mindpollution.org

Confession time, folks. In case you were wondering why I haven’t written anything about the Large Hadron Collider until now, that’s because, well… it frightens the hell out of me.

It doesn’t frighten the hell out of me because of the possibility that it could kick-start a black hole and destroy reality as we know it. What frightens me about the LHC is that I simply don’t understand what the hell it’s doing or why it’s doing it.

Basically, I can’t wrap my mind around the science of it. And that scares the hell out of me.

Sure, I have a basic understanding of how combustion engines work, and I can kinda sorta explain the inner workings of the human body and the way a camera captures images in a photograph. I can even offer up a somewhat coherent explanation of how a computer uses an electric current to provide you with the means to read this post. But all I can decipher about the LHC is that it smacks particles together really hard and there are a lot of people worried about what will result from all that particle-smacking.

That’s all I’ve got.

In fact, the only reason I’m posting about the LHC now is that a friend of mine, Anna, recently asked me why she hadn’t read anything about the LHC here on my website. I guess its absence was a bit noticeable, given that the project has been popping up everywhere around the ‘Net (and well beyond) recently, from an LHC-focused story arc in one of my favorite webcomics to an official BBC audio episode of Torchwood that made the Collider a central plot element.

What I wrote earlier in this post echoes the explanation I gave her for not mentioning the LHC, although in my conversation with her I think I might have made a few more references to the danger of extra-dimensional creatures invading Earth via scientific experiments gone horribly wrong.

So why was she asking me about my thoughts on the LHC? Well, she’s a member of the M.I.T. team working on the project.

For some reason, it never occurred to me to ask her whether she was involved with the project, though from what I knew about her work it made perfect sense for her department to be involved in the smacking together of particles in such a way as to potentially bring life as we know it to a sudden and violent end.

Even so, after an hour of messaging back and forth, she gave up on trying to explain to me what the LHC does and why it’s important. When she had to go back to playing with billions of dollars in government equipment and the safety of an entire dimension, she told me to watch “The Large Hadron Rap” if I wanted a better explanation of what the LHC does.

Anna, if you’re reading this, I still don’t get it. Is there a Schoolhouse Rock version I can watch?

So, what did I learn from my M.I.T. friend?

Well, I learned that the LHC isn’t operating on full power yet, so the collective sigh of relief at the lack of an all-consuming black hole might be a bit premature. The project is progressing up to full power later in the year — just in time for the holidays, I’m told.

Also, scientists have a sick sense of humor.

And, because I told my M.I.T. pal that I would provide a list of some of the places the LHC popped up in the webcomics world, here are a few of my favorites. To be honest, I was only planning to provide one or two links, but Gary Tyrrell recently put together a list of LHC-inspired comics over at Fleen that I incorporated into this roundup. (Thanks, Gary!)

So there you go, Anna!

By the way, can you please make sure your buddies don’t rip a hole in the fabric of the space/time continuum? Thanks.