Thursday, May 15, 2008

If ever there was a case for taking your time....

Not strictly a literary subject, but does anyone know when that big particle accelerator in Geneva is striking up? I think its due any time now and normally I’d look forward to it (just love all that mind blowing stuff that the geeks come up with from time to time) but on this occasion, hmmmm. See, normally I trust the scientists implicitly, almost blindly. If they say that embryo research is a good thing, then that’s fine. If a bloke in a white coat assures me that genetically modified crops are safe, I’ll be the first to munch his plums. My problem with the CERN project is simply this; there’s a chance that it will destroy the planet. Okay, I know it’s a very small chance (like winning the lottery three times on the bounce) and I accept that the potential to expand man’s understanding of his existence is mouth watering but seriously, do these statements make the potential risk acceptable? Once the button’s pressed there is no going back. If the strangelet appears, then its game over and the scientists, the smug bugger collecting his winnings for the third Saturday in a row, me, you, everything; all gone when the experiment "spits out something that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called 'strange matter." But surely, with even the smallest chance of bringing on armageddon the boffins will be taking precautions won’t they? Apparently not; schedule issues caused them to delete the low energy ‘test’ run from the program. “We’ll be starting up in May 2008, as always foreseen, and will commission the machine to full energy in one go,” said LHC Project Leader Lyn Evans. Well Mr Project leader, just ‘cos you’ve got a girls name doesn’t mean the rest of us are in a hurry to see if you’ll find the God particle or just God.

Recycling Jimmy

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