The End Is Nigh, Or Not [Impending Apocalypse]

Yesterday I wrote about the Large Hadron Collider (boner joke omitted, too easy). Basically everyone with a smidgen of comprehension about this behemoth of a machine is expecting the world to get sucked into a giant black hole. Except this guy:

Though kind of melodramatic, these fears are somewhat substantiated, seeing as the whole point of the LHC is to create a fucking black hole.

In order to achieve this, 2 single atoms will be fired in opposite directions around a 17 mile loop to collide in one massive, possibly world ending...something. The point is, no one really knows what exactly is going to happen. Scientists are hoping this collision will generate the Higgs Boson particle, sometimes referred to as the "God" particle, presumably for it's resemblance to Jesus.

The Higgs Boson is so elusive it's never been seen, and possibly doesn't even exist.


Except in plush form. I'm sure the actual thing is less cute and more defecation-inducing.

So, let's say this thing actually works and brings the sweet relief horrible possibility of death to our proverbial doorstep. What would it feel like to be sucked through the blackest of holes? Thankfully, Slate has done all that research for me:

The pulling force would increase as you moved toward the center, creating what's called a "tidal force" on your body. That is to say, the gravity acting on your head would be much stronger than the gravity acting on your toes (assuming you were falling head-first). That would make your head accelerate faster than your toes; the difference would stretch your body until it snapped apart, first at its weakest point and then disintegrating rapidly from there as the tidal force became stronger than the chemical bonds holding your body together. You'd be reduced to a bunch of disconnected atoms. Those atoms would be stretched into a line and continue in a processional march. As Tyson described it, you would be "extruded through space like toothpaste being squeezed through a tube." No one knows for certain what happens to those atoms once they reach the center, or "singularity," of a black hole.

You. Tomorrow. Roughly at this time.

Of course none of this really matters though because the smartest man on four wheels has a $100 bet that the damned thing won't even work.

"I think it will be much more exciting if we don't find the Higgs. That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of $100 that we won't find the Higgs."

Yes, that would be exciting. Tens of millions of dollars and 15 years of work to prove that Stephen Hawking is still fucking smarter than the rest of us.

I just like this picture.

My first concern is that Hawking hangs out with people stupid enough to bet against him, in science. Thats as if Tom Brady bet you $100 he could throw a ball through a tire and then just pelted you in the nuts with it.

So tomorrow, will either be the end of the world or Stephen Hawking will be $100 richer. Win win!