SPRINGDALE, AR—The dynamic processes by which matter and energy function in the physical world ground to a halt Thursday night as 7-year-old Troy Benton paged through his first fully illustrated book about sharks. "Whoa!" said Benton, who was staring wide-eyed at a photo of a great white shark when time came to a complete standstill, the planets stopped dead in their orbits, and a strange, unknowable force disrupted all of existence and caused a rift in the very fabric of reality. "Up to 20 rows of teeth?" Sources confirmed that earlier this month the universe and all the laws governing it collapsed entirely on occasions coinciding with Benton's discovery of cobras, dinosaurs, and fighter jets.