Friday, 13 November 2009

Doomsday Machine or Doomed Machine?

"Fire the anti-matter guns" goes the cry in many science fiction movies. Are we humans coming close to making this a reality? The Hadron Collider is destined to throw atoms at each other at nearly the speed of light and see what happens. People worry a black hole could open up and destroy the world, in fact a woman killed herself over that worry. This is obviously a doomsday device from an old Bond movie right? Wrong. This machine is the largest and most expensive disaster in human history. It has been plagued by hundreds of errors which set in back years. The latest in a string of disasters was a bird dropping a piece of baguette on the machine. This caused the machine to short out..... A bird... Dropping a baguette. This machine is less likely to be finished before doomsday comes around. Of course another consideration is that it may indeed make black holes. The only problem is they would be too small to suck anything in and stay around for a short amount of time. This is machine is one of the least likely things to cause a doomsday. The stick which led to weapons is a much more likely to cause the end of the world than black holes the size of a thimble.

3 comments:

  1. Sometimes I feel that machines like the one pertaining to atoms shouldnt exist. If we should be in fear of a black hole, is this technological advance neccessary? I think not, I value my life over progression in inventions.

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  2. I'm not too worried about a super-particle accelerator or whatever destroying us all - I'd be much more concerned about humans killing each other off in a nuclear war, to be honest.

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  3. There is no need to worry
    Im sure we all have better things to worry about
    but as you said, yes a black hole could open (unlikely), but it would really cause as much harm as a drain in a bath...
    Interesting that people are panicking about this though
    Im sure if the machine is finally built we could excel from that point..

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