Dance Review Article Has Wrong Information

Some time I waste my time and read something that I almost have no interest in. This is one such example. It would not have been memorable had it not been one little but glaring mistake in the report.

The report is a review of a dance that tries to incorporate a lot of physics in it. I never understand why people try to do that, and as if such a thing can actually convey any sense of understanding of physics. (I'd like to see if the audience, without knowing the subtext behind the dance, will actually get what the dance is all about.) Don't get me wrong, I appreciate amazing dance. I just don't have that much of a patience when it is taken to this level of 'seriousness'.

In any case, that's besides the point. I was reading along the review when the reviewer decided to provide more information than necessary, and that's when she made a mistake.

Yet the matter of our origins is only tangentially addressed here. The title is a playful twist on the search for the origins of matter underway in experiments to replicate the big bang at CERN (research now in question, given recent news that the particle accelerators will shut down in 2012, to cut costs).

Er.. hello? The LHC will be shut down in 2010 to make repairs of all the relevant electrical connections they didn't get to during the previous shutdown. This is to allow for the LHC to get to its targeted energy at 14 TeV.

If this was written for some obscure publication, I wouldn't have cared. But the Washington Post? One can only hope that the proof-reading isn't as critical when it is a review of a dance.

Zz.