Sbozo

Rarely does a physics book make me chuckle out loud, but this one did just now. It was so surprising and so outta left field I just had to come downstairs from my comfy reading nook and do a quick post.

From pages 74-75 of Lee Smolin’s The Trouble With Physics:

(In supersymmetry-theory convention, the superpartners of fermions begin with an “s”, like the selectron, while the superpartners of bosons end in “ino.”) … A new superpartner is simply postulated to go along with each known particle. Not only are there squarks and sleptons and photinos, there are also sneutrinos to partner the neutrinos, Higgsinos with the Higgs, and gravitinos to go with the gravitons. Two by two, a regular Noah’s ark of particles. Sooner or later, tangled in the web of new snames and naminos, you begin to feel like Sbozo the clown. Or Bozo the clownino. Or swhatever.


How clever! How witty! Lee Smolin, your Dennis Miller-like command of language absolutely slayed me. Truly very funny stuff. Hope there’s more as I make my way through your somewhat curmudgeonly shot-across-the-bow of all those pop sci books that make every single theory and every single scientist out to be the greatest thing since, well, I guess that apple smacking Isaac on the noggin or little Albert imagining himself riding a beam of light. (And what a take-down of St. Albert Einstein in chapter 3 – ouch!)