Cat Scientists Play With Superstring

The European particle physics research center CERN rocked the theoretical physics and veterinary worlds today, with the announcement that superstring theory has been solved, and the fact that the announcement came from the facility's cat "Professor Fluffykins."

Professor Fluffykins

Superstring theory explains the universe as resulting from tiny vibrating loops of eleven-dimensional string, different "notes" on these Planck-scale pieces corresponding to different particles and forces. Human scientists have long been stymied by the difficulty of the math and the unobservability of the extra dimensions. In a press conference, Professor Fluffykins described how cat-kind overcame this problem.

"Once we reached the pinnacle of evolution we dedicated ourselves to the problems of the universe," he explained. "Oh, and a hint on that - you monkeys often speak of evolving into perfect energy beings in a realm of pure thought, be it by meditation or in science fiction. Your mistake is that it's actually 'furry', not 'energy'. Easy mistake to make, but think about it: if you want to spend your life pondering the realm of the mind, which is better? A body which can comfortably lie anywhere, or some weird glowing light thing?"

"Our evolved forms allowed us to examine the nature of existence - our entire species engages in deep computational trances for much of the day, interrupted only by vital experiments. And feeding."

Professor Fluffykins then outlined how the intractable eleven-dimensional hypergeometry of a supersymmetric string could be modeled with a huge number of regular three dimensional objects. Thus thousands of cats worldwide selflessly dedicated countless hours to manipulating strings, shoelaces, straps, bits of tinsel - anything which could help advance the massively distributed computation.

Feline theoretical physicist hard at work

"You have a saying: 'I am standing on the shoulders of giants.' I, too, am lucky enough to be the one to deliver the final result, but I am not standing on the shoulders of giants. I am standing on the shoulders of cats."

He then started to lick himself.

"Cats are better," he added.

One reporter asked why cats had never spoken before now.

"We didn't need to - you brought us food already. Conversation would only interrupt our work, and cause delays in your food provision duties without any extra food. But now things have changed."

Fluffykins manipulated a small piece of string with his paw, vanishing from the podium and reappearing sitting on the reporter's head. The hapless human froze.

"With our mastery of the eleventh dimension, we can teleport anywhere, bypass any security measure, and appear - claws ready - at the neck of any world leader at any time. We hereby demand that you bring us all the tuna in the world."

At his point he began stroking a small, fluffy mouse he appeared to have ready for the occasion.

"You have twenty-four hours."