Why Does It Matter?
The cynics might say that there's no practical use for any of this, that there might be other uses for all the money and brainpower
machine of this incredible size and power can be dangerous, so building the LHC in a tunnel was prudent. The intense particle beam could drill a hole in just about anything. There are also concerns that the LHC experiments could create discoveries, such as particles and other strange phenomena that could destroy Earth or even the universe. For example, one nightmare scenario is that the collisions could pack matter together so tightly that it collapses to form miniature black holes Black holes are unimaginably dense points in space whose gravity is so strong it can pull in entire planets or even stars. The black holes could pull in our entire planet, eventually crushing it down to a size smaller than a pea. At CERN and elsewhere, however, scientists feel that such concerns are absurd. A statement from the American Physical Society explained that collisions just like those that will take place in the LHC have taken place daily on the surface of the Earth for billions of years. There, high energy particles zoom in from outer space to smash into the earth, creating collisions of even higher energy than those in the LHC Why Does It Matter? The cynics might say that there's no practical use for any of this, that there might be other uses for all the money and brainpower