Famous Last Words
I've been following the development of the Large Hadron Collider located on the outskirts of Geneva. This massive installation, part of which is pictured below, is situated underground and is a particle accelerator. Here is the mission statement for LHC:
There is a tiny person in the center of that picture...
According to the scientists at LHC the giant instrument will revolutionize the understanding of the world deep within atoms, the very building blocks of the Universe. Many theories have emerged as to the result of these impending collisions which are scheduled to begin in June of 2008. Some believe it will produce the elusive Higgs boson particle. You can read about that here. Others believe it will mark the end of the world. That hypothesis even led to a lawsuit.
I smiled when I saw this story on Gizmodo with the following headline:
CERN to Morons: Large Hadron Collider Won't Destroy Earth, Morons.
I guess those highly confident physicists at CERN know their stuff. Sometimes though, a little humility in the face of the power of creation would be nice.
To smash protons moving at 99.999999% of the speed of light into each other and so recreate conditions a fraction of a second after the big bang.
There is a tiny person in the center of that picture...
According to the scientists at LHC the giant instrument will revolutionize the understanding of the world deep within atoms, the very building blocks of the Universe. Many theories have emerged as to the result of these impending collisions which are scheduled to begin in June of 2008. Some believe it will produce the elusive Higgs boson particle. You can read about that here. Others believe it will mark the end of the world. That hypothesis even led to a lawsuit.
I smiled when I saw this story on Gizmodo with the following headline:
CERN to Morons: Large Hadron Collider Won't Destroy Earth, Morons.
I guess those highly confident physicists at CERN know their stuff. Sometimes though, a little humility in the face of the power of creation would be nice.
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