Discovery or doom? Collider stirs debate

[BAMAPHIN 22]

Will the Large Hadron Collider destroy the world, or help the world?

As the atom-smasher at Europe's CERN research center is readied for its official startup near Geneva on Wednesday, researchers might wish that the general public was captivated by the quest for the Higgs boson, the search for supersymmetric particles and even the evidence for extra dimensions.

But if the feedback so far is any guide, the real headline-grabber is the claim that the world's most powerful particle-smasher could create microscopic black holes that some fear would gobble up the planet.


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[tucker]

soooooo, how did it go?

[BAMAPHIN 22]

soooooo, how did it go?


The world's largest particle collider passed its first major tests by firing two beams of protons in opposite directions around a 17-mile underground ring Wednesday in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe.

After a series of trial runs, two white dots flashed on a computer screen at 10:26 a.m. indicating that the protons had traveled clockwise along the full length of the $3.8 billion Large Hadron Collider - described as the biggest physics experiment in history.

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[ABrownLamp]

I cant imagine that scientists want to die any less than you or I do. Theyve obviously calculated the risks associated w black holes destroying our world from the collider and determined that it was an insignificant risk.