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# GETTING PERSONAL It’s the end of the world as we know it
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/getting-personal-its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it/
- Published: 2008-09-17T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T01:01:23.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By TAYLOR VAN ARSDALE is a writer/producer and movie reviewer for the Daily Press. She*

JUST A WEEK AGO, THE WORLD’S LARGEST Hadron Collider (appropriately dubbed “LHC”) came on line. For those of you who aren’t sci-fi buffs, rocket scientists or following the latest trends in particle physics allow me to explain. The LHC is an atom smasher nestled in a 17-mile long underground facility, a good 300 feet below the French-Swiss border... and it’s got some folks worried that its use may just trigger the end of the world.

The European Nuclear Research Centre (“CERN”) — and yes, I know what you’re thinking, it doesn’t bode well when scientists in charge of fissionable materials can’t line up the letters of their acronym; nothing conveys discomfort quite like a dyslexic astrophysicist; and yes, I realize the letters truly do follow the acronym if you spell it out in its native French, but then that begs an even more important question... do we really want the French in charge of a “doomsday device”? — is running it.

CERN has this idea they’re going to replicate conditions moments after the Big Bang in hopes of discovering elusive dark matter, an element called “Higgs- Boson” which is responsible for giving every particle its mass and weight.

At first glance, this may seem like a routine experiment, just a bunch of nerds playing with a $4 billion project, colliding particles at temperatures 100,000 times hotter than the center of the sun. The problem: there is a slight risk of forming a black hole. I’m going to assume everyone reading this knows what a black hole is, if not, I refer you to my love life for the past eight years.

There is a 10 percent chance this device could cause a stationary microscopic black hole, which could, according to German critic of the project, Professor Otto E. Rossler, “Swallow up the earth in about four years.” That would put the demise of our planet at year 2012, mysteriously... the same time the Mayan Calendar ends (for those of you end-of-the-world theorists/nutjobs out there, please feel free to add this factoid to your growing list).

Other opponents predict, instant annihilation. Any way you slice it; it’s an unpleasant thought. The machine was turned on last Wednesday, however the actual experiment, the one that may “kill us all” will not take place for a few more weeks perhaps a month. So there’s time yet for another beer, the opportunity to tell off your boss, or have that affair you’ve been hankering for.

Scientists at CERN seem confident that if a microscopic black hole is formed it will quickly dissipate. They base their study on Stephen Hawking’s theory that suggests rapid decay of a black hole through a thermal process. But remember, this confidence assumes Hawking’s theory of evaporation is correct. And, at present, “There is no empirical evidence to prove such a theory,” says Walter L. Wagner, former nuclear safety officer on his Web site LHCDefense.com (devoted to informing the public and preventing global disaster).

What’s troublesome: no one seems to have a fallback plan for impending doom. Shouldn’t we be able to destroy a microscopic black hole if we indeed intend to create one? I mean, wouldn’t that be the logical, scientific approach? Would you create Frankenstein if you knew you couldn’t torch him when things got a bit out of control?

The answer here is, we can’t. We’re not advanced enough in the fields of science and technology to know how. Stabilizing a black hole, according to Analog: Science Fiction and Fact, means we’d have to, “Surround it with a medium that was even hotter than it was, so that it absorbed more radiation than it emitted.

No such medium could be sustained. Even the interior of the sun would be a billion times too cool to do the job.” So basically, if a black hole is formed, there’s no way to turn it off, no way to shut it down, that’s it, game over for earth.

And even though several skeptical groups are lobbying against turning on the doomsday device such as the Citizens Against the Large Hadron Collider, the Powers That Be do not seem to be willing to err toward caution, so a month to several years from now, we may be all twisted into spaghetti strands, swept into the dark abyss of a monstrous void.

The upside: I won’t have to look for a permanent job, worry about paying off my credit card debt, finding Mr. Right, or finishing next week’s film review … no such luck.

I think folks, for better or worse, the world as we know it... is here to stay. And while there are more than several ex-beaus I’d love to see turned into noodle soup of eternity, I have my doubts this will actually happen. But if it does, there is one thing to smile about — given CERN’s location — the French will bite the big one first.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 17, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/091708.pdf?ref=smdp.com)