I don’t understand any of the physics on this tee since I’ve haven’t been taught about this stuff for more than 5 years and I don’t think we got to stuff that was this complex anyway, but I do think it looks pretty cool, and I like the idea that CERN would produce a t-shirt that such a small percentage of the population would understand. Fortunately for the person that was given this t-shirt as a present, it came with a leaflet that helps the wearer understand what the equations mean.

This equation neatly sums up our current understanding of fundamental particles and forces. It represents mathematically what we call the standard model of particle physics. The top line describes the forces: electricity, magnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces. The second line describes how these forces act on the fundamental particles of matter, namely the quarks and leptons. The third line describes how these particles obtain their masses from the Higgs boson, and the fourth line enables the Higgs boson to do the job. Many experiments at CERN and other laboratories have verified the top two lines in detail. One of the primary objectives of the LHC is to see whether the Higgs boson exists and behaves as predicted by the last two lines.

Let’s just hope that the large hadron collider doesn’t destroy the universe so that we can all continue wearing t-shirts. I can’t find anywhere online that sells the tee, but if you’re really desperate then a visit to France or Switzerland may well be in order to go to the CERN Shop, I say France or Switzerland since the big ring of CERN straddles the border of those two countries and it isn’t clear which side the shop is on.

Photo Credit: Confusing T-Shirt from CERN by Quisnovus (usual disclaimer: the photo is ‘all rights reserved’, so it may well disappear in the near future if the uploader doesn’t like me using their photo)