Monday, September 8, 2008

Big Bang

The Large Hadron Collider is not a gay porn movie. Seriously, it’s not. Read it again, a little more slowly this time. There you go. See, that wasn’t so controversial after all, now was it? No, the LHC is much more benign than gay porn, in fact, it’s probably nothing but science stuff, unless of course, we all die because of it.

No worries though, this little experiment to recreate the “Big Bang” has long odds on actually causing a black hole to be formed, wiping us instantaneously from existence. Various scientists put the odds at 1 in 150 million, 1 in a trillion, 1 in 50 million, 1 in 4 billion or 1 in 100 million depending on from which scientist’s ass you prefer your life-threatening odds to come.

So, if at 4:30 CST on Wednesday, we all suddenly blink out of existence, you’ll know that, in the name of science, you were killed because the odds were similar (depending again on which scientist you believe) as the odds of being killed in a shark attack, or elected president.

You may be thinking to yourself, about this time, that George W. Bush was elected president, twice. Then you might wonder if the risk of being blinked out of existence should really be equal to the odds of that having happened once. You might also be wondering why the leg of your pants is suddenly warm and wet. It’s called peeing yourself and it’s normal under the circumstances, so don’t worry about it.

So, why are these scientists so busy risking killing us all? Well that’s simple. They want to prove that they are right about how the universe was created. Oh yeah, and to study effects to see what else they know that is correct, and what might not be.

Yay science! Being right is important. It’s much more important than, oh, I dunno, say being alive.

The arrogance and idiocy of science is staggering. Call me crazy, but I believe that when conducting an experiment in the name of science the first question you should ask is this: Can what I’m about to do cause the end of the world? If the answer is yes, no matter what the odds might be, it’s then time to take a step back and see if, perhaps, the information we hope to gain from the experiment is worth not only dying for, but taking the rest of the innocent people of the world with you?

These questions have been skipped by the scientists in question because being right is very important and offers them the chance for the kind amazingly awkward high fives that only scientists and Chinese gymnasts could ever be capable of enacting. Though, I doubt any of the scientists will be pointing up at God in a gesture of thanks when they’re done—they’ll probably just point at themselves instead.

So, the point is that this thing is happening one way or the other. All of the major countries have signed off on it. Apparently, the thought of it being the “1” part of the ratio isn’t that much of a concern. So, if you have any unfinished business that needs to be taken care of, or if you really want to go out in style somehow, you should probably start making your plans now.

Odds are good that you’ll that live to see Wednesday night and Thursday morning, so don’t worry too much. Just know that the odds do exist that somewhere, a scientist will say, “oops.” And it’ll all be over.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

this just proves the necessity of ethics committees in medical and psychological research. those committees include lay people who are more in touch with whether an experiment is applicable to every day life, therefore making the benefit outweigh any of the risks. apparently they don't have the same system in play within the scientific community. i can't imagine how there would be any benefit to this experiment (although, i haven't read too much about it yet). how will these findings better life? sure, knowledge is powerful, but please! these are just little boys looking to blow some shite up. see, just because you have a phd and do very cerebral stuff for a living, doesn't actually mean you're very bright.