Scientists start up giant particle-smashing machine (CERN Hadron Collider)

Reuters (excerpt) ^ | September 10, 2008 | Robert Evans

[HAL9000]

Excerpt -

GENEVA, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) started up a huge particle-smashing machine on Wednesday, aiming to re-enact the conditions of the "Big Bang" that created the universe.

Experiments in the Large Hadron Collider, a 10 billion Swiss franc ($9 billion) accelerator built underneath the Swiss-French border, could unlock the remaining secrets of particle physics and answer questions about the universe and its origins.

[LRS]

LOL. On the other side of the black hole, anything is possible...

[wildandcrazyrussian]

“Restaurant at the Edge of the Universe?” or am I confusing titles?

[FredZarguna]

It's actually a speculative metaphysical interpretation of the Feynman path integral formulation of quantum mechanics. Some people call this the "many worlds" interpretation. In view of the fact that to do path integration over all the state vectors you'd need an uncountably infinite number of worlds, "many" is probably the understatement of all time.

It's been going around in various guises since the late 1940's. I don't know if it inspired Douglas Adams or not -- and I didn't have him in mind when I posted -- although I enjoyed his stuff.

[mysterio]

Ok, who divided by zero?

[dfwgator]

I’m not ready for the world to end today, thank you very much.

The fact that the world didn't end, means that the Cubs will not win the World Series.

[steve-b]

Oh, piffle. These speculations about "disruptions to the space-time continuum" are just Chicken Little nonsense.

Even President Gore says so.