It’s The End Of The World As We Know It
As the entire world descends into the chaos of wars and starvation, a little known experiment is about to take place outside of Geneva that could possibly end all life as we know it, and possibly destroy the entire universe itself.
I know. It sounds like something straight out of a science fiction magazine, but two men are suing in a U.S. federal court right now to stop what is called the Large Hadron Collider and the scientific group known as CERN (for European Center for Nuclear Research) from carrying out a plan to try to re-create the exact conditions they believe occurred three one trillionths of a second after the Big Bang happened.
Both Walter Wagner and Luis Sancho, both world leaders in the areas of physics and nuclear science say that this little experiment about to take place has the potential to cause a pinpoint black hole from appearing at the site of the proton smasher, which would then slowly spread and eventually eat the entire planet, or beyond. Another scenario Wagner and Sanchez say could take place is that a matter called a ‘strangelet’ could be released, causing our planet to turn into a shrunken dead lump floating in space.
I read the story, buried deep inside today’s news with a sense of disbelief, until I delved deeper into what Wagner and Sancho were trying to say, which was namely that the CERN group had no way to definitively predict what would happen, had not made an environmental impact statement, nor followed certain safety rules. To be fair the CERN scientists have spent 14 years and over 8 billion dollars in building this machine, but when we’re talking about the entire planet going poof, well, don’t we think we’d better be damned sure of what we’re about to do?
The plan is to have the Collider heat protons to seven trillion electron volts, then smash them together. The theory is that this would duplicate the time of the Big Bang, and scientists would be able to sift through the debris to get a better understanding of the conditions that occurred just that three trillionth of a second after the original Big Bang, and possibly form some theories as to what caused it in the first place.
Enter Wagner and Sancho, who say that the safety reviews performed by the CERN scientists were inadequate at best, filed late in order to avoid undue scrutiny, and therefore the project must be stopped until further reviews of safety issues are addressed. They explain that even though the CERN scientists are correct when they say that the conditions they intend to create happen every day in outer space, and that these rays hit the earth all the time, they point out the fact that the rays pass through the earth harmlessly due to them moving through the planet at the speed of light, whereas the conditions at the site of the Collider will cause whatever is created there to be born at rest, therefore sticking around with the potential to cause all kinds of havoc and damage.
Apparently, the CERN scientists are trying to brush off these concerns by pointing to a paper written by Stephen Hawking that says that should a black hole even appear, it would instantly evaporate into radiation and elementary particles. In this way, it would pose absolutely no threat. But as Wagner and Sancho fire back, they contend that no one has ever witnessed a black hole disappear, and so they could actually be stable, and if that’s the case, (no one knows for sure, and Hawkings wrote his theory in 1974) and a black hole is created by this experiment, it would then stick around, growing bigger and bigger until there was no planet left. After it ‘ate’ our planet, it could then go on to expand and expand to eventually destroy the entire universe.
Now, let’s step back for a second. If they know how to create the conditions that caused the Big Bang to occur in the first place, then surely there must be another way to examine what the immediate aftermath was and speculate on what caused it to occur. Understanding fully the time that went into this project, and the fact that eight billion dollars has been spent, it really seems after reading through all of the differing accounts of this lawsuit that seeks a restraining order against CERN, that it may be a very wise decision indeed to hold off for a while until they can better evaluate the potential for destruction this little experiment could possibly cause.
No less than the Department of Justice will be in court in Hawaii to argue against an injunction, and in doing so, are trying to portray Wagner and Sancho as little more than knowledgeable lay people who really don’t know what they’re talking about. Hmm. Ok. Well, then let’s listen to what other scientists are saying.
William Unruh, of the University of British Columbia:””Maybe physics really is so weird as to not have black holes evaporate,” he said. “But it would really, really have to be weird.” Ummm, not very reassuring testimony there.
Lisa Randall, of Harvard says that there is only a very slight possibility that a black hole could appear at the experiment site, but that the real worry is that there might be other effects of quantum gravity. Oh come on! What are you guys thinking here? Boys with toys for crying out loud!
But the best quote comes from Dr. Arkani-Hamed, part of the project to smash these super heated protons together. He says that concerns about the death of the planet or the universe have no merit whatsoever, but then adds that the very nature of the experiments and indeed of scientific study itself is akin to a rolling of the dice and thus there is a possibility of almost anything happening saying ” There is some minuscule probability the Large Hadron Collider might make something that might eat us up.”
Good enough for me Doc. I say pull the plug on this project before it pulls the plug on us. Hopefully this story will get more attention than it is right now, because as much as I’d also like to know what caused the Big Bang, I really don’t think I’d enjoy disappearing into a black hole, where for all we know, we’d be part of another Big Bang that creates another universe. No, the scientists at CERN aren’t even completely sure what will happen, and that being the case, this monster must be killed, because the potential for disaster is just too great.
