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Just My Luck

It's just my luck that I would pick tomorrow, the day the earth is going to implode, to take my first real vacation in who knows how long. Check out the headlines.
They're doing WHAT!

Anytime the world's top physicists feel the need to collectively cross their fingers, I start to get worried. What has physicists going to these extraordinary measures?
At roughly 3:30 a.m. Eastern time, scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, say they will try to send the first beam of protons around a 17-mile-long racetrack known as the Large Hadron Collider, 300 feet underneath the Swiss-French border outside Geneva. (more)
The point of this 14 year and $8 billion experiment is to recreate the conditions that existed one trillionth of second after the Big Bang. For $8 billion, who wouldn't want to know. But here's the rub. Some people fear it may actually create a black hole that would swallow the universe.

Now, I've managed a few projects in my time. Some of them even had a decent amount of risk. But none of them threatened to end life as we know it if something went wrong. I mean, what do the project meetings sound like at CERN? Can you imagine being in the room when this came up?

Jean-Luc: The project is going well, André. Even after our last wine and cheese night, we've only spent $5 billion of our budget.

André: C'est fabuleux, Jean-Luc. How are the preparations for the experiment?

Jean-Luc: Il y a un petit problème. There is a small chance that we might destroy the earth.

André: Will our insurance cover it?

Jean-Luc: We're looking into that. If not, there is something else we can try. Emelyne over in particle relations thinks crossing our fingers might help.

I'd like to believe there is no need to worry. I want to trust in science. It's the modern thing to do.  After all, the director general of CERN insists in a press release that "any suggestion that [the collider] might present a risk is pure fiction."

But there must be something to it. CERN had an independent safety report prepared and checked out by a panel including Nobel laureates. Even physics supernova Stephen Hawking is only willing to put $100 on the experiment succeeding.

That gives me confidence. I just put down $100 on a half-day jet ski rental for Thursday. I guess Steve and I have the same level of risk tolerance.
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Thelma said…
You. Crack. Me. Up.
September 10, 2008 at 9:03 AM
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