I don't understand particle physics...

...but if the world is sucked up by a black hole tomorrow, apparently they're to blame.

You see, the Large Hadron Collider (wiki) will be switched on tomorrow, for the first time.

What does the Large Hadron Collider do? Well, to the best of my understanding, it collides hadrons. Large ones.

In less obvious terms, it shoots protons at other protons. I think.

And apparently if something goes wrong, it could create a black hole.

I have to admit, I like this end-of-the-world crisis a lot better than the ones based on the Mayan calendar or the X-Files or what have you, mainly because it has nothing to do with an arbitrarily chosen date, it's chosen because of something that's actually going to happen.

Of course, the first collision isn't taking place until October 21st - so I don't understand why this could kill us all tomorrow.

But if I'm wrong, I'll eat my words.

Or I would, if I were alive. But I wouldn't be.

This is what we call a 'win-win' scenario.

--Ryan