CERN to World ...

... Armageddon to be put on hold for at least two months.

Computer hackers almost bring about the end of the world ...

Ok, not really.

A group calling itself the Greek Security Team left a rogue Web site describing the technicians responsible for computer security at the giant atom smasher as “schoolkids” — but reassuring scientists that they did not want to disrupt the experiment.

Imagine if they had created a micro black hole though!

The LHC can SCREW YOU UP, MAN!

Calculations show that the LHC can defrost a pizza in 30 nanoseconds! Well, that's good to know.

Interesting tidbit though, and what inspired the blog entry title:

Of course, this all assumes the beam energy could be spread across the surface of the pizza. In reality, the beam would drill into the pizza, Steinberg says. That potential for damage is why workers are very careful about maneuvering the proton beam.

In 2003, a magnet failure at the Tevatron at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., bore a hole in one piece of the beam pipe and dug a 30-centimeter groove in another. The machine was back up and running in two weeks.

Magnet failure: Bad.

Well ...

... we're all still here. That's a good thing, given the alternative. Of course, we'll only truly know the full extent of the damage when light starts shooting out of the Indian Ocean.

One of them, Professor Otto Rossler, a retired German chemist, said he feared the experiment may create a devastating quasar – a mass of energy fuelled by black holes – inside the Earth.

‘Nothing will happen for at least four years,’ he said. ‘Then someone will spot a light ray coming out of the Indian Ocean during the night and no one will be able to explain it.

‘A few weeks later, we will see a similar beam of particles coming out of the soil on the other side of the planet. Then we will know there is a little quasar inside the planet.’

Prof Rossler said that as the spinning-top-like quasar devoured the world from within, the two jets emanating from it would grow and catastrophes such as earthquakes and tsunamis would occur at the points they emerged from the Earth.

‘The weather will change completely, wiping out life, and very soon the whole planet will be eaten in a magnificent scenario – if you could watch it from the moon. A Biblical Armageddon. Even cloud and fire will form, as it says in the Bible.’

Wow, if that's true, that'll really suck, eh.

So long, farewell, it's time to say "Adieu!" ...

World to end on Wednesday. Got to love the sensational title of the story: Meet Evans the Atom, who will end the world on Wednesday. I doubt that threw many people into a panic, right?

Of course, there is the following manuscript which has been submitted for peer-review and publication (PDF, 10 pages). This manuscript argues that based on an "alternative plausible scenario" there is a risk of mBH's (micro black holes). As a non-physicist, I have no idea of knowing whether or not this plausible scenario is truly plausible or not. All I know is, I'd like to wake up on Wednesday and would also appreciate no quasars living underneath the Indian Ocean.

The Independent reports on CERN.

The End of the World

Some scientists, on the other hand, went to the European Court for Human Rights to try to stop the collider being turned on. They fear it may create a black hole – which would certainly violate our rights by sucking the planet into... well we don't really know. Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith of Cern says: "The chance we produce a black hole is minuscule." Which is not all that reassuring. But he adds: "Even if we do, it can't swallow up the Earth." It would be too small, and disappear in moments. In any case, they will only send the hadrons in one direction this week. The collisions start in October. Until then, at least, we're not all doomed.

Woo-hoo! No doom until October! I hope it's after the 12th though. The wife and I have tickets to the Bears/Falcons game!