Full of Holes

What did you know? asked Pliny the Elder.

Three things, I said darkly.

What were they?

First of all, I knew why the redfaced man had come to the lecture. He thought it was going to be about neutralinos. When it wasn't, he felt impelled to tell his friends about them anyway.

That is understandable, agreed Pliny. And what else did you know?

Secondly, I knew about neutralinos because they were amongst the Thirteen Things That Didn't Make Sense in the book I was reading. They're called WIMPs , or weakly interacting massive particles and no one has actually found one yet. They hoped to find them in the Large Hadron Collider last year, but it's temporarily out of action.

Dear me, is it? What happened?

Oh, a serious fault between two superconducting bending magnets.

Most unfortunate.

Yes. Thirdly, I knew that we were all full of holes.

Indeed? You never mentioned it before.

I meant it in an ironical way, not like him. He was coughing . Particles were spraying out from one of his apertures and I was hoping that none of them would get into any of mine.

Do you think that any of them did?

No.