They totally know what they’re doing. They’re scientists, you see. And they’re ENTIRELY SURE they’re not going to melt the planet or anything while they’re smashing atoms:
The world’s biggest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), has been badly damaged and will be out of commission for at least two months, scientists in Switzerland have admitted. CERN says that problems with its particle collider, which cost £3.6 billion, are worse than previously thought and that preparations for experiments will now have to be postponed….
They had planned to crash atoms inside the vast detectors of the LHC by sending two beams in opposite directions. James Gillies, spokesman for CERN – the European Organization for Nuclear Research – said this will now have to be put on hold indefinitely as experts try to solve the problem, which has been caused by a leak of helium in its 17 mile tunnel. In what is technically known as a “quench”, up to a tonne of supercooled helium escaped because of a faulty electrical connection between two magnets in the massive machine.
I’d feel much safer if it were Italian scientists messing around with trying to miniature black holes, to be honest.