VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Sure they helped with the Higgs boson and are leaders in the world of high-end physics, but what have they done for you lately? Can they shorten that commute?

News1130 has been poking around one of the world’s top particle labs, trying to find some practical uses for all that science.

The god particle, dark matter, blah, blah, blah… The real question is if the scientists at UBC’s TRIUMF facilities can brew a better coffee.

“We’re not going to see dark matter in Starbucks anytime soon,” laughs Tim Meyer, head of Strategic Planning & Communications, adding it’s okay to wonder if theoretical physics has practical uses.

“It’s great to understand, but the other part is wondering what this has to do with your daily life. Certainly in the morning, I’m always looking at how I can reduce my commute and how I can get my cup of coffee quicker and cheaper. Maybe we could finally understand gravity — that’s maybe even more science fiction but imagine if we could actually control gravity,” he muses.

Enter the graviton. (Not the Gravitron — that’s an amusement park ride!)

“Yeah, the graviton. If I could turn off gravity and fly over my morning commute, that would be awesome,” Meyer laughs.

“There should be a particle, just like there’s a Higgs particle associated with a Higgs field. If we could understand gravity as a field and understand those particles, we could perhaps turn gravity on and off, maybe we could turn gravity backwards and have it be repulsive rather than attractive,” he explains. “That’s very much in the world of science fiction, but those are the kinds of things that excite children and adults alike. I’d love to have my hands around something like that.”

Kids, who says physics class isn’t useful?