In late 2007 / early 2008 an experiment is set to begin operation at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland.
The experiment is basically going to recreate the conditions immediately after the Big Bang.
Apparently this experiment has a 1 in 50,000,000 chance of creating an event of cataclysmic proportions which could destroy the Earth or even the Universe. These events include:
Creation of a stable black hole
Creation of strange matter which is more stable than ordinary matter which could, in theory, leadto a chain reaction, at the end of which all the nuclei of all the atoms on Earth have been converted, and Earth has been reduced to a hot cloud of strangelets.
Creation of a false vacuum which could trigger a vacuum metastability event (the ultimate ecological catastrophe apparently, making life as we know it impossible as well as chemistry).
They were talking about the same thing when they began a new experiment at Brookhaven a couple of years ago. Unless we’re all dreaming, it didn’t happen.
Yeah, when I was younger and playing in bands a lot, I’d attract clouds of hot strangelets. Clouds of them! They’d come to all our shows and stand down front, and sometimes they’d send creepy fan letters with surprising enclosures. It got to be kind of disturbing because even though they were undeniably hot, they were also, um, strange.
Naw, everyone here is so boringly normal and dull its frightening.
There’s a couple of projects coming to fruition in Europe over the next couple of years. Project ATLAS will generate so much data that dp centres are being built around the world to handle it all, including one in Vancouver that will only be able to handle 5%.
There’s a giant laser being built in France that is supposed to recreate the blast effects of nuclear weapons without having to actually set off nuclear weapons. On off-days it will be used to investigate nuclear fusion as a power source.
Because the end of the world is HILARIOUS. Make tragedy more tragic, and it becomes comedy. If the experiement stood the chance of, say, merely making the whole area in a ten-mile radius uninhabitable, that wouldn’t be funny at all. But reducing the entire earth to a hot cloud of strangelets, that’s definitely funny. Besides, did you really read the phrase “hot cloud of strangelets” without at least smiling? Honestly?
