Posted

Sep 5th 2008

Mood

Overwhelmed

Music

Golden Age Soundtrack

Now I know there are a lot of scientific reasons that people may want to know about the birth of the universe. It stands to reason that we want to know where we came from and how it all started. BUT (and it's a big but) you have to wonder about the mind that thought they would build a machine that could effectively create a black hole inside earth's atmosphere and destory us all when they switch it on on Wednesday. Personally I find myself wondering quite what idiot let that small flaw in the plans fly past him. Can you imagine a meeting there the hazard analysis took place?

'Birth of universe . . . right, any side effects?'

'No not really.'

'Well that's good.'

'Unless you count the possibility of the total destruction of our planet.'

'ah.'

And the list of stupuidity goes on. Apparantly it was deemed a 1 on 5 billion chance of actually happening. Which given that it cost many more billions than that to make to the pound, and only has a 1 in a billion chance of actually doing what it was intended for anyway (I watched a conversation with the scientists who are using it, most of them are only 8 or 9 out of 10 sure this is going to get the result they want - and they BUILT it) seems somewhat of a bad risk vs gain stratergy. If it were the odds of a car blowing up instead of starting then it would be taken off the market immediatly. Worse still, one of the scientists proudly announced 'Everyone on the team recieves thousands of email an hour asking us not to do it, but we're playing with a big toy that can give us ultimate knowledge or destroy u all, how cool is that?'. Do we really want someone that child-like on the team?

It just goes to show that for all their qualifications, these people are effectively idiots willing to take any risk THEY feel is necessary to get an answer that won't actually matter to anyone outside of the scientific community. Unless (and god I hope so) when they get a picture of the birth of the universe they see God himself leaning out of the darkness and tossing the stars out like sweets. Not that would bugger them right up!

I think it was the English author Terry Pratchett who wrote: The day the universe explodes it will be because some idiot in a white coat spotted a switch marked 'do not touch' and said alound 'I wonder what this will do?'

Think about it, if Dr No or Magneto built the device we'd think of it as a weapon of mass destruction and have it stopped by any means possible. The ability to make a black hole pretty much outguns every other weapon of mass destruction after all. It's almost comic-book like in its audacity. Greenpeace, if you want to save the planet then THESE are the people to be aiming for.

So, see you on thursday when we WILL or WON'T be here!

NOTE: This is not a political or religious statement, just a rant about stupid men and women who think it is clever to flick switches in the name of science.