Ænglisc Ƿikipǣdia

[Aiwendil]

How long is this fragment of alliterative verse on the search for a ring, um, erm, dark matter?

Not long at all. Here it is (breaking off in the middle of a sentence):

Nu wé sculon sécan mid searwe and cræfte,
déop and díegol, þæt deorc andweorc,
þa gastlican grot þa þone gang rǽdaþ
héara fýra in feldum heofona,
ymbhweorfaþ and stíeraþ þa steorra-hwéol,
þa tungol-wolcen, téoþ and lædaþ.
Þás floccas úþmǽte fýrenra gimma
swa sandgrotu sind þurh sweglu ge-stréawode.
Wíd-brádran gíet, swa webbes þrædas,
þá sigel-hordas in swælendum hefeldum,
þurh rýmetu unrime rodores a-þeniaþ,
be ge-wealde ge-wefene þara wácra grota.
Timbren wé þoðor þrymmfæstes styles,

Literal translation: Now we must seek with art and skill, deep and hidden, the dark matter, the ghostly particles that govern the course of high fires in the fields of the heavens, [that] turn round and steer the star-wheels, [that] pull and lead the star-clouds. Those immense companies of fiery gems like sand-grains are strewn through the skies. Vaster still, like the strands of a web, the sun-hordes extend in burning threads through immeasurable spaces of the firmament, woven by the power of the weak [i.e. interacting via the 'weak force'] particles. Let us build a sphere of mighty steel,

It was going to go on to describe the detector for the experiment I work on and then imagine a particle of dark matter interacting within it. Maybe I'll write more - it is rather fun. I especially enjoyed coming up with those kennings for 'galaxy'.

I presume you're refering to Cold Dark Matter, the stuff that's been invented to balance the mathematics?

Yes. A brief explanation, because I can't help myself: when we look at the way galaxies and galaxy clusters rotate, and at the way galaxies are distributed throughout space, it looks as though there is a lot more mass in and around them than what you'd think if you just consider stars, planets, dust, and that sort of thing. So the hypothesis is that the universe is filled with some unknown kind of particle that hardly interacts at all with normal matter. The poem specifically has in mind something called a WIMP - Weakly Interacting Massive Particle - and a detector searching for such an entity.