Advance Copy: CERN Announcement

Ladies, gentlemen, esteemed colleagues and guests, thank you all for gathering here. In 1998, we set out to build the world's largest particle accelerator with the aim of finding, or even discrediting the long-standing theories of, new and exotic particles that will help explain how our universe works. Since the system came online in 2008, we've recorded an incredible amount of data, and multiple teams have been tirelessly piecing it together and making sense of it all.

Today marks a very special day. It's been an arduous journey. There have been setbacks, complications, a few successes, a couple failures, billions spent, and countless sleepless nights put in by practically everyone on the panel before you. It's been as much a labor of love as it has been a labor of necessity-- the human spirit demands to learn about the world around it. It's that unwavering human need that takes us to the bottoms of the oceans and to the furthest reaches of our solar system. It's what gave rise to the exploration of the New World as well as the Moon, and this burning need will remain with us for as long as men and women have the capacity to dream. This same need is why we're all here today.

Scientists, engineers, and technicians from all walks of life and from nearly every continent have come here to work on some very pressing, very exciting problems. Indeed, the facility here is designed to help resolve some of the most fundamental questions of science. We're all united despite our differences to work as one, for the ultimate betterment of us all as a species. I, for one, could not be more proud to work with such an incredible group of people. Nothing like this has ever been undertaken, and I think I speak for everyone up here when I say we feel incredibly privileged to have been here at this most historic time.

But now, for the reason we're all here:

We have found no evidence to support the existence of the Farb Particle. We can't find any indication that it exists, at all. It is almost certainly not real. We don't know where this idea came from or why, but there is no Farb Particle. Please stop asking about the Farb Particle.

The following particles have also not been found: Slug (thought to be responsible for slugs), That Bad Cat Smell (you know the one), Crime (all crimes), Taco Taste (the special taste of taco), Shed Fear (fear of strange sheds), Bibbo (????), Anti-Bibbo (¿¿¿¿), Gout Panic (self-explanitory), 'Bust The Lust' (unknown), and the Talking Dog Particle.

I sincerely hope to have more interesting results for you next time. Thank you all for coming.

– Jon "@fart" Hendren (@fart)