CERN Results Improperly Kerned; Data Invalidated

I can’t dismiss this as a joke, because I’m aware of the vitriol that surrounds the use of Comic Sans.

CERN scientists inexplicably present Higgs boson findings in Comic Sans

For many of us, the most shocking revelation to come out of CERN’s Higgs boson announcement today was quite unrelated to the science itself. Rather, we were blown away by the fact that a team made up of some of the most undoubtedly brilliant people in the world believe that Comic Sans is an appropriate font for such a historic occasion.

The most shocking revelation? Seriously? I wonder if they all dropped their monocles in their cups of tea, simultaneously. Comic sans, the very idea! Were smelling salts required, Aunt Pittypat?

Not sure if I file this under “You can’t please everyone” or “Talk about missing the point”. (That it also goes under “Comic Sans douchebaggery” is a given). I would love it if someone had actually thought about this, and did it for the sole reason of causing typographers to have a collective fit. Not defending this as the right choice, mind you. It’s just the inevitable violation of Newton’s third law — the reaction far outweighs the action, whenever Comic Sans is involved.

2 thoughts on “CERN Results Improperly Kerned; Data Invalidated

  1. I have a slight suspicion, based on nothing more than the general tendencies of scientifically-minded people, that the use of Comic Sans might be a bit of intentional trollery. If the slide title had been in Papyrus, it would have given away the game.

  2. The “discovery” of the Higgs boson is a statistical manipulation of three detectors’ numbers for one decay channel of many. No single detector’s data passes sufficient probability for discovery. This is Comic Sans territory.

    http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/assets/2012/07/04/sn-higgs-combined.jpg“Higgs”
    Bottommost ATLAS line: the four-point dip between 118 – 122 GeV has no effect at all on the fitted line. The four-point rise between 124 – 128 GeV is the Higgs. Two additional points leading the Higgs peak go down as the fitted line goes up. “J-psi” particle discovery graphs or any other particle produced for line shape, they don’t much look like the “Higgs.” To borrow an economics phrase, “cautious optimism” (we’re riding the tiger because we can imagine no way to dismount without dying.)

    http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef01675eb57ce7970b-800wi
    Does the 114 GeV unparticle count?

    Symmetry-based physics does not exactly work for matter – furies of parity violations. String/M-theory and quantum gravitation are 40 years of unmitigated disasters. SUSY is nowhere to be found in any means, shape, or manifestation. The SM is a curve-fitting kludge,

    http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/constants.html

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