Ephemeral Memes

Imagine spending billions on particle accelerators, dedicating your entire career to quantum field theory, and then getting emotional over something that exists for 0.0000000000000000000001 seconds. That's particle physics for you! These exotic particles are basically the ghosts of the subatomic world—now you see them, now you don't—but that split-second confirmation is enough to make a physicist ugly-cry with joy. It's like finding a unicorn that disappears before you can even take a selfie with it, but still counts for your PhD thesis!

Spending 20 years and $10 billion to discover a particle that exists for 0.0000000000000000000001 seconds is the physics equivalent of a one-night stand. "I swear it was here! I measured it! We had a connection!" Sure, buddy. At least you got a paper out of it. That's the emotional rollercoaster of particle physics—falling in love with something that disappears faster than free food at a department meeting. But those tears of joy? Worth it. Nothing says scientific achievement like getting emotionally attached to something that exists for less time than it takes light to travel across a proton.