The NewsDemon Blog
The Large Hadron Collider Atom Smasher
By Newsgroup Usenet September 9th, 2008
On Wednesday, 10 September 2008, a massive physics machine will begin spinning up. After that, things could get very interesting…
We are, of course, talking about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) — a 17 Miles underground ring below the Swiss-French border that will see particle beams being hurled in opposite directions, traveling around the entire ring in less than 90 microseconds.
The first of these particle beams will be run through the ring on Wednesday — and then on 21 October two beams travelling in opposite directions are going to be placed in a collision course with each other.
And that’s what people are worried about.
Physicists are pretty sure that the resulting collision will allow them to finally see the theorised Higgs boson in action. Doomsayers fear a black hole could be formed and suck up the planet.
OK, that does sound suitably alarming and it’s not really that bad. But the LHC is still a very interesting piece of machinery.
In short, the machine could provide a miniature scale of the big bang theory in effect. It can provide an act of demonstration reflecting years of scientific theories. Or, for the very conservative, the end of the world.
More tomorrow.
UPDATE: 9:30. First beam injected and stopped at 1/8 of a circuit. Loud applause in the control room. The world is safe for now.
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I can’t beleive that these people are allowed to do this. What makes them think that they can play god. They may have the fate of our planet in their hands. What gives them the right? If even the sligtest possibility that something could go wrong and destroy us all, should’t everyone have a say in whether or not they should do it? I know nobody asked my permission. And why do they need to do this? If they do prove that our universe was a result of the “big bang” then they are going to destroy everyones faith and beleif that there is hope and someone out there watching over them. No matter if it is true or not, faith in a higher power gives people the strength to keep living. No matter the outcome i am completly against this experiment and outraged that that are going through with it.
And also they have spent so much money on this, that money could have been used for better things than this like, i don;t know feeding the people starving on the streets, or people dying because they can’t afford health care. That money could have done so much good in this world, but instead they chose to do and experiment that may or may not destroy us.