The End of The World

Last night I received an email-http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/science/29collider.html
- about a situation that could cause our world terrible turmoil. The article is about , “Two men pursuing a lawsuit in federal court in Hawaii,” who “think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole or something else that will spell the end of the Earth — and maybe the universe.” Basically, these scientist from Switzerland have this huge device, in which they believe it can recreate what happened right before the big bang theory. However, have any of you reading this ever heard about this case, and do these physicist have the right to proceed with their plans?

Many people are so busy reading and writing articles about global warming, the war in Iraq, and impoverished countries that they have neglected a possibly very dangerous situation. These physicists have spent 14 years and $8 billion building the Large Hadron Collider, in which it will recreate the, “Energies and conditions last seen a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang.” However, the only thing that is standing in their way is the Judge in the Federal court of Hawaii who is not allowing this scientist to turn on this machine.

Do these physicists have their legal rights to turn on this device, not knowing the damages it could cause on our world and the people as well? These scientists’ rights to their freedom comes into question when what they are doing can set a precedent for a harmful future for this world, even if they are only exploring in experimental science. Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho challenged that the scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have considered that, “The collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a “strangelet” that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called ‘“strange matter.”’ Therefore, if the Judge allows these scientist to turn on their machine, he is taking the chance of destroying the entire world. In any case, with the chance of our world being abolished, there is no room to question these physicists civil rights. No one should have the freedom to create and initiate something that could has questionable and possible life threatening consequences.
Hopefully, the lawsuit filed on March 21 in Federal District Court, in Honolulu, will, “seek a temporary restraining order prohibiting CERN from proceeding with the accelerator until it has produced a safety report and an environmental assessment.”

Hopefully, the Justice Department, which is holding the next scheduled meeting on June 16, will prevent this machine from being turned on and recognize that it is their duty to safeguard the entire world.