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End the world and we'll kill you scientists
Mark Blunden08.09.08
Scientists behind a machine built to recreate the Big Bang in miniature are receiving death threats from people who fear the world will end when it is fired up on Wednesday.
Critics are concerned that the giant particle accelerator ring deep underground in Switzerland could cause earthquakes, tsunamis or even swallow the Earth in a black hole.
Those preparing the Large Hadron Collider include Professor Brian Cox, a former star of pop group D:Ream and ex-miner's son Dr Lynn Evans. The ex-keyboard player said: "Anyone who thinks the Large Hadron Collider will destroy the world is a t***."
The £4.4bn machine works by racing trillions of protons around a 17-mile tunnel circuit and smashing them into each other.
Scientists hope to mimic the aftermath of the Big Bang, which they say could explain the mysteries of gravity, mass and "dark matter", and create extra dimensions.
Members of the public have been inundating them with worried emails and phone calls. One German chemist fears a black hole created by the collider will "eat the planet from the inside".
But the team at Cern, near Geneva, says protons regularly collide in the earth's upper atmosphere without creating black holes.
Reader views (12)
Why would they make the atom smasher if it costs so much money somuch time to build but it could kill us all?
- Meliton Sanchez, United States of America
This isn't the first time a particle accelerator has been used. They have been around for decades. Chill out everyone.
- Wilf Field, Nanaimo,Canada
I see it's silly season again! Doubtless they're the same bunch who predicted global disaster arising from the Y2K bug - and we all remember the mayhem that caused!!
If the scientists at CERN do create another dimension, would we be able to banish all these Doom Merchants to it?
- Jock, London
I think the most important issue here is why the ex-keyboard player for D:Ream is working on a Particle Accelerator. What is he doing, writing the theme tune?
- Sean Felix, Melbourne, Australia
If a black hole consumes the earth, you can't kill the scientists, They will be already be dead!
- John (Brit Exp Pat), Phoenix USA
I think it would be funny if the top scientist sticks his fingers in his ears and shuts his eyes really hard when he says go ahead turn it on and backs away a few feet slowly or behind another scientist.
Kind of an homage to the Ghostbusters scene when they switch on the unlicensed nuclear accelerators and eon backs into the corner of the elevator as if it would make any difference if things went horribly wrong.
- Eon, Nverland
@ Andy - Northwood.
In answer to your question...because you can see it with your own eyes! Just travel north or south and look up at night:
The 'team at CERN' are some of the brightest scientists and engineers on the planet, and work under the strictest regulation. Anything other than that, and the LHC would never have been completed!
I read so many silly comments from people who think the end of the world is nigh. Scientists have been conducting experiments in particle accelerators for 20 years! The LHC is just a bigger, upgraded version to look deeper into what is around us.
Physics has hit a bit of a plateau over the last 10 years...hopefully this experiment will allow us to progress further than ever before and develop some truly amazing spin-off technologies.
- Laz, Soton
Mark,
your comments are so pessimistic and I wondered why you would spit such vile words, then I noticed that you're from Adelaide - it all makes sense now.
- Arthur Dent, This place called Earth
So, if the world ends, who'll be around to carry out the death threats?
- Cath, London
I can only live in hope that it will bring an end to this pathetic, shallow, greedy, depressive world. I hope it opens up and swallows us all into a void. The only way to save the world is to destroy it.
- Mark, Adelaide Australia
Death threats may be difficult to carry out if the world has already ended.
- Peter Haldane, London
How do the 'team at Cern' know categorically that protons regularly collide in the Earth's upper atmosphere? Worrying ....
- Andy, Northwood
