Cracking the Maclean's Code

How is life like a Dan Brown novel?  There are many ways: a lot of it is hard to believe, it goes by more quickly than you realise, the characters act in inconsistent ways.  But I can add a new one: A little knowledge helps you know what is real and what isn't.

I'm probably like a lot of people in that I read The Da Vinci Code when it was a big deal, and then later read the previous book in the series, Angels and Demons.  I'm sure I'm also like a lot of people in that I found the predecessor had similar entertainment value, yet it actually made both books seem disappointing by revealing how formulaic they both were.  Surely Brown knows there are some women who were not orphaned and raised by a male relative who instilled her with a love of science.

But for me there was an extra disappointment: The Da Vinci Code revolved around art, history and other subjects in which I'm no expert.  But a lot of Angels and Demons was concerned with physics, a subject I am familiar with after taking half a degree in it.  Once I saw how fast-and-loose Brown handled physics, it revealed to me just how far he bends facts.  No, I'm not one of those people who thought The Da Vinci Code was based on reality, but a great deal of its appeal comes from the fact that it seems tantalisingly possible.  But if Brown's long-range conspiracies are as real as antimatter production and hypersonic aircraft, then I'll just go back to straight-up science fiction, which is about equally believable, thank you very much.

I find the same thing works with the news media.  Like any thinking person, I'm never sure how much of the media's sensationalism should be believed.  But every now and then they report a sensationalist story about a topic I know well, and I have my answer.  This week's Maclean's was a great example, with a cover story about the Higgs Boson.  It features the couldn't-be-more-misleading headline "This Changes Everything" (as I mentioned in an earlier post, the new findings really just boringly confirm what most physicists already believed.)  It also implies that the discovery opens the door for "teleportation, phasers, alternate dimensions". 

My half a physics degree may not have ever helped me get a job, but it did let me know that this cover story was so ridiculous it would lose them their journalists' licences, if only such a thing existed.  So now I know I can disregard lots of other things I've read on their covers, just over the last few months:

• We'll soon be eating lettuce with built-in dressing
• The Hunger Games is a symptom of widespread rage among young people
• Canada will never have a cold winter again
• The one-third of women that earn more than their husbands are causing major societal upheaval
• RIM's downfall is all Balsillie and Lazaridis's fault
• Bill Gates knows how to fix public education
• The Bloc Quebecois has been good for Canada
• Newt Gingrich could be president.

Okay, I don't think I needed any physics education to see through that last one.