We’re All Gonna Die!
Or “Should We Worry About the Large Hadron Collider?”
A hadron is a subatomic particle. A collider is an underground racetrack that will propel this particle to near-light speeds. Still under construction in Geneva, the Large Hadron Collider is going to be the biggest particle accelerator in the world, with a circumference of 17 miles. Scientists hope to finally isolate the “Higgs boson,” a theoretical particle dubbed “the God Particle,” whose discovery could solve many mysteries of the physical world. Scientists believe this elusive particle could reveal what matter really is.
So why should we be worried? According to the venerable Wikipedia and the Lifeboat Foundation, a technophobe watchdog group, “People both inside and outside of the physics community have voiced concern that the LHC might trigger one of several theoretical disasters capable of destroying the Earth or even the entire Universe.” Apparently, when you energize particles to such high speeds, there are some safety concerns, namely the possibility of creating micro black holes and strange, unstable matter. The chance of this happening is infinitesimal, but not zero. I think the inadvertent destruction of our world would be a major bummer, not just for the Earth, but for the whole Universe. So until the Spring of 2008, we’ll keep our fingers crossed. Whether we unlock the key to the universe or destroy it, I say, “Let the colliding begin!”
By the way, the unofficial particle acceleration competition between CERN and Fermilab is the subject of the upcoming documentary film “The Atom Smashers.”
August 27th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Neat!
Fermilab should be good in the competition with CERN. Didn’t Fermilab have a core meltdown in the early days of atomic energy? I recall some quote about “We almost lost Chicago….”
By the way, the World Wide Web was invented at CERN,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN#Computer_Science_and_CERN
by Tim Berners Lee.
I once wrote Lee a fan e-mail thanking him. He wrote back and said “you’re welcome” and more. It was cool.
August 28th, 2007 at 1:01 am
>At 12:53 AM 8/28/2007, Julie wrote:
>Hold on hold on hold on,
>you mean to tell me that the INVENTOR of the INTERNET
MWD replied:
The Web, not the Internet.
>personally sent you a message back saying “you’re
welcome”?
Yes.
>I am so impressed! Do you still have it?
No. That was about six computers ago.
I also sent a fan e-mail to Doug Engelbart,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart
the guy who invented the mouse, and he also wrote me back.
MWD
August 28th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
“Micro black holes.” Sounds cool to me.
August 31st, 2007 at 7:52 pm
“People both inside and outside of the physics community have voiced concern that the LHC might trigger one of several theoretical disasters capable of destroying the Earth or even the entire Universe.”
Does it matter? How would you know if and when it happened? Anyone that follows quantum theory could argue that this may have already happened as there is the possibility that time actually travels backward.
Assuming that time does not travel backwards and this does destroy the universe, who cares? We would be instantly compressed to something so unimaginably small. Reminds me of a Flaming Lips song “one million billionth of a millisecond on a sunday morning” Add a whole bunch of zero’s behind the “million billionth” and that is how quickly you will be nothing. Life is short. Make today mean something. Tomorrow you could be nothing… again.
September 1st, 2007 at 8:18 pm
no mind, never matter. no matter, nevermind!