Large Hadron Collider Soon Operational
Next Wednesday, CERN's Large Hadron Collider will finally get busy. I've been looking forward to this for a while. It was supposed to get going last year, but has faced a couple of legal challenges apparently. Those involved in the project are quite certain they'll find new discoveries. The only unknowns are what and when, though there are some ideas concerning both. We could start reading about them as early as next year. What an exciting time to be alive.
One thing I'm hoping will come from this is irrefutable evidence of how this thing we call reality got started. Something like that could turn some of the more sensible of the religious away from their fantasies once and for all. The kooks among them will never be persuaded of their kookiness, no matter how much evidence you heap in front of them. But it would certainly be a good beginning to the decline of lunacy. This all assumes, of course, that the religious kooks in the Middle East and the United States don't wipe us all out first in their zealousness to establish a global caliphate, to bring about the second coming, or whatever it is that drive them on.
Then again, there are some out there who believe CERN is acting recklessly and endangering our very existence. They are concerned that the LHC could do something like create a large black hole that would rip the Earth apart. I'm sure there are some who might be worried that the thing could open up a door to another dimension, exposing us to some sort of alien invasion. In preperation for the latter case, the scientists involved would do well to heed the Lessons Learned From Gordon Freeman.