The Large Hadron Collider

The recent debate within the scientific community (or to be more precise, between the scientific community and a couple of mescalin-snorting hippies who happen to own lab coats) sounds suspiciously like an episode of Futurama. For those who haven’t been paying attention, they opened a machine today called the ‘Large Hadron Collider’. (This is not to be confused with the ‘Large Hardon Collider’, an equally imposing structure which had its funding cancelled at the last moment by anxious parenting groups).

The LHC is the biggest particle accelerator ever built, straddling the French-Swiss border. It is therefore the most exciting thing to come out of Switzerland since the Kinder Surprise. As far as I can tell, it is basically a racetrack for atoms, half of which are driving the wrong way.

The aim of this machine is to recreate the conditions that existed at the beginning of the universe, some 14 billion years ago. (Previously, the most accurate means of doing so was to imagine John McCain as a small boy).
With luck, the resultant explosions will generate a hitherto-unproduced particle, called a Higgs Bosun. Scientists’ enthusiasm for this particle is remarkably undiminished by the fact that its name sounds like a drunken Scottish sailor.

If such a particle is able to be produced for the first time on earth, I predict that it will soon be co-opted by the fashion industry:

Rich Lady 1: Esmerelda, I couldn’t help but notice – your scarf – is it…Higgs?
Rich Lady 2: It’s one hundred per cent bosun, Martine! Organically farmed, too! And your blouse – (shocked) oh, it’s –
Lady 1: (downcast): Yes, I'm afraid. It’s *sigh* just cashmere.
Lady 2: Oh I’m so sorry – but if your husband can’t afford bosun, it's time you found one who can!

The debate between the two professors on Radio National this morning was interesting: to say that they held ‘divergent views’ would be like saying that Paris Hilton and Osama bin Laden hold ‘divergent views’ on the virtues of miniskirts worn without underpants.

To summarise this healthy disagreement:

Professor #1 thought that the Hadron Collider was ‘perfectly safe’, and

Professor #2 thought that the Hadron Collider would create an exponentially expanding black hole that would suck the earth up its own orifice in an micro-instant.

Listening to each über-nerd state his position, I couldn’t help but feel a little cheated at my choice of university course. My lunchtime conversations were never quite as important as the professors’, e.g.:

Me: Do you think that Dickens’ novels warrant a deconstructive reading?
Colleague: No, not really.
Me: Oh. Could you please pass the cheese slices? Thank you. I quite like these.

The particle physicists’ lunchtime conversation, meanwhile, may have gone something like this:

Professor #1 (to roomful of lunching scientists): The collider is perfectly safe.
Professor #2: Don’t listen to him!
Professor #1: The collide…is perfectly…safe.
Professor #2: He’s lying!
Professor #1: His words mean nothing. The collider will crush you all like the insignificant ants that you indeed are.
Professor #2: See! I told you! He must be stopped! (Lunges at #1).
Professor #1 (effortlessly sidestepping attack): Crush you, I mean, in a perfectly safe and efficient manner. Fools! Midgets! Untermenschen!
Professor #2: It’s hopeless. Nothing will save the world now. Seize him! (Grabs brass candlestick from science lunchroom mantelpiece) – We must immobilise him and destroy the collider before it’s too late!
Crowd of supportive, lunching Professors: Kill the Prof! Bash his brains! Smash his quarks!
Professor #2 (charging bravely at #1, brandishing candlestick): Yaaaaaargh!
(The heroic Professor #2’s words are cut off suddenly as he accidentally rushes past Professor #1 and flings himself headfirst into the open collider, which has been sitting quietly by the water cooler. In a burst of flame, he explodes dramatically into his constituent atoms.)
Professors: Oooooooh. Aaaaaah.
Professor #1: I think we’ve all learned something today.
Crowd: What?
Professor #1: Particle colliders are cool.