I have been reading alot about the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle accelator complex created by CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research), lately. This particle accelerator was designed to be able to imitate the Big Bang. The purpose of trying to recreate the Big Bang is for scientists to be able to try to find some of the missing links in physics.
Here is some information about the Large Hadron Collider from the CERN website:
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a gigantic scientific instrument near Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France about 100 m underground. It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles – the fundamental building blocks of all things. It will revolutionise our understanding, from the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe.
Two beams of subatomic particles called 'hadrons' – either protons or lead ions – will travel in opposite directions inside the circular accelerator, gaining energy with every lap. Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang, by colliding the two beams head-on at very high energy. Teams of physicists from around the world will analyse the particles created in the collisions using special detectors in a number of experiments dedicated to the LHC.
http://public.web.cern.ch/...
There has been some discussion that this particle accelerator could actually cause the end of the world because it may cause a black hole that could swallow the Earth. The scientists that created this particle accelerator say that there is a very little chance that this could happen, but the possibility is still there.
The LHC is scheduled to begin operation September 10 (this Wednesday). I have a scientific background, but particle physics is not my specialty. DailyKos has some very well educated people that blog on this site so I just wanted to get some opinions on whether any thing serious might occur once the LHC is started.