But that's where I keep all my stuff!

The world may or may not end today. Thought you’d like to know.


I don't get it. You ran a Theme Week a while back about the end of the world, but today wasn't one of the days that was predicted. Is there a mistake?


Not exactly. The "End Of The World Week" was based on half-baked predictions of The End Of The World As We Know It (referred to as TEOTWAWKI Startlingly Often), whereas today's message deals with something happening today that may destroy the world.


People are actively trying to destroy the world?


More appropriate to say that today, people are trying SCIENCE! Today is the day that the Large Hadron Collider, deep underground in Switzerland and France, gets fired up to full power in the first experiment of its kind to hopefully locate the elusive Higgs Boson.


That sounds like a bad clown name.


Perhaps, but in the very basis of particle physics, the one thing that has gone missing for quite some time is a portion of the atom that causes something to have mass. Also, researches are hoping to learn more about the relative asymmetry between matter and antimatter, as well as determine the nature of Dark Matter. It's all quite exciting.


Okay...but why will this thingamajobbie cause the end of the world?


Some people have theorized that the planned experiments and extraordinarily high-energy atomic collisions created within the Collider are capable of producing Black Holes. Those tend to be bad things and would suck up all matter in the surrounding area (Read: Solar System) and compress it into dark matter with the weight of a thousand suns...or so.


Wow...all sorta interesting stuff. But it's tough to really grasp it all. You know what would help? If this information was all available in easy-to-digest jaunty rap form.


Well then, you're in luck! Will Barras, MC Hawking, and Kate McAlpine are here to help:



If you'd like to help with this monumental research project, you can contribute your computer's unused processing power to the cause. Visit LHC@Home for more info.