Supercollider

I've always thought that a cool name for a band would be "Supercollider". Sounds like a punk band, doesn't it?

This is because my father once had something or other to do with The Superconducting Super Collider Project in Texas, a quantum physics project to determine the innards of an atom by smashing them together at near light speeds and seeing what resulted. He got us shirts with some colorful particle explosions pictured, and whenever I'd wear this to high school, I'd just say that "Supercollider" was a band, and everyone bought that, because it really was a cool shirt. The only person who got it was the valedictorian, who called me a dork. I think he was jealous.

Incidentally, The Onion once covered this subject, turning it in to the "Super Monkey Collider." It's one of my favorite articles of all time, it's about seeing what what sounds monkeys make when smashed together at near light speeds.

"It could be a thump, a splat, or maybe even a sound that hasn't yet been heard by human ears," said project head Dr. Eric Reed Friday, in an impassioned plea to Congress. "How are we supposed to understand things like the atom or the nature of gravity if we don't even know what colliding monkeys sound like?"