Initial Historic Success of Large Hadron Collider Has Scientists Celebrating, the World Still on Edge

Teresa Neumann : Apr 2, 2010
Ker Than - National Geographic News

"The LHC's record-breaking smashups could uncover evidence of dark matter, discover new forces in physics, unveil new dimensions, and even find the Higgs boson, aka the God particle..."

REPORTER'S NOTE: I don't know about you, but this news—though certainly noteworthy in a scientific context—still seems surreal. It is yet another example of "Future Shock" and a sign of our times. Although there are many indirect "words" from Christians dealing with new energy sources, such as Kim Clement's "The Big E," whether these experiments produce positive or negative results—or both—in the long run is left to be seen. But of this, we can be sure: The search for the Creator and the seeds of creation, albeit couched in scientific terms, continues to press forward unabated. -Teresa Neumann, BCN.

(Geneva, Switzerland)—The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), also known as the "Big Bang Machine," made history this week when it "smashed" subatomic particles together at half its maximum power beneath Swiss soil in an underground tunnel.

Reaching this point has been "marvelous," said David Evans, a physicist at the University of Birmingham in the UK "I've been involved in [the LHC] personally for over ten years. ...It's like waiting ten years for Christmas to come."

Ian Shipsey, an LHC coordinator in Illinois, was quoted as saying a large part of the excitement at European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)—and around the world—was relief that the collider's previous electrical problems have had no lasting effect on the machine's ability to perform as expected. (Photo: Maximilien Brice/CERN)

"When the machine started to do its early testing last fall," he said, "everyone was on a knife's edge. Every time the machine had a little problem, everyone imagined that it might have a disastrous meltdown. Now there's a sense of relief mixed with joy, and everybody's pinching themselves to make sure that it's real."

A March 31 report in The Daily Mail said "Fears were raised after the collider's initial testing in 2008 that it could create micro black holes that would eventually endanger Earth. But scientists at CERN dismissed any threat to the planet and said any such holes would be so weak that they would vanish almost instantly without causing any damage."

(This BCN reporter can't help but wonder at this juncture: If the scientists were on a "knife's edge" because of uncertainty, does it follow that their dedication to science superseded their concern for the safety of mankind, even though they "dismissed any threat to the planet?" Evidently, we should all be thanking God that the worst-case scenario didn't happen...yet.)

According to a report in National Geographic, "The LHC's record-breaking smashups could uncover evidence of dark matter, discover new forces in physics, unveil new dimensions, and even find the Higgs boson, aka the 'God particle'; a theoretical particle that physicists think is responsible for mass in the universe."

Oliver Buchmueller, a key figure in the project, was reported in The Daily Mail as saying, "This is a major breakthrough. We are going where nobody has been before. We have opened a new territory for physics." And Steve Myers, CERN's director for accelerators and technology, was quoted as saying the challenge of lining up the beams was like "firing needles across the Atlantic and getting them to collide half way."

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