4 July 2012 – the CMS at CERN team “announces the discovery of a boson with mass 125.3 ± 0.6 GeV/c2 within 4.9 sigma.” and ATLAS collaboration announced that “we observe in our data clear signs of a new particle, at the level of 5 sigma, in the mass region around 126 GeV.” These findings meet the formal level required to announce a new particle which is “consistent with” the Higgs boson, but scientists are cautious as to whether it is formally identified as actually being the Higgs boson, pending further analysis.[2]

Doesn’t that sound so much like background announcing in a good sci-fi movie? Well it still calls for some haikupedia response!

Elementary,
that spark so long sought after:
the god particle.

I, mostly nothing,
causing others to have mass;
for long, just theory.

Quilt top still there on the wall this morning. Looking good.

Rained last night which we really needed.

Might have to figure out something to go with the coleslaw I made yesterday, eh?

The Mabinogion came to an end for me last night, just as I was seriously reading through the long recitations of the young Taliesin. Then:

He [Taliesin] further told the king various prophecies of things that should be in the world, in songs, as follows.

* * * * *

[The manuscript from which Lady Guest made her translation breaks off at this point.]

What???? Talk about a cliff hanger! This final bit is from one of the long bardic recitations of Taliesin, this one describing his origin, made of magic and his rescue as a newborn:

Dreadful her claim when pursued:
I have fled with vigour, I have fled as a frog,
I have fled in the semblance of a crow, scarcely finding rest;
I have fled vehemently, I have fled as a chain,
I have fled as a roe into an entangled thicket;
I have fled as a wolf cub, I have fled as a wolf in a wilderness,
I have fled as a thrush of portending language;
I have fled as a fox, used to concurrent bounds of quirks;
I have fled as a martin, which did not avail;
I have fled as a squirrel, that vainly hides,
I have fled as a stag’s antler, of ruddy course,
I have fled as iron in a glowing fire,
I have fled as a spear-head, of woe to such as has a wish for it;
I have fled as a fierce bull bitterly fighting,
I have fled as a bristly boar seen in a ravine,
I have fled as a white grain of pure wheat,
On the skirt of a hempen sheet entangled,
That seemed of the size of a mare’s foal,
That is filling like a ship on the waters;
Into a dark leathern bag I was thrown,
And on a boundless sea I was sent adrift;
Which was to me an omen of being tenderly nursed,
And the Lord God then set me at liberty.

Not much else I did today amounted to all that much, but my quilt top is ironed and all four pieces are sewn together and the joining seams ironed. That surprised me actually. I thought the ironing would take longer. The whole thing will need a final ironing, probably with a bit of starch before it gets layered.

I hung the top up on the wall and it seems to hang pretty darn flat. And it looks like I’d hoped it would so I’m going to crawl into bed and read a bit.

So tomorrow I’ll have to measure it and think about something for a backing.

Apparently audiobooks are quite good for very repetitive seaming and ironing. Probably it was also good that I didn’t sew all day, but did other things instead. And I didn’t even pretend to look for some old movie or something to put on the TV.

I’m listening to Catching Fire, the sequel to The Hunger Games. Apart for rolling my eyes at some overly repetitive explanatory stuff and being a step or two ahead of the young heroine re the danger they’re all in, I’m enjoying it. Maybe even more than part one. There have been some impressive twists. I can say I don’t know how it will end.

There were some technical problems moving the book into itunes so I could listen to it via my iphone. Stuttering and lurching. Missing a whole chunk of the end of one chapter. I finally listened to that from the original downloaded file outside of itunes. How weird is that? Annoying. If I’d been away from my computer there would have been nothing I could do.

I made mustard earlier. Yes that’s right. Made mustard of whole mustard, a little wine and water and a bit of salt. It’s aging in the frig because freshly pulverized mustard is potent stuff.

Spurred on by this and needing to make some room in the frig, I sliced up the head of cabbage, chopped some onion finely and mixed it all in my biggest mixing bowl before transferring it to one that is just big enough to hold it all. “Let chill at least one or two hours… keeps and improves over a few days…” sort of thing.

Even as I’m eating the first “shouldn’t be eaten for a few hours yet” mouthfuls of coleslaw it’s turning into coleslaw… Life is good.

There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and create new ones; it can lift men to angelship. — Mark Twain