Dark Matter. . .

Nauti Girl sent me an email asking why I haven't commented on the giant particle accelerator that will fire up today in Europe. And honestly, the only reason I haven't said anything is because I'm patently lazy. And particle accelerators don't piss me off like a certain ultra-left Senator from Illinois does.

But I'll comment. . .

This contraption has been built with the ultimate goal of finding "god's" particle or the thing that makes up 90-someodd percent of our universe. Dark matter. The invisible (to date) particle that might be the root of all mass, not just the 90-someodd percent we can't see.

I scratch my head in amazement that there are people smart enough and mathematics complicated enough to develop a theorem built upon the idea of something that cannot be seen, has never been seen and is only visible on a mathematical level. Odd.

Stranger than that however, are these so-called "scientists" that are stamping their feet and jumping up and down in a cloud of fear predicting that once the atom smasher is fired off, a small black hole will be created that will eventually grow in size and swallow all of us up. I guess this is based on some mathematics also.

To this I say, as long as Europe goes first. . .I'm all for it.

Links from Nauti Girl:

Video at Metacafe

Boston Globe article w/awesome photos

National Geogrpahic article

One other thing, you just have to admit that no matter whether a threatening black hole is created or not, the name "Hadronic endcap Liquid Argon Calorimeter" is freaking awesome.

UPDATE: The answer to the burning question, "Has the large Hadron Collider destroyed the Earth yet?