot
do not fear the higgs bosun
— Jose Canseco (@JoseCanseco) March 21, 2013
higgs boson is an energy bridge not an enemy
— Jose Canseco (@JoseCanseco) March 21, 2013
higgs boson is lighter than i thought. Could it also have no limits in dimension or time. think about that
— Jose Canseco (@JoseCanseco) March 21, 2013
But it’s still surprising every time you hear another famous person express an earnest interest in the inner workings of our universe.
Back in 2015, some grad students and a science writer at the particle physics lab CERN (hi Sarah!) wrote a silly (and oh-so-nerdy) parody of that Howie Day song, Collide. It makes sense, because they collide particles at the Large Hadron Collider. They sent the cover to Day and joked that he could come visit if he covered the parody.
Day took them up on the offer, toured the experiment, and put together his own rendition of the grad student’s parody, filming in various locations around the CERN campus. If you like particle physics, dinky parodies, and Howie Day, this is the video for you. And it’s really something:
Out of the depths of space and time/Even the bosons can cannot hide/as the momentum starts to climb/You’ll somehow find you and I collide.
It turns out if you do something silly enough, celebrities really might notice you. Guy Fieri, please respond to my tweets.