Will we all die tomorrow?

Well tomorrow is the CERN switch on date. Which means that they will accelerate a couple of protons around the Large Hadron Collider at 0.99 times the speed of light, and then collide them.

But for what? Just to find out whether the Higgs Boson exists, which may prove or disprove the Standard Model of particles and the universe that Scientists, Physicists in particular, live by.

Is this a worthy cause for so much investment? Ok so if it was found then it would provide many answers to a lot of the big physics questions like what happened in big bang, and it will validate a lot of theories. But surely the huge investment of several billion could have been used elsewhere to solve some of the major human issues in the world? CERN has been funded so that some scientists can play around with molecules and answer some of the big questions in science. Now obviously we'd all like to know these answers - people interested in the origin of like etc. But at what cost? Maybe we could have gone a long way towards solving poverty in the world and other such things. Personally, as a soon to be physics undergraduate, I think it has been a waste.

There is also the danger which everyone is worrying about, that a black hole could be formed. This would only be a minature black hole, but isn't that the poitn of black holes? They are tiny points of infinite density, which everything gets sucked into once inside their event horizon. So if CERN manage to make a black hole won't this doom the earth? Well apparently not. In theory any black hole will collapse upon itself, and we'll all be fine. But that is still a theory! It could be completely wrong! I guess we find out tomorrow. Surely they shouldn't do something threatening all existence if there is even the slightest chance it could happen? Obviously as someone who isn't fully familiar with black holes I can't really comment. But a point still stands. All their theories about black holes are based upon things that are many billions of miles away in the cosmos. The reaction they are also reproducing is similar to that which occurred in the big bang, just on a smaller scale. Surely recreating the big bang on earth isn't a great idea?

I am sure it will be absolutely fine, but I still have a niggling feeling that it could not be. I suspect I'm just paranoid. Again. But if we did die because of a black hole spawning in Switzerland would it be so bad? I doubt we'd have time to think, but if we did I suspect the last thoughts of many would be 'CERN!! Grrrr' ok maybe people might be more annoyed than that, perhaps despair and all the other stuff would come to their mind. This is why I'd be bad at philosophy. But anyway, that isn't going to happen. We'll be fine. Life will go on. I hope.

My biggest annoyance with CERN is the fact that the huge amount of money could have perhaps been better used elsewhere. Yet the findings of CERN will probably benefit me quite a lot because I am about to become a physicist. So I'm sure I'll get over it, but maybe a little bitterly.