Will the World End Next Wednesday?
The team at the LHC hopes that by smashing heavy particles together they'll be able to catch glimpses of the Higgs boson, the so-called God particle. The mere presence of the Higgs boson would help explain how other particles acquire properties such as mass and help explain the relative weakness of gravity when compared with the other major forces in the universe; electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force. If this all sounds a bit complicated, check out the wildly popular YouTube rap video (we're not joking) explaining the LHC.
A group of worrywarts charge that there is a small, but real, chance that the LHC could destroy the Earth, and even possibly the universe. They believe that the collider could create a small black hole when the heavy particles crash into each other, compressing a relatively large amount of mass into an impossibly small space, which would fall into the ground and slowly swallow the Earth from the inside (causing all sorts of apocalyptic fun like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions). There is a second scenario in which the LHC could set off a cataclysmic chain reaction that would destroy Earth in mere seconds, tearing the very fabric of the universe apart before anyone could completely grasp what was happening -- rather than slowly devouring the planet, the black hole would rip our solar system asunder in under one-twentieth of a second.
The doom-sayers are serious -- they've been sending death threats to the scientists at the LHC via phone calls, e-mails, and old-fashioned snail mail. Call us crazy, but threatening the life of someone who is about to throw the switch on an potential Armageddon machine doesn't seem like a particularly effective tactic.
Scientists at the LHC completely dismiss the possibility by saying that the collider has gone through thorough safety inspections and that they have double checked all the math. While the doomsday scenarios may sound plausible on the surface, they're not based on any sound science. Or as Professor Brian Cox of Manchester University eloquently put it, "Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a twat."
We're not too nervous -- some worrywarts said the same thing about the atomic bomb, and look how that turned out... [From: Daily Mail and Daily Mail]
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