This could be the last post ever for this blog—and for the rest of the world.

Tomorrow—they switch on the Large Hadron Collider—a device designed to recreate the big bang.

But, as we told you in the post below which ran back in March—some fear it will destroy the planet.

So, if you wake up tomorrow and we’re all dead— don’t say you weren’t warned.

*** ORGINALLY POSTED MARCH 18, 2008 ***

We’re getting closer to the day when scientists switch on a giant machine that will either tell us lots of new things about the universe—or destroys the planet—as well as several million miles of space surrounding what used to be Earth.

This device is called the Large Hadron Collider.

It’s in a 16 and a half mile long oval shaped tunnel, buried 300 feet underground in Geneva, Switzerland.

They’ve been working on it for over a quarter of a century—getting it ready to do it’s job.

And just what IS its job? It smashes atomic particles together at high speed.

This video takes you on a tour of the place.

As you saw—-those working on the project have high hopes that the Collider will reveal all sorts of answers to questions that have deep thinkers for years. You can read a detailed and highly scientific explanation here.

Researchers have been smashing particles together for years—but never at the speeds that this device hopes to create.

And there-in lies the worry.

Some scientists think the chain reaction will be so intense—it’ll be unstoppable, creating an event that won’t end until a black hole is created here on earth.

If that happens, the gravitational mass of the black hole will suck everything into it—including the planet as well as a good hunk of the neighboring galaxy around us.

Of course, similar fears were expressed by some before we tested the first atomic bomb. They worried the explosion might be so hot—it would set Earth’s atmosphere on fire.

They expect to energize the Large Hadron Collider in May of 2008.

Let’s hope we can look back on the event as just another scientific milestone.

—Steve

Link to the video and story Steve covered today on NBC-17

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As I go through life, the depths of my ignorance never cease to amaze me.

For example—-as kids often do—mine will fight with each other on road trips…. As I try my best to keep them separated—I’ll often hear “Dad, MacKenzie is looking at me!!!”

I’ll reply with something like, “Looks don’t hurt—now keep quiet and let me drive!”

Well—turns out I was wrong. Really, really wrong.

Apparently—looks not only can hurt—they can destroy objects!

This story linked here says cosmologists believe “by observing dark energy the universe has been nudged closer to its death .”

It all gets rather complicated—and involves quantum mechanics and physics that require calculations too complicated for me to do on my fingers.

The bottom line is that we apparently are sucking the life out of the universe by using telescopes and such to observe things like dark matter.

As best as I can understand it—it’s kind of like water spilled on a counter top and a paper towel.

The spill stays there until we lay the paper towel on it. The water still exists—but it’s now sucked into the paper towel instead of being on the counter top.

The same thing is apparently happening in space when we look at objects. We suck up their photons—slowly draining them of their existance in their present state…

Now— the good news is that we’re not going to kill the universe tomorrow.

We’ve got a couple of YAZILLION epochs before it occurs.

(In case you’ve run out of fingers, that’s more than a milliondy-trilliondy-gazilliondy years)

So, we’ve got enough time left to accomplish what needs to be done in our lives.

In my case—that means finding a way to get the kids to ride quietly in the back of the van so I won’t miss that turn we were supposed to make 2 miles back….

—Steve