Standard Model of Cocktail Physics (2012)

The Standard Model of Cocktail Physics re-interprets the Standard Model of Particle Physics by assigning each fundamental particle in the universe, such as electrons, quarks, and neutrinos, to a cocktail ingredient. Then, the composite particles such as protons, neutrons, and all the mesons and baryons, and all particle interactions, including Higgs boson decay, give a corresponding recipe for a cocktail.

The poster, a set of cocktail recipes, and a performance involving serving the universe of cocktails to participants was held at Science Hack Day 2012.

Ingredients were chosen to reflect the properties of the particles they stood for. For example, as the weights of quarks increased, the ingredients became darker and more alcoholic. Leptons with their corresponding neutrinos were given ingredients that commonly go together, as happens for the particles, so the electron and its neutrino are gin and tonic.

An example recipe: a proton consists of two up quarks and one down quark, so the proton cocktail consists of two measures of up quark ingredient and one measure of down quark ingredient. In this case, it is simply vodka on the rocks.

Higgs decay gives us a whiskey, gin, and lime cocktail. The hydrogen atom is an extra dry gin and vodka martini. A Z-boson decay is rum, Coke, and lime.

The project was awarded “Best in Show” at the 2012 Science Hack Day.

The piece was also performed at the Mad Scientist Festival in Bern, Switzerland in August 2015.