Not with a bang, with a whimper...

On Wednesday it was reported that the Large Hadron Collider - the £3.6bn machine that's supposed to re-create the effects of the Big Bang - has broken down. Apparently a large amount of helium leaked into the tunnel on Friday, forcing the particle accelerator to be shut down, and, as a result, the LHC will be out of action until next year. So, it looks like we can all breathe a sigh of relief. There aren't going to be any Black Holes appearing under the Swiss Alps anytime soon.

What I want to knew is, did James Bond (or somebody like him) discover that the LHC was actually part of some insane megalomaniac billionaire's plan for world domination and shut it down falling some dramatic, and improbable, battle underground. I think the truth should be told!

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
—T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men (1925)

The Big Bang: Take 2

This morning, scientists on the Franco-Swiss border will flip the switch on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - a.k.a. The Big Bang Machine - a 12 storey high, 17-mile long underground ring, built at a cost of £5b, buried more than 300ft under the Alpine foothills, where subatomic particles will be accelerated to astonishing speeds and then smashed into each other.

The LHC will blast protons - one of the building blocks of atoms - at a velocity close to the speed of light, generating temperatures of more than a trillion degrees centigrade. Each proton beam will pack as much energy as a Eurostar train travelling at 150 kilometres per hour. The resulting collisions will hopefully replicate conditions found in the moments following the Big Bang - or the beginning of the universe - and scientists will study the fallout. Let's just hope nothing goes wrong!

And if you're worried that man's meddling is going to create a black hole under the Alps which will suck the Earth into it, then have a look at this to help calm your nerves.