mike[space] dot net

Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll have noticed that there has been a load of press about the LHC turning on today. It's pretty exciting that we have such a large experiment going on, it's a feat of extremely impressive engineering with some potentially fascinating consequences for physics. Sadly a lot of the press has instead been concentrating on concerns that it might create a black hole or that we could get switched into another dimension. Ignoring the fact that there've been comprehensive studies to demonstrate the safety of the LHC, what's really pissing me off is that the press have been claiming that today is the day that all this could happen.

Today, what's actually happening is that they are testing to see if they can get the beam to go all the way round the LHC. They won't be trying a collision until later, and its the collision of the beams that is the source of the "safety concern". I mean FFS, if you're going to give credence to it, at least do so accurately.