| According to LHCountdown.com, the Large Hadron | | | | including:xkcd - an episode of the wildly popular |
| Collider will go live in less than 38 days. In previous | | | | webcomic by Randall Munroe had two hapless |
| reports, it seemed that the end of June 08 had the | | | | scientists activate the Large Hadron Collider only to |
| machine (all 8 sectors) cold, and predictions indicated | | | | find that it didn't work. They subsequently sit down |
| by mid July 08 that all experimental areas were to be | | | | and begin to shoot pigeons with protons. |
| closed. By the end of July 08; first beam injection. | | | | Digg posts - Buried in the general sciences section of |
| How does this help those of us itching to find out if a | | | | the popular, reader-driven news site lies some |
| mini-black hole will be created? Well, keeping in mind a | | | | amusing musings about the Collider and its potentially |
| proton beam injection doesn’t mean proton | | | | planet-wrecking consequences. |
| beam collision; it urges us to set our watches to | | | | Wraithsandworlds - The cult webseries by Darrin |
| approximately the end of summer or the beginning of | | | | Wilson has the Large Hadron Collider at the heart of |
| fall 08. Just in time for the 911 anniversary. Not a | | | | the story causing all kinds of havoc with earth and |
| good time to open a black hole. | | | | the afterlife. |
| But as it has done several times so far, CERN (the | | | | Of course, we humans love to poke fun at anything |
| European Organization for Nuclear Research, which | | | | we don't understand. And as the date of activation |
| operates the LHC), could change the schedule | | | | draws nearer, more examples of Collider Culture will |
| without notice. Regardless, once we get an absolute | | | | likely follow. But while it is true the LHC could |
| commitment, researchers will inject the 27-km ring | | | | potentially create mini black holes, they are unlikely to |
| with a pair of proton beams and rotate them in | | | | even be noticed. Physicists at the LHC say that any |
| opposite directions. Two months later, they will nudge | | | | black hole that could be created would only hang |
| the beams closer for the purpose of smashing them | | | | around for a split second then decay. |
| into one another. Then, hopefully, we'll get our first | | | | A recent, headline-grabbing Federal lawsuit filed by |
| glance at the long-awaited Higgs Bosun (The God | | | | Luis Sancho and Walter Wagner out of Hawaii is |
| Particle that purportedly bestows mass upon | | | | credited by many to have thrust the LHC out of |
| everything). | | | | scientific circles and into the limelight. They filed |
| Among the other theories that could be proved (or | | | | against representatives at Fermilab in Illinois and |
| disproved) when the LHC goes live is the ADD Model. | | | | Europe’s CERN laboratory and argued, among |
| Named after the three physicists who authored it, | | | | other fears, that millions of tiny black holes could be |
| Nima Arkani-Hamed, Savas Dimopoulos and Gia Dvali. | | | | produced then coalesce into a compact gravitational |
| ADD suggests there are seven other dimensions that | | | | monster that would draw in other matter, grow |
| exist but we don't see, giving us a grand total of 11 | | | | bigger and eventually eat the earth. So much for my |
| dimensions that may be larger than previously | | | | weekend BBQ plans. |
| thought - specifically, as large as a millimeter. | | | | Fear not, however. Michio Kaku, a theoretical |
| But with all the techno-heavy conjecture that seems | | | | physicist at the City College of New York, said |
| to be all the rage with the LHC, perhaps it’s time | | | | recently that it's pure science fiction. "These black |
| to explore what’s happening on the lighter side | | | | holes don't live very long," he said. "They have |
| of LHC news. For one thing, researchers at CERN | | | | microscopic energy, and so they're harmless." Well, |
| never really anticipated the ongoing geek backlash. | | | | that ought to do it, thanks, Mich. Someone pass the |
| People from all over the world have dragged CERN | | | | Bullseye sauce please? |
| through the headlines with accusations of "instigating | | | | But, argue Sancho and Wagner, you can’t ignore |
| the end of the world." Everything from creating micro | | | | the act of crashing protons together at high enough |
| black holes that will eat the planet and kill us all, to | | | | energies can create new combinations of quarks (the |
| quarks recombining to make "strangelets" that would | | | | particles that protons are made of) and can |
| transform the earth's matter into strange | | | | potentially create a mean little beggar called a stable, |
| mucilaginous jelly. With all of this controversial | | | | negatively charged strangelet. That, in turn, could turn |
| attention, CERN became a pop culture phenomenon | | | | everything else into strangelets as well, the results of |
| and the Collider itself; a reluctant celebrity. | | | | which no one knows. |
| As news of the LHC and what it could do spread, so | | | | All of this doomsaying is fuelled by the simple fact |
| did fears of highly probable end-of-the-world | | | | scientists can't really disprove any of it. It may |
| scenarios. Strangely enough, the more fears that | | | | happen, it may not. But let's look at the RHIC |
| were brought about, the more popular the Collider | | | | (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) which has been |
| became. It gained fans and propelled LHC and CERN | | | | operational since 2000 at the Brookhaven National |
| into the spotlight for millions of non-scientists. | | | | Laboratory in Upton, New York. The fears were |
| Suddenly the LHC was on everyone's lips at one | | | | almost identical but, as we all have noticed, we're still |
| point or another. Examples were everywhere | | | | here. |