Lawsuit May Save South Dakota -- and Cosmos -- from Black Hole

Mad scientist preparing to destroy the world?

Maybe Sibby's right -- those godless secular humanist professors are out to destroy the world. Literally. Today's New York Times reports that two men have filed suit in federal court in Hawaii against CERN (the European Center for Nuclear Research) to block further work on the Large Hadron Collider.

Figuring out the legal jurisdiction of a court in Hawaii over European scientists may be as tricky as understanding the science behind CERN's big project and the lawsuit. Short version: the Large Hadron Collider is a monster particle accelerator that, once operational, will smash protons together. Scientists do that to figure out the secrets of the universe. The problem, contend plaintiffs Walter L. Wagner of Hawaii and Luis Sancho of Spain, is that these experiments may also produce a mini-black hole, which would devour Switzerland, the Earth, and eventually the universe. The lawsuit contends guys about to make black holes ought to conduct an environmental impact study first.

I'm not worried yet. All the scientists sound pretty sure these high-energy proton collisions won't create black holes. Stephen Hawking says such tiny black holes would just evaporate. CERN itself has a nice website that says, "Microscopic black holes will not eat you." Any black holes they produce would have the energy of mosquitos, not nearly enough oomph to suck in an unlucky lab assistant's pen, let alone an Alp, before it evaporated.

But for those of you who need something to worry about besides tomorrow's snowstorm, well, there you go. If nothing else, think of this as one more reason to get going on a good space program. Earth is nice, and I'd hate to see it eaten, but we should always have a Plan B.