Official News page 5

REAL LIFE NEWS: THE WORLD DIDN'T END WITH A BIG BANG

by Hazed

If you are wondering where to go to find out whether the large hadron collider has destroyed the world yet, try here: http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/.

Now come on, did anybody apart from a few lunatics really take seriously the idea that the LHC was going to bring the world to an end last Wednesday? No, but the press couldn't resist mentioning it as a way to spice up what would otherwise be a rather complicated science story.

Actually, it's quite refreshing to see how much coverage the LHC got in the media. Suddenly, physics is cool again. Those of us who have been interested in science but kept quiet about it for fear of getting strange looks from everybody else, have suddenly been cast in the role of experts who can explain it all to the uninformed. It's been quite a change.

The fact is that although Wednesday was dubbed Big Bang Day, it wasn't actually the start of the experiment that will recreate conditions a fraction of a second after the birth of the universe. The experiment will send two streams of particles in opposite directions round the 27 kilometer ring of the accelerator, at very high speeds, so they smash into each other. On Wednesday, the beam was sent round one way, to test things, but not both ways. So, no collision, no recreation of the big bang, and no miniature black hole to suck us all into oblivion.

For a detailed but easily readable explanation of what actually happened on Wednesday, and what we can expect in the future, see this article in The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/10/lhc_day_is_not_today/.

Here's another gallery of amazing pictures of the biggest science experiment ever: http://dvice.com/archives/2008/09/exploring_the_l.php.

Proof that physics is cool, here's a selection of LHC t-shirts: http://io9.com/5049330/lhc+themed-t+shirts-commemorate-the-non+destruction-of-earth.

And finally, the LHC webcam gives an intriguing look at the progress of the experiment: http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html.

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