Weakly Interacting Massive Particles. Also
neutralino.
These are the particles that
theoretically make up a large proportion of the
Universe's actual mass. The so called "
Dark Matter", they, along with
MACHOs and
Einstein's
cosmological constant, make it possible for the idea of a "
flat" or
constantly and
infinitely expanding universe to exist.
They are claimed to have a
mass of about that of a nickel atom, but do not
interact with rest of the matter in the universe very much, so have little effect our
earthly lives. They would however be involved in the spinning of the
galaxies and other
super-scale phenomena.
Scientists estimate that there should be about 1 WIMP per
teacup mass of
space.
Multiply the
cross-section of the
human body 140 miles (the distance we travel though the WIMP cloud every second), and
divide by the
volume of a teacup and we find that about a
billion of the buggers are going through us every
second.
Scary thought.