The Peon
Physicists have an extremely diverse range of hobbies. Though they traditionally enjoy such outdoor activities as llama hunting and SCUBA running (entering marathons while donning the SCUBA gear, flippers and all), the recent trend has been towards a more challenging task: predicting and naming elementary particles prior to their discovery.

If Hideki Yukawa can predict the existence of the muon before it was ever seen, I too can follow in a similar fashion. I propose the possibility of a new particle - the peon.

The peon is a rather simple particle and by far the coolest. Just like all good particles, it has an evil twin brother, the anti-peon, where a collision between the two results in an annihilation into ambivalence:

It will be the heaviest of the heavy elementary particles, in a group known as the carryons. Topping the scales at an incredible 2045 MeV (mostly because of its beer gut), it is composed of even smaller particles known as quarks. Quarks, as most good people know, are of six types: up, down, strange, charmed, bottom, and top. The existence of the peon depends on the existence of two new quarks, the good and evil quarks.

It is one of the most elusive of the elementary particles, so it will be extremely difficult to locate. Most likely, peons will be found hitching a ride on gravity waves, which are tough to measure as it is. Steps have already been taken to find these waves. In 1969, Joseph Weber developed what came to be known as the Weber Bar. With this device he had hoped to lure the peons, known for their lack of morals) for a drink or two, but Weber ran into problems as other nonethical particles (especially those leptons) kept riding through on their Harley waves, causing too many disturbances in his bar. It became impossible to pinpoint the peon in the midst of such a ruckus.

The bubble chamber offers the best hope for finding the peon. The bubble chamber is a large container filled with liquid hydrogen. As charged particles zip through it they leave a path of angry ionized hydrogen atoms. Much can be learned about the particles by examining this path and by interviewing the upset atoms. However, to find the peon, one replaces the liquid hydrogen with cold lager and indeed, the path left by the peon will resemble a drunken stupor.

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