Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The God Particle - it's not nice to play God

It is seen as the most ambitious and expensive civilian science experiment in history, based on the biggest machine that humanity has yet built. That statement in itself is scary for we mortals.
There is the fear among many that this experiment could/might/may create a black hole, which could tear the earth apart.

The concept behind the construction of the largest man-made machine ever is to recreate ‘The Big Bang’ by accelerating particles to near light speeds in opposite directions and forcing them to crash into each other. The Large Hadron Collider -- a $9 billion particle accelerator designed to simulate conditions of the Big Bang that created the physical Universe, was switched on at 0732 GMT to cheers and applause from experts gathered to witness the event.

The first phase got underway on Wednesday and what is most unnerving is that the end result is unknown. How many times have we read/heard about experiments that went awry in spite of good intentions and controlled conditions?

For the love of me (and the rest of the world), I cannot see any sense in attempting to discover or duplicate the origin of the universe when there is so much at stake. I'm referring to the chance that the experiment could become unstable and - poof! - we become matter again. Given the problems in the world today and the amount of people who are dying of starvation all over the globe, a better experiment would be to see how many people can be saved and how many stomachs can be filled.

Be scared. Be very scared.

Photos of Large Hadron Collider here:
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/09/05/lhc-safety.html

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