text: Billy’s dad, like most of us, is a creature of pattern. His mornings always run on one of 17 common sequences, with 24 exceptions to date, and most of these are a simple reordering of the same clusters of sub-sequences, anyway. For example, first order of business is always checking the time. Always. In his 13413 days of existence, there have only been 3 occasions that Billy’s dad didn’t check the time first, and one of those times resulted in the conception of Billy. Today, Billy’s dad runs on sequence 12. Check time, urinate, shower, brush teeth, dress (always pants first, never shirt first. Billy’s dad once tried dressing shirt first, but with a formal top half and naked bottom half his body was confused as to whether he was feeling vulnerable, or aroused. He spent the rest of the day battling jump scares and surprise erections), coffee, breakfast, shoes on, keys, and out the door. This isn’t to be confused with sequence 11, which is essentially the same, but Billy’s dad brushes his teeth after breakfast instead. &nbsp; Billy knows his dad’s patterns. He studies them as part of his own daily routine. Billy’s sequence system has a considerably smaller sample size than his dad’s, and consequently a much smaller total amount of common combinations. Billy has 5 standard morning routine paths, and most of those are dictated by whichever sequence order his mother is on. Today, he’s on #5. Wake up, watch dad, mum brings him breakfast, mum tells him to get dressed, mum shouts at him for not being dressed yet, mum takes him to school. &nbsp; Beyond these typical morning rituals, however, the rest of the day was going to be anything but typical for both Billy, and his dad. &nbsp; Billy’s dad was a particle physicist, and today was the day that the POS Institute was going to run an experiment he’d devised - the piece de resistance of his life’s accomplishments. An experiment that, if all went accordingly, would allow his team to smash through the physical structure of the world and allow them to peer into the fabric of space, time and all other dimensional elements that combine to form the world we know today. &nbsp; Billy, on the other hand, was going to be taking a livestream of this event in to his class, for all his classmates to witness history in the making. It would be like the moon landing, if Neil Armstrong was your dad. &nbsp; In the lab, assistants ran their routine series of checks and balances in the lead up to the experiment. It’s the next phase of particle smashing - quark smashing. In 2015, the world smashed particles together to get a look at what was inside them. Today, we smash what’s inside them together, to see what’s inside the insides. It’s all very technical. &nbsp; This is the preamble explanation Billy gives the class at the start of his show and tell. Billy always fancied himself a bit of a scientist. It’s the genetic throne he’s destined to one day sit upon, but in reality, he just loved smashing his toys together in the sandpit. Today, he brought in some Lego demonstrations for the dummies in class. Billy found Lego worked best, because kids could understand the mechanism of individual blocks sticking together to form a larger structure. He thinks the metaphor was lost on them, though, when he talked about seeing what’s inside the Lego blocks. Most of them thought he was talking about plastic, so they were confused when he brought up his iPad to show them a livestream of the experiment. Billy’s dad’s experiment. As the rest of the class begin to catch on, they squirm awkwardly in their seats. The teacher tries to politely interrupt, but Billy has already streamed his feed to the projector and the coverage blazes on the whiteboard for all to see. He doesn’t care if this kind of learning makes them feel uncomfortable, it’s time for the world to open their eyes. &nbsp; Billy’s dad was thinking the same thing at that moment, as he stood in the control room buzzing with excited physicians, who watched read outs of a track firing excited protons around it. A green light flashes, indicating that the protons have reached optimum speed. Hand at the ready, Billy’s dad smashes a big green button with dramatic flair, which cues the magnetic track to align the protons for collision. When things are moving at the speed of light, everything happens pretty instantaneously. The protons collide! Not one set, but this time two sets, on opposite sides of the 24 kilometre long track. And this time, the experiment doesn’t stop to watch the newly born quarks bloom and die like fireworks. No, this time the magnetic charge that’s been helping move an align the original protons continues to run, sucking up the quarks and shooting them further down the track, smashing them into the other set of fresh quarks that were being fired the opposite direction. &nbsp; By this point, Billy found himself sitting outside the principal’s office. His teacher hadn’t appreciated his show and tell, apparently. But he didn’t see why his mother needed to be called in. His confusion was on par with his dad’s. &nbsp; Back in the lab, Billy’s dad studied the revelation of new data. The experiment had worked, they’d discovered what was inside the quarks. Like a packet of crisps exploding, streams of smaller elements erupted from inside. From what could be deciphered, the contents were made up of two shapes, a circle, and a line, always connected to each other in varying strings and arrangements. How they functioned would take the team a long time to figure out, but for now, they were happy to have glimpsed God’s building blocks. &nbsp; Billy left school early that day. He and his mother shared the car ride in silence. Billy, excited that the experiment was a success. His mother, much less enthusiastic. &nbsp; After a successful day at work, Billy’s dad was on his way home to share the news with his family. It was afternoon routine 14. Pull into the driveway, check the mailbox, open the front door, and... &nbsp; That’s when Billy’s mother took the iPad off him. Billy knew it was time for ‘a talk’ again. Which was it going to be this time? &nbsp; “I’m worried about you”. “I want you to see Dr Boyle again”. “That’s not your real father. It’s not healthy for you to fixate like this”. &nbsp; Some arrangement of those, surely, would make up one of Talks 1 through 4. &nbsp; Instead, Billy’s mother looked over the screen. “So, what did he get up to today?”. &nbsp; This was something new.