Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Is It The End Of The World Yet?

Some hysteria has occurred over the idea that the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva will create a mini black hole today that will eat the earth.

For those spending way too much time worrying about this possibility, a helpful website has been created to help you answer the following question:
Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?
Click here to learn the answer.

Not convinced? The Bad Astronomer offers further reassurance here.

5 comments:

David W. Goldman said...

It's worth doing a "View Source" on that page!

The Samurai Radiologist said...

@ dwg: Thanks for pointing that out!

Besides the cool warranty there, I'm also interested in just exactly how Javascript parses the following line of the script:

if (!(typeof worldHasEnded == "undefined"))

Zorg said...

The world HAS ended, but due to relativistic time dilation, we just haven't noticed it yet.

You see, when the LHC was switched on it created a black hole which grew rapidly, sucking up everything around it. As matter accelerates past the schwartzchild radius, time slows down for it, so a person falling into a black hole would never actually get there, and may never die.

Yes, yes, I know that's based on a popular scifi oriented ignorance of proper physics, but so are the fears that the LHC will destroy the earth, the human race or even the entire universe. So one good myth deserves another!

David W. Goldman said...

Uh-oh:

http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

Unknown said...

I think I'd sell my stocks tomorrow then. LOL.