Thursday, August 7, 2008

The end of the world delayed...again

Well, it looks like the world isn't going to end today. For those of you not in the know, a bunch of scientists have built this ginormous, 17-mile long particle accelerator called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is supposed to slam particles together to recreate the environment in which the universe was born. They're hoping to learn more about the universe's origins, as well as possibly find the elusive Higgs-Boson, that which holds everything together. In other words, the Force.




Look closely at this picture. You see a circle on the landscape? That's it. The LHC.



This is the inside of it. There's apparently an eiffel tower's worth of metal and gold wires.



Opponents of the LHC claim that it's possible that the scientists will inadvertantly create a sustainable black hole, which would be bad. As in end-of-the-world bad. Several lawsuits and cease and desist orders have been filed to stop the turning on of the LHC. Proponents of the experiment say that the probability of this happening is practically negligable. I suppose we shall see, eh?



Today was supposed to be the day that the LHC was turned on. There was a countdown page and everthing, which has mysteriously vanished from existance. And now Reuters is reporting that the launch date has been rescheduled for September 10. The scientists postponing the end of the world to ensure that the opening ceremonies of the olympics go on without a hitch, mayhaps?


At least we can take comfort in the fact that if the LHC does indeed manifest a sustainable black hole, which in turn implodes the earth due to its jigundo gravity, it'll probably happen so fast that no one will notice. Here one second, all spaghettified the next.

Unless it's already happened, and this is hell. Shit, man, it would suck if my hell was my office. I can't stand an eternity of talking to these yahoo patients.

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