| Anyone who's read _Three Days to Never_, Tim Powers' 2007 novel, will find a recent news story to be a strange reminder of that book.
In the "fiction becomes fact" department: a number of lawsuits have been filed to try to stop the new "Atom Smasher" machine from going online in Switzerland this summer.
Apparently, some scientists are worried that the machine could create mini-black holes, or dangerous particles called "strangelets," or a new kind of replicating matter that could turn the Earth into an exotic piece of strange matter.
Oh my God...science fiction is no longer fiction, is it?
While the physicists who are in charge of the product scoff at the ideas, they cannot rule them out entirely. For instance, they concede that the machine may well create mini-black holes, but they will be so tiny and they won't exist long enough to do any damage.
Um, that's very re-assuring, Dr. Frankenstein. Heh heh. And I'm sure, Dr. Strangelove, you have the matter (dark matter) well in hand.
What physicists hope the machine may finally do is provide the data for a Unified Field Theory, and reveal the "God Particle," the basic form of matter at the very beginning.
Hmmm...Could they be on the verge of discovering what Einstein was so determined to keep from ever falling into human hands? It is well known (and Powers used it as his premise) that Einstein was working on the Unified Field Theory up until he saw the result of the atom bomb, at which time he destroyed all his notes on the subject.
http://ozment.livejournal.com
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