putting the j in jjosh

Thanks again to Pat G, without whom we wouldn’t be aware of the impending black hole-ness of Spring 2008. Pat sends a link to a new article about that Large Hadron Collider we’re keeping an eye on in Sweden. Here are a list of the questions they think they might be able to solve once they fire that thing up:

Is the foundation of modern physics right or wrong? What existed during the very first moment of the universe’s existence? Why do some particles have mass while others don’t? What is the nature of dark matter? Are there extra dimensions of space out there that we haven’t yet detected?

Well hey that all sounds good. It would be good to know the answers to those questions right? Especially about the extra dimensions…

But there’s this other group that’s more nervous about the following questions:

Could the collider create mini-black holes that last long enough and get big enough to turn into a matter-sucking maelstrom?Could exotic particles known as magnetic monopoles throw atomic nuclei out of whack? Could quarks recombine into "strangelets" that would turn the whole Earth into one big lump of exotic matter?

Bit of a conflict. So they’re suing to get enough time to make sure none of the bad stuff will happen. As Pat wrote me in his e-mail:

This is pretty funny, some people are suing to prevent the earth getting sucked into a black hole.  Of course then again, who will be laughing as we get sucked into a black hole?