Global warming, take a seat. The world may end much sooner than we think.
Over at CERN, 5000 of the world's top physicists and engineers have been working on creating the largest partcile accelerator in the world. Spanning nearly 24 km, two countries and coming in at a whopping $8 billion, the Franco-Swiss CERN accelerator is giving these hopeful scientists the chance to discover some of the mysteries of the universe.
I'm not going to pretend that I know what it is that these guys are looking for, but the Higgs-Boson sounds kind of important. Apparently, if they discover this particle then they'll unlock some truths to the universe. That sounds kind of cool. The process will essentially involve speeding up particles (protons? I don't know) so fast that when they collide, they produce effects similar to a mini-Big Bang. Sweet. Even cooler.
But then it gets kind of frightening. The physicists have openly admitted that there is a chance that the process could create a small black hole that would eat up the Earth and kill us all; albeit an incredibly small chance. That would suck.
Even two Hawaiians have submitted for a restraining order against CERN in order to shut down the project. I guess those bozos don't want to see the eradication of the human species for the sake of science. Lame.
My cousin recently made a very good point. What if we do create a black hole and destroy the universe? Would that not be the epitome of human power? We are so powerful that we not only destroy ourselves, but also the entire universe. We are the shit.
And what about aliens? Some have said that this is the greatest test of the theory of extraterrestrial intelligent life in the universe. If aliens know we're doing this, wouldn't they want to come down and stop us?
While I don't expect the universe to end, I would recommend spending some time with your loved ones throughout the summer when the project is set to start...because you never know.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/science/29collider.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Friday, April 4, 2008
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