The world is ending, in like 4 days.

Okay, that’s a bit on the dramatic side, let me dial it down a bit:

“The world is potentially ending, in like 4 days.” Better? Good.  To understand why, first: a little history, a little physics, and a little science.    But before that, here’s a pretty picture of our impending doom.

Now, if I were being paid to do this, I would use the internet to research this, and make sure it was scientifically correct.  I would use jargon that made you feel like you were just a little bit out of your league, and you would perhaps learn something.  But since this is fah free, you get the lazy distillation.  It will probably be inaccurate, but It’ll probably make more sense this way.

A long time ago, the universe started up.  At that time there was this particle, called the Higgs Boson particle. It was a big deal, because it started up the universe.  It was the existential jump off.  Scientists, who are not known for being particularly creative went ahead and nicknamed this “The God Particle.”  When scientists get creative AND mix theology and science together, you know they mean business.  This is a very serious particle.

Well, rather than cure cancer, or hangovers, they’ve spent a lot of time and money trying to figure out how to recreate the OMFG Particle, which just seems like a huge waste of time and money, in addition to being a Very Bad Idea.  Alas,  I am but a lay person and maybe there is some merit to a unifying theory but I’d much rather not have the headache I have at the moment. Or a propensity for cancer.

So, they want to create this God Particle, just for shits and giggles.  But not all scientists are for this.  Some scientists are against this.  Some think that  this is a huge disaster. Some people think that this is going to create a huge black hole,  and destroy the earth.  Others think that it’ll destroy the entire solar system.  Unfortunately, there’s no telling who is the Doc Brown in this particular scientist tete-a-tete.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://gadgetmaniac.mail2web.com/uploads/2308/98210.jpg&imgrefurl=http://gadgetmaniac.mail2web.com/2006/11/lhc-the-large-hadron-collider/&h=480&w=300&sz=36&hl=en&start=7&sig2=zVv9HphTcgWYn1tXbPY0kA&um=1&tbnid=kEK-U7hG1qdB8M:&tbnh=129&tbnw=81&ei=OxiWSLfUB6bceqqKxKAJ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhadron%2Bcollider%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN

About 10 years ago I read this book called “Flash Forward” which was about this time “in the future” (2009 seemed far away) when they humanity built, and then turned on the Large Hadron Collider.  Instead of the earth evaporating, everyone got a twenty year  flashforward of their -consciousness- for a few minutes.  Like, the opposite of deja vu.  They were living in the future, but it was for minutes, or seconds.

Anyway.  So.  I’m hoping they turn this thing on, and that it doesnt end the universe, but that it gives me a 20 year flash forward, and I am ridiculously happy.   I would also settle for them turning it on and absolutely NOTHING happening except for the appearance of a confused, but adorable baby kitten.

Chew on -that- cuteness, science.