Save the Date: End of the World Tomorrow

By the time you read this, the world may already have ended.

(There's something not quite right about that sentence...).

In case you haven't been following the tale of the Large Hadron Collider (I said HADRON...pervert...), or LHC, the world's largest particle accelerator at 17-miles long, gets turned on tomorrow. Well, technically, tonight, I believe, due to the time difference. I think it's 12:15am Pacific, if I'm doing my jetlaggy figuring right.

The controversial giant-ass underground atom-smasher is set to go, and everyone there at the LHC, near Geneva, Switzerland, is quivering with excitement.

Not everyone's as excited.

Because some people think the world's about to end.

There was a lawsuit to stop this thing. Why? Because there they believe it might wipe at all life as we know it. There's a chance it will create black holes right here on Earth. Very tiny, microscopic ones that will last, scientists tell us, a fraction of a nanosecond, so would be no danger at all. But as I've heard quoted, there's about a 50 million to one chance that a big black hole catastrophe event would occur, the Earth would get sucked into it, and all life would cease...puppies, theme parks, emo bands and all.

So why take the risk (that most every scientist will tell you isn't even a risk)? LOADS of reasons, the most exciting of which is the quest for a unifying Theory of Everything (Einstein couldn't pull it off...maybe our generation can), pulling the seemingly uncombinable (is that really a word?) theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity finally together. They're hoping to verify the existence of the Higgs boson, or the "God Particle", which is predicted by the standard model of particle physics but has yet to be actually observed. What they're really trying to attempt with this thing is to recreate the circumstances of the Big Bang, and to get a look at conditions when the universe was new.

I say again...they're trying to recreate the "Big Bang".

In Switzerland.

And they wonder why people are nervous. Um...because it's called the "BIG BANG"? What does that tell you?

They're also hoping to solve the mystery of "dark matter", hoping eventually to be able to observe supersymmetric particles in the lab and perhaps pierce the "cloak" of dark matter.

Does "piercing the cloak" of "dark matter" sound like a good idea? Or does is sound like something H.P. Lovecraft tried to warn us against?

Again, most scientists will tell you that it's foolishness to worry, and that the chances of something going wrong are ridiculously remote. Of course, as we all know, scientists have been hoarding knowledge for years, and are part of a conspiracy to destroy our friends - the reptilian "Visitors" - and to stop the new age of peace and enlightenment that only the Visitors can bring us (I don't mean to brag, but I have ALL the Visitor action figures AND the shuttlecraft, and signed up for the youth movement where I WILL inform on your family if you don't sleep with me...). But, that's neither here nor there. Hard numbers, again, say 50 million to one. Really, is there any chance of an outcome with THOSE kinds of odds happening?

Okay...a guy named "Billy Bob" got Angelina Jolie. You tell me.

There's debate on both sides (though it's pretty much too late for the debate change anything), and everyone's got their views, but I just have to ask this question:

Does anyone else besides me think that the idea that we've advanced so far as a society that we've created something that has a theoretical chance of destroying the world just by turning it on...

...is just hugely freaking cool?

Rock on, physicists. Can't unlock the secrets of the universe without the theoretical chance of breaking a few...okay, actually ALL the eggs. All our Y2K-ish fears aside, it's going to be a very exciting year for science.

(Or Cthulu...).