Genesis

Well this is my virgin post here. Would appreciate your patience as I attempt to get more content up.

For my first post i’m going to discuss something you could consider to be controversial. Yes, i’m going to talk about the end of the world *gasp*.

Source: MSN Encarta

According to an article posted last month on ZDNet UK, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), is about to be fired up on September 10, 2008, after a long commissioning process. What does this mean for the world? To put it simply, the machine was designed primarily to attempt to confirm some theories of physics, but concern has arisen over the creation of microscopic black holes by the machine. Critics have argued that this could potentially have earth-threatening results. Upon reading this article, I must admit that ominous images of the earth being swallowed up from within did come to mind. Possibly the byproduct of too many hollywood films, I envisioned some technical glitch leading to system overload and the machine behaving wildly out of control.. leading to the doom of mankind. (Ok, you get the idea)

Well it’s the people like me that CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research), the body overseeing this project, have had a hard time allaying the fears of. They’ve repeatedly denied any chance of dangerous black holes occurring, stating that the lack of power and the small size of the particles would lead them to disintegrate naturally. For more information look here.

I am by now convinced that the whole project is safe and that the world will not come to an end in two days time. However, some issues that we all should consider are:

1.) Are we (humans) getting too ahead of ourselves and manipulating risky technologies which we may not fully understand?

2.) When it comes to technologies that bring risk to other countries or even the earth as a whole, do we have a say in their usage? Or is sitting idly by the only thing we can do?

3.) (Just for fun) If the world were truly to end in two days time, what would you do NOW?

I’d like to hear any thoughts you might have on any of the issues, or anything at all related. Ciao for now =)