There's an awesome story in today's New York Times detailing the efforts of two self-appointed protectors of all that is good to persuade a judge he should prevent the operation of a giant particle accelerator. Once this thing starts smashing protons together, these two are convinced, it could result in the creation of a miniature black hole which could destroy the earth--or even the universe.
Hommina Hommina Hommina. Also: Whaaa--?
Okay, first of all...I can't even get my head around this. Scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research (the acronym is CERN...but shouldn't it be ECNR?) claim the black hole theory is very unlikely, but they're double-checking just to be sure.
Wait...again, whaaa?
Isn't this the sort of thing you double-, triple-, then quadruple-check, then decide to scrap? Because, well, criminitlies, we're talking about the possible creation of a black hole here. Or, if not a black hole, a possibility the collider could produce something called a strangelet, which would reduce the earth to a big hunk o' nothing called, in scientific terms, strange matter.
(I've got two lame jokes here: 1. Strange Matter--hey, didn't he play for the Bears? 2. Strange Matter--hey, didn't ELO record that? And as long as I'm in the middle of a parenthetical aside, seriously, scientific community--strange matter? That's the best name you could come up with? If a boxy, lab-coated leading man in a fifties sci-fi movie used that term, the audience would laugh derisively.)
This is the something Dr. Doom should be putting together in some godforsaken Baltic state, with only the combined talents of The Fantastic Four to stop it. (The collider even looks like Jack Kirby designed it!) Unfortunately, this being the real world, it's up to a judge to decide the fate of the universe. No clobberin' time here.
