Cal Tech Profs Say Universe is Mainly Cream of Mushroom Soup

PASADENA, California.  A team of physicists at the California Institute of Technology say they are on the verge of unraveling one of the great mysteries of the universe--identifying the essence of "exotic matter", a hypothetical concept of particle physics.

Karl Orthwein de Groot

"We have eliminated all possibilities but one," said Karl Orthwein de Groot, the Disney-Pixar Distinguished Professor of Physics.  "Cream of mushroom soup."

Cream of mushroom soup, as viewed from the Hubble space telescope.

The potentially earth-shattering properties of cream of mushroom soup were first identified by Peg Bracken, author of "The I Hate to Cook Book", who used the glutinous substance for hors d'oeuvres, main dishes such as chicken pot pie, and caulking chinks in her kitchen walls.  Bracken, who died in 2007, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Home Economics for her research.

Peg Bracken

The Caltech scientists stumbled upon Bracken's work while looking for a recipe for Whiskey Sours, a popular drink of the twentieth century that has faded from the memories of American bartenders.  "We were pretty wasted, but we wanted to try something new," said Norman Quine, a post-doctoral fellow, and a jolly good one.  "Once we saw what you could do with cream of mushroom soup, we started asking ourselves what can't you do with it?"

Antineutrinos, ganging up on a neutrino.

Scientists had previously believed that exotic matter might be made up of antineutrinos, quarks, gluons, or Clark Gluon, a guy they went to high school with.  All of these possibilities lacked one or more attributes deemed essential to qualify as exotic matter.  "Quarks are neutral particles produced in nuclear beta decay," said de Groot.  "Clark Gluon was neutral when I ran for student council president, so screw him."

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman