fred avolio's musings

Right, not really. Previously, I blogged about ‘Big Bang’ project put off to 2008. Well, holy moley, it is 2008 and time is running out! So, I was amused by Some fear debut of powerful atom-smasher. (“Atom-smasher.” I like it.) “Obviously, the world will not end when the LHC switches on,” said project leader Lyn Evans. But, what really got me laughing is:

David Francis, a physicist on the collider’s huge ATLAS particle detector, smiled when asked whether he worried about black holes and hypothetical killer particles known as strangelets.

“If I thought that this was going to happen, I would be well away from here,” he said.

Well, really how far away could one get from the Earth being swallowed by Switzerland? (And no, I don’t really think CERN will cause a black hole. Just the same, imagine the insurance they have to carry!)