Letter

To the Editors:

As a representative of muons everywhere, I am writing to express our dismay at being compared to a Twinkie in your Explain it in 60 seconds article of May 2012.

I only have a couple of microseconds to write and I do have some trouble with keyboards, so I will keep this brief. First, we are elementary particles—at least as far as you humans know—and have no size or internal structure. Twinkies are large and puffy. Even worse, Twinkies have an inside consisting of some unpleasant chemical filling based on corn syrup.

Second, despite our relatively long lifespan, we are nothing like a Twinkie, which seems to have an infinite shelf life. Perhaps instead you should have compared the Twinkie to the proton, which has a lifetime of more than around 10³⁴ years. It would be an interesting experiment to see which decays first, a proton or a Twinkie.

Finally, we are concerned that being associated with Twinkies will besmirch our reputation. We hope that no one, as a result of your article, seeks exoneration using the “Muon Defense.”

—Your friend, the Muon
(via Robert Bernstein, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory)