Boson, quarks and hadrons for an escapist

I'VE JUST READ a piece in The Economist that was all about the Higgs boson, hadrons and quarks. Don't go away. I was lured by the headline: Enemy in sight?, which is a fitting reference to any story out of the Nation's Capital these days. Happily for me, the magazine article had nothing to do with alarmingly wretched politics but rather it dealt with the 40-year search for something called the Higgs boson. Don't go away.

As I burrowed through the exotic language for an atom of meaning , I finally conceded that for one who didn't do well in high school physics, the tale of the Higgs boson left me at the starting gate. Still, everything has a purpose, I suppose. For me in times like these, it was good to read something that was an unintelligible escape from the otherwise inexplicable folly of our everyday world. To show my appreciation, I may try to work quarks and hadrons into my later posts if I ever figure out what they mean.