No one wants their pratfall showcased on the world stage, but even the most embarrassing moments have upsides.
The magnet-cooling fault that shut down the Large Hadron Collider shortly after it first sent a beam completely around the 17-mile ring has kept the buzz going about the world's largest, and arguably most esoteric, experiment.
Physicists know they have made it deep into the public consciousness when their science experiment gets alluded to in a professional sports story.
The Chicago Tribune started off a story about Blackhawks hockey with the sentence:
As far as failed experiments go, the Blackhawks' attempt to move Patrick Kane to center didn't exactly rank along the lines of a faulty particle accelerator.
I'm hoping hockey fans know the LHC experiment because they appreciate cutting-edge science and not just the image of particles colliding at nearly the speed of light.
