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Large Hadron Collider: Countdown To Destruction! Right?

As some of you surely know, an extremely large particle accelerator has been built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). The beast is located somewhat near Geneva, Switzerland – but passes over the French-Swiss border due to it’s massive size of seventeen miles. It was built through a collective effort of two thousand physicists and engineers in over one hundred and eleven countries worldwide. The accelerator has also gathered the collective support of universities and laboratories worldwide. It has been under construction for over fourteen years

The main goal of the collider is to find something scientists know as the ‘Higgs Boson‘ particle. This thing, also known as the ‘god’ particle, is said to be the piece that holds together massless elementary particles construct mass in matter. It is the only particle in the Standard Model of particle physics that has not been observed by scientists. To be entirely truthful, there is a lot of background information on the subject that is quite far above my head – so I’ll spare you the cheap summary and let you discover these terms for yourself if you wish. The short of it is, that the confirmation of the particle’s existence is very important to Science because it is thought to give mass to everything in the universe.

Mayhem, death, ect…

So why the countdown to destruction you say? Good question. The accelerator is supposed to attempt to recreate the universal conditions at the time of the big bang, and in doing so record the existence of the Higgs Boson particle. There was a lawsuit a while back that voiced concerns about the subject. People have been vocal about concerns that the collider, in the search for the god particle, could potentially cause a bit of a black hole that might swallow the earth.

Nothing major! Right? Well most scientists dismiss this claim as little more than pish posh – but should we really let these CERN folks play with the safety of the planet (the galaxy even)? There are some people who believe the creation of a mini black hole could be possible. It seems that scientists associated with the project seem to think that the thing is entirely harmless – I think I’m a bit more skeptical about the collider. I think that before these scientists are 100% sure that the collider will not cause a major life-snuffing environmental disaster, they should probably not go through with recreating the big bang.

I’d rather be safe than stuck inside some sort of singularity. According to the countdown I’ve linked above – we have about 5 days until we see some action. Of course, assuming the accelerator doesn’t destroy our galaxy – it has the potential to open doors to a lot of cool new science that could impact our existance in a profound way. Either way, I’m excited, but it is important to remember that theoretical physics is still theoretical so really, anything could happen. Safe?

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