Monday, September 22, 2008

Large Hardron Collider

Few things have freaked me out more in recent weeks then the Larger Hadron Collider; the massive European machine that was built to "simulate the conditions of the 'Big Bang.'" When I first read about the experiment, it was in a national publication and the journalist covering the story admitted he had no idea what the scientist were talking about because it was just too complex; I read similar articles that made this same claim--just too complex for the everyday man to comprehend. That was really the first thing that freaked me out--it was as if all these publications were saying, "sure sounds dangerous, but you're using big fancy words so you must know what you're doing."

The next thing that freaked me out was the people who said it shouldn't be done, because by simulating the Big Bang they might create a black hole and kill us all. That's comforting, right? Scientist assured everyone it wouldn't, but seeing as how us normal people can't understand all their big fancy words I wasn't all too comforted.

To make me feel even more worried, hackers proved these scientist with big words who had spent billions of dollars on this machine, were prone to a computer hack. The hackers didn't really do anything; they just wanted to prove it could be done in hopes that the scientist would shut down the project because, when put in the wrong hands, very bad things could be done.

This weekend it was revealed that the entire project had been stopped for two months because of a major helium leak. If this experiment is so safe and so much money was invested to make sure it was harmless, then why do bad things keep happening to it?

Honestly, I just don't see what we can possibly learn from this experiment that is going to better man; all I see happening is we advance the area of physics and create a new weapon to be used to destroy the world. If we continue with this experiment, I predict in twenty or forty years terrorist will stop using dirty bombs on buildings and use black holes instead.

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