Earth Swallowed By Man-Made Black Hole?

“If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research.”
– Albert Einstein

Maybe you’ve read about the new supercollider in Switzerland. Scientists want to smash protons together to simulate the beginning of the universe and see what happens. Admirable, certainly, and a bargain at only 8 billion dollars.

Except there’s a teensy problem. It seems there’s a very small chance this experiment could result in the formation of one or more tiny black holes that could swallow the earth. Or it could result in the creation of spooky particles called “strangelets” (great name for a rock band!) that could leave the earth a dead lump of clay.

“Hey Ernst, we did it! It’s just like the early universe! Wait…what’s happening? Ernst, why are you getting longer and thinner? Whooooaaaaa!”

Pffft, we’re all gone.

Think of the irony. Here we are, worried about nuclear attacks, climate change, and rogue comet collisions. Meanwhile we smash some protons together, make a black hole, and the earth disappears.

The Darwin Awards suddenly come to mind. For the uninformed, these are given out every year to commemorate people who have removed themselves from the gene pool by accidentally killing themselves in the most creatively moronic ways. I’m certain that somewhere there’s a Greater Galactic Darwin Award, and soon all the extraterrestrials will be emailing each other.

“Did you hear about those crazy humans? They not only created nuclear weapons and trashed their environment, they wanted to understand the origin of the universe by smashing two protons together! What idiots! Everybody knows that’s how you make a black hole! Well, that sure solved all their problems. Man, I’m glad they’re not in our local cluster.”

I wasn’t too worried about this until a Cambridge physicist calculated the odds of it happening. Turns out it’s about the same as winning the lottery. The thing is, people do occasionally win the lottery. Not exactly comforting, is it? So what are we mere mortals to do?

The answer, of course, is to find a way to put George W. Bush in charge of it. Then it will go the way of stem-cell research and climate treaties. Failing that, we can engage in sane, rational dialogue with scientists until we get a better idea of the risks.

Also, I see no reason to cut back on chocolate and margaritas in the near future.

© 2008 Greg Tamblyn