Tuesday, September 09, 2008

The Atom Smasher and the God Particle


So. Tomorrow it goes live. The recently canceled Great Experiment is rescheduled for tomorrow. The Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland will determine if Higgs boson, the "God Particle," actually exists. Two beams of protons will be set to travel in opposite directions, gaining energy with each lap around the huge circular supercollider, until they smash into each other. There hangs the tale. The result will revolutionize our understanding of physics, anti-matter, mass, the interior workings of atoms, and how the universe began. Scientists will use the LHC to recreate conditions just after the Big Bang. So, things are about to change. Tomorrow.

Or, (more unlikely) they will create a Black Hole that will swallow us all in a flash. Tomorrow. So polish your shoes and comb your hair. And cross your fingers. Either way, I have enjoyed your company!

UPDATE: We are still here! Apparently the beams are going successfully in the same direction and won't be set on a collision course in opposite directions "for some months."

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(Sorry the link doesn't want to work...I hope the LHC works better than the link. Google it if you want to know more, or in my blog search bar type the god particle, to see what I wrote earlier this summer.)

2 comments:

slickdpdx said...

I admire your ability to laugh in the face of total annihilation.

petra michelle; Whose role is it anyway? said...

The smarter we get, the stupider we are.