Atom Smashers, Black Holes, and the "God Particle"

Scientists have been smashing particles into each other at high speeds for several decades. They basically use tubes that have electromagnets in them to magnetically guide the particles into each other. (Michio kaku built one at age 16, the crazy bastard...). The fruits of their labor (up until now) has been an understanding of how quarks and other sub-atomic particles behave at high energies.

But recently, a NEW and improved GIGANTIC nine billion dollar particle accelerator (or ATOM SMASHER, as nerds like to call them) has been built in Geneva Switzerland. They've been working on this thing for 20 years, but they've FINALLY finished building it. It's called the "Large Hadron Collider" and it's a 17-mile long tunnel under Switzerland.

The new hope is to find a particle referred to as "The God Particle", which is believed to be the particle that is responsible for creating all of existence as we know it. I believe Higgs fields create mass out of massless particles, and therefore create matter (in theory).


Sounds pretty awesome right?


The only problem is, some scientists are worried that a Black Hole will be created in the particle accelerator and our ENTIRE EARTH WILL BE DEVOURED.
According to Reuters:

"CERN scientists have been at pains to deny suggestions by some critics that the experiment could create tiny black holes of intense gravity that could suck in the whole planet."

At the end of this year, they will:

"...move on to produce tiny collisions that will recreate the heat and energy of the Big Bang... The detectors will monitor the billions of particles that will emerge from the collisions... "

So are scientists going to create a BLACK HOLE that will devour our planet? Michio Kaku doesn't think so, and I trust his judgment. Oh well... it would have been cool. Reknowned physicist Stephen Hawking bets we won't find the God Particle either. He's betting a whopping $100. That just screams 'confidence'.


http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL846768920080909?