The Egyptians built pyramids to honor their pharaohs. The Greeks built temples to honor their gods. So why shouldn't particle physicists construct office buildings (even if virtually) to honor the prize of their scientific quests.
During the last few months in physics talks about the search for the mysterious Higgs boson at Fermilab's CDF and DZero experiments, a Photoshopped version of the laboratory's signature Wilson Hall has cropped up. The photo shows the building, which normally resembles the aperture of a dipole magnet used to steer a particle beam, turned into a giant letter "H".
This is not the first mouse pad make over for the 15-story building. Around the time the top quark was discovered by CDF and DZero, a similar tweaked photo of Wilson Hall appeared in various physics presentations and referenced in the blog "A Quantum Diaries Survivor". At that time, Wilson Hall resembled a lower case "t".
If you have seen any similar visual tricks done to other buildings used in physics talks, send images to letters@symmetrymagazine.org. We'd love to take a look, and maybe share them with our readers.
[gallery]
