Engage
On April 12th, I wrote about the Large Hadron Collider being developed by CERN--the European Organization for Nuclear Research. At the time, some voices were heard expressing concern over the potential safety hazards of creating the conditions that existed at the time of the creation of the universe.
In anticipation of go-live (or FIRST BEAM as it is called) on September 10th, CERN published a new paper touting the safety of the Collider. Here is an excerpt:
The LHC, like other particle accelerators, recreates the natural phenomena of cosmic rays under controlled laboratory conditions, enabling them to be studied in more detail. Cosmic rays are particles produced in outer space, some of which are accelerated to energies far exceeding those of the LHC. The energy and the rate at which they reach the Earth’s atmosphere have been measured in experiments for some 70 years. Over the past billions of years, Nature has already generated on Earth as many collisions as about a million LHC experiments – and the planet still exists. Astronomers observe an enormous number of larger astronomical bodies throughout the Universe, all of which are also struck by cosmic rays. The Universe as a whole conducts more than 10 million million LHC-like experiments per second. The possibility of any dangerous consequences contradicts what astronomers see - stars and galaxies still exist.
You can read the full text here.
Let's hope they get it right.
If not we can all be very angry with this CERN scientist and his colleagues:
By the way, CERN chose Russian parts for triggers for the Quench Protection System pictured here:
Hope that works out.
Lets check in on September 10th 
P.S. Sorry for the long absence.
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