It's been awhile since I mentioned the Large Hadron-Collider located in Europe, spanning over two countries deep underground. You may remember that I mentioned several risks associated with the giant underground magnet, including its potential to create a black hole that could eventually swallow the entire Earth and perhaps the universe.
You may also remember it was supposed to get going during the past summer. The world is still here, so everything must have gone right, eh? Well, not quite. Back in September, a simple electrical fault shut the whole thing down just after it finally got going. The repairs (estimated at $26 million) are taking longer than anticipated and the new restart date has been postponed until September, 2009.
In my last post on this topic I recalled a conversation I had with my cousin, where we discussed the development of the CERN project as being a litmus test for intelligent life in the universe. If the project has the potential to destroy the universe, surely those uber-intelligent lifeforms will try to stop us from getting the machine going.
Strangely, these unexpected shutdowns have occurred before anything really dangerous has taken place. Maybe the alien theory is too far fetched. You never know...
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