by Doug Wolinsky

Created on: September 14, 2008

In Geneva the CERN LHC is open for business. LHC standing for Large Hadron Collider and no, unfortunately it is not the world's newest and largest bumper car park. It is a 27km ring of underground magnets designed to fire proton's at each other at nearly the speed of light. The idea is to recreate, with a markedly smaller bang, the aftermath of the Big Bang and hopefully see some hither to unseen particles which will give us some clue as to how the universe was created. The cost of Earth's newest theme park for geeks: 6 billion Euros to date ($9 Billion U.S.) .

Particle physicists have gone as far as they can with previous experimental data and so in the spirit of progress they have built a bigger experiment, the LHC. While they know what they hope to find (sort of), they have no way of knowing what they will actually find. The "x" factor is real and they embrace that. It's the very spirit of discovery and perhaps even a noble effort. After all, I might be writing from Europe or Asia had not some brave souls embraced the "x" factor, disregarded the idea that the Earth was flat and set sail around the globe (Actually those explorers were just greedy and desperate, but its too early for me to make that correlation). But what if the Earth was flat? Well I'd be writing from another continent and those explorers would be floating out towards the edge of the Milky Way. No earth shattering tragedy there, relatively speaking. However, in the case of the LHC the stakes are considerably higher. If they are wrong no one will be falling off the Earth. If they are wrong the Earth will fall out of existence!

Yes, there are those who are concerned that these experiments might bring about the total annihilation of Earth. Who are they? Most are probably crackpots like me who don't have degrees in Physics, but a few concerned critics do have degrees and good reputations. The doomsayers are worried that these new experiments might create a mini Black Hole or "Strangelets" which convert matter to something completely unpalatable to us. The experimenters say they don't "think" they will, but "if" they do there won't be any harm.

I am not really up on my Astrophysics so I can't say for sure, but I'm not aware of any experiential, physical or observational data on Black Holes or Strangelets which leads me to believe they know anything more of substance about them than your local preacher can prove about God. It now appears that their motivation to disprove God is so great they are willing

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