Scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) are preparing the Large Hadron Collider (LHR) for a test on September 10, 2008 in which particles are accelerated toward each other at the speed of light – to crash them. They’re looking for evidence of the Higgs Boson particle. The Higgs Boson is the only particle in the Standard Model of particle physics we haven’t actually observed. A recent Reuters article describes how the experiment itself will recreate the “Big Bang.”
My initial reaction to reading this was similar to that of a needle sliding off of a record player. WHAT? Has anyone checked to make sure an improbable power surge won’t destroy the earth vis-a-vis a Genesis Effect? Is it wise to recreate the very birth of everything we know? For some reason, there’s something naturally alluring to the concept of blowing stuff up or crashing things (but please stop crashing Teslas). I was compelled to look more into this.
CERN’s web site actually tells this a bit differently. “Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang …” Oh. Ok. That’s COMPLETELY different. When they slam these particles together it won’t create a Big Bang, the result will create conditions similar to those around just after the Big Bang. I guess we have to trust CERN scientists to not blow up our planet in order to poke through nuclear rubble for a Higgs Boson. Then again, they’ve already addressed concerns about microscopic black holes, strangelets, vacuum bubbles, and magnetic monopoles, so why worry?
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