Some people are apparently taking this LHC thing destroying the world thing quite seriously. I’ve personally spoken to some quite intelligent people who say that of course, they don’t really think the world is going to end when the LHC is switched on, but they are worried anyway. They can’t really explain why they are worried either, just that they have somehow been imbued with the sense that this thing is risky and dangerous. Who needs Osama bin Laden when the media is that good at generating fear over nothing?
Nothing bad happened when they switched on the 400GeV Super Proton Synchrotron at CERN from 1981. Nor did the world implode when they flipped the switch on the 1TeV Tevatron in 1983. Even the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) didn’t create a black hole to swallow the earth when it went live in 2000. Interestingly, the same people protesting that LHC might make black holes or strangelets made exactly the same claims about the RHIC 10 years ago. You’d have thought they’d have found a new fruit loop theory to get excited about since then.
We had far more to fear from the French underground nuclear testing, and probably have far more to fear from modern biological warfare research. We certainly have significantly more to fear next time we drive or walk across the road. So, I don’t have the slightest concern that the world is going to end when they turn the LHC on.
However, it does provide a scenario for an interesting thought experiment. What if you knew with complete certainty that the LHC would destroy the earth when switched on, and you had absolutely no chance of stopping it. Say you had 5 hours notice. What would you do with those 5 hours? How would you choose to spend your last 5 hours on Earth?
People often say to live each day as if it is your last. It’s a nice sentiment, but it’s not actually practical. As a simple example, given that I plan on living a few more years, I brush my teeth in the hope of them lasting a while longer. If I had a mere 300 minutes of life left, that wouldn’t be on my list of things to do.
How would it be different if instead of 5 hours you had 5 days? Or 5 weeks? Or 5 months? What would you do different to what you do now?
I found this comic quite amusing. I’m not saying it necessarily reflects how I’d use those last few hours … but it’s not bad either 
September 17th, 2008 at 11:31 am
If there was 5 hours till the certain end of the world, it would not really bother me. I think i would find knowing that the world was going to end and there was nothing I could do about it less disturbing than there being say a 0.001% chance.
Also, the end of the world is also somewhat less disturbing than the end of just me with the world going on afterwards. At least doing nothing/staying in bed, or going to work, there will be no one left to bitch that you did not do somthing like say goodbye.
September 18th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Supercollider related joke follows:
An electron, a proton, and a neutron walked into a bar which had a sign, “All drinks $1.00.” The electron said, “Hey guys, we only have $2.00 among the three of us.” The proton said, “Don’t worry, there’s no charge for the neutron.” The electron said, “Are you sure?” The proton answered, “I’m positive.”