Author: Richie DeMaria
We’re doomed.
If you hadn’t heard the news, the world’s biggest particle collider is set to launch as early as this summer, potentially answering several of science’s pressing questions and destroying the entire earth in the meantime.
That’s right. The Large Hedron Collider, housed in Europe’s CERN laboratory, could wield enough power to result in some kind of galactic disaster, at least according to a handful of concerned citizens who recently levied a lawsuit against the scientists behind it. The collider was constructed to explain how elementary particles acquire properties such as mass-leading scientists closer to producing a Grand Unified Theory, and ultimately, a theory of everything.
I’m ambivalent about this issue.
On the one hand, I can’t help but be happy that we live in an age where legitimate news articles begin, “The builders of the world’s biggest particle collider are being sued in federal court over fears that the experiment might create globe-gobbling black holes or never-before-seen strains of matter that would destroy the planet” (MSNBC, March 27, 2008.) It brightens my mood to know that we are finally closer to meeting 1950s and ’60s America’s impression of the 21st century-with its technological utopia of jetpacks, robotic friends and intergalactic travel. No doubt about it, the future has arrived, and our flying cars are just around the corner.
On the other hand, I’m terrified. I mean, goodness, look at the thing-it’s a globe-gobbler if I ever saw one. The apocalypse may very well be but a few months away. Global warming and overpopulation be damned, the world could end much sooner than any of us predicted-all in the name of science, of course.
Gee, thanks, guys. Is a Grand Unified theory worth anything if it kills us all in the process? What good would a theory of everything do anyway if it deals only with abstractions and could in no way account for the very “everything” it attempts to solve?
Maybe I should hold my questions. This is all coming from someone who knows very little about astrophysics and physics in general. The universe fascinates and excites me to no end, but as far as astronomy goes, my actual knowledge of outer space stops at casual stargazing. Perhaps I shouldn’t be criticizing this thing because I can’t adequately appreciate the importance of the knowledge it could potentially give us.
Nonetheless, I do take issue with a science that threatens humanity as we know it. I’m all for playing God if it brings us dinosaurs or time travel, but not if it vanquishes the very world we know and love.
But who am I kidding-we’re on that track anyway. If not a particle collider, then nuclear warheads; if not nuclear warheads, then global warming. Either way, we’re way beyond digging our own grave-now it’s just a matter of what pushes us in.
In all likelihood, these doomsday fears are building us up to a disappointing conclusion: science’s deepest questions will remain unanswered, and our earthly world will continue to exist sans black holes and strangelets. According to CERN and various astrophysicists, the world-end fears are largely unfounded, as the Large Hedron Collider provides “no basis for any conceivable threat” (as quoted from a CERN safety report). So, come the day of its launch, we can sleep soundly knowing that, theory of everything or not, chances are we’ll wake up the following morning-alive.
On the off chance it does, in fact, destroy Earth and all the people inhabiting it, I can’t help but feel a little excited at the prospect of seeing the end of the world. We’ll all be a part of the dazzling spectacle of planetary meltdown, and we’ll all be in it together. We might even see Jesus-wouldn’t that be fun. I know the scientists would get a kick out of it.
So to the folks over at CERN I say, bring on the particle collider, in all its world-ending glory. I’m with Michael Stipe on this one: if this is the end of the world, then I feel fine.
Richie DeMaria is a sophomore ECLS major. He can be reached at rdemaria@oxy.edu.
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