Main focus of Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The God machine

A new particle accelerator will start operating today at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Among other things the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is to provide information on the Big Bang and the origin of the universe. But alongside scientific enthusiasm, the atom smasher is also raising doubts about the limits of scientific research.

Le Monde - France

With CERN's new particle accelerator, the European scientific community has demonstrated it is at the pinnacle of international research, writes Le Monde, commenting that the project will benefit more than science: "When Europeans work together they can become the leaders of key scientific areas and give a lesson to their competitors. The huge particle accelerator at the European Organization for Nuclear Research is proof of this. ... Some almost see a poetic gesture in this mammoth project which will employ tens of thousands of scientists from hundreds of countries for years at a time. Apart from a few Nobel Prizes ... no concrete results are expected. Does that mean physicists are dreamers, conquistadors on a fool's errand? On the contrary. By landing international subsidies they are paving the way for a globalisation of knowledge. Other sectors – whether in science or elsewhere – can profit by this." (10/09/2008)

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Frankfurter Rundschau - Germany

The scientific and economic advantages to be gained through the LHC project, which is costing billions, remain uncertain. The German daily Frankfurter Rundschau nonetheless praises CERN as a model European institution. "Over half a century ago European politicians had the courage ... to invest a lot of money in scientific experiments and found the European laboratory for particle physics CERN. ... This faith in the future displayed by the politicians of the day has unquestionably been richly rewarded. It was one of the first projects for European cooperation - transcending all linguistic and national barriers. ... CERN is one of the early crystallisation points in the success story of Europe's unification - and beyond that. ... It may not be easy to explain of what practical use the new CERN facility could be. ... Yet the past has demonstrated that the money has for the large part been well invested. How many people are aware nowadays that it was at CERN, of all places, that the World Wide Web was programmed - or in other words, the Internet as we now know it?" (10/09/2008)

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La Repubblica - Italy

Some scientists have warned that the LHC experiments could inadvertently create a black hole that could swallow up the Earth. The daily La Repubblica warns about the dangers of intellectual curiosity at CERN. "This is not the first time the end of the world has been announced. On the contrary, world history is full of [warnings about] the end of the world. But this would no doubt be the first end of the world created by mankind, a secular ending without Holy Scriptures, without God, without belief and without religion, produced in a laboratory without a paradise, hell and purgatory, and without the Last Judgement. If our scientists in search of the God particle, as James Gillies of the nuclear research institute puts it, were not fanatics of the end of the world they would not have sought this appointment with the apocalypse. ... Today ... we have the final proof that science is the product of its opposite and that scientific progress consists of darkness rather than light." (10/09/2008)

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The Guardian - United Kingdom

TV comedian Ariane Sherine argues in The Guardian that it would not be such a bad thing if an LHC experiment brought about the end of the world: "A black hole's the last place you'd want to be left alive in anyway. We can't avoid dying, but if the Earth does get hoovered into oblivion today, we'll all bypass the fear and suffering that go along with the average death. Unless you're worrying about impending apocalyptic doom right now, that is. ... In case you're worried, we're all going to be fine. Even if we're not, we won't know it, so in a sense that's still fine. In the maxim commonly used when people are trying to be bleak and miserable, 'We all die alone.' Not this time. ... Above all, if we disappear together today, we'll be dying for a great reason: the noble cause of scientific advancement, on a mission to discover more about how the universe works. Seriously: will that really be the end of the world?" (10/09/2008)

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