This very wednesday, September 10th, Scientists in Switzerland will turn on the Large Hadron Collider. This machine is the biggest most expensive experiment in history. It is not large, but ungodly massive, it stretches 27km under the land between France and Switzerland. But, as I'm sure you are wondering, what on earth is this Large Hadron Collider even going to do? Well, in short it's going to recreate the Big Bang. By having Hadrons, a particle that makes up atoms, collide at almost light speed they hope to find the Theory of Everything. There are problems with this experiment though, other scientists argued to the European Court for Human Rights that by activating this device a black hole may be created and well I think you get it. However, Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith of Cern argues that the chances of producing something like a black hole are minuscule, and that even if one were produced, it wouldn't be large enough to swallow the earth and disappear quickly. Also, all the actual collisions won't take place until October.
I think the media did an excellent job of not only terrifying the snot out of me but getting both sides of the story out. It was presented over the internet which is always interesting because there are so many free flowing opinions over the internet. This entire idea could be a rather large and terrfyingly risky one so the entire thing is newsworthy and qutie frankly I don't understand why it isn't being broadcasted on NBC or something by now.
Here is a link to the article:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-large-hadron-collider-end-of-the-world-or-gods-own-particle-921540.html
1 comment:
This is an interesting story, and it obviously accomplished part of its goal by causing a bit of fear in the reader. Good post! Nice use of an appropriate amount of sarcasm and wit.
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