the large hadron collider is hott

the large hadron collider is nearly ready. it's pretty sexy. (click on the pictures to make them more awesome.)


did you know there's a bunch of folks trying to stop it? they're worried it will form tiny black holes which could get out of control.

'bah!' say their opponents. 'those black holes will be so tiny they will cease to exist in an instant!'


..which you may notice doesn't deny the black hole thing, just pooh-poohs its significance. yes, the old 'black holes? ha! i'm not afraid of black holes and if you are you are soft in the brain' defense.

i heard on the radio some science magazine like nature surveyed its readers and two-thirds of them agree there's no chance we will get swallowed up by a runaway black hole as a consequence of large hadron collider experiments. i don't know about you but a 1/3 chance of being swallowed by a black hole as a result of human activity seems pretty fucking high, if you ask me. fortunately

a) no-one has, and
b) nature readers are not the ultimate arbiters of the world. but then again, you'd think they had, on aggregate, the best chance of predicting the outcome of any given experiment on the physical world.


anyway, i guess we'll find out when they switch it on. sure is pretty, anyways. you couldn't ask for a better-looking agent of apocalypse.

link, via kottke