[Brilliant]

"I've asked my GP to keep me alive a little longer," he joked...

Not a joke. Remember that we are talking about Britain here.

[GOPJ]

While Higgs hopes the LHC will reveal the secrets of the universe, others fear an apocalyptic scenario straight out of a science-fiction film -- that the experiment will, in effect, create massive black holes which could reduce Earth to a lump of hot, strange matter. Higgs dismisses such fears as the products of over-active imaginations.

Why is the "black hole" fear part of the story?

[Greg F]

“This black hole business has become rather inflated because even theorists suggesting many black holes could be produced are not predicting large black holes which would swallow up large chunks of the universe,” he said.
______________________________________________

Wouldn’t a small black hole absorb the matter next to it and so grow, and absorb more matter, and grow, and so absorb more matter, and grow . . . until it absorbs all of us?

[martin_fierro]

he experiment will, in effect, create massive black holes which could reduce Earth to a lump of hot, strange matter.

There, now that's out of the way.

[SunkenCiv]

No sign of the Higgs boson
New Scientist | December 5, 2001 (note the year) | Eugenie Samuel
Posted on 04/10/2007 8:48:56 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1814966/posts

“It’s more likely than not that there is no Higgs,” says working group member John Swain of Northeastern University in Boston...

Desperately seeking the Higgs boson
Manila Times | Sunday, January 14, 2007 | Rony V. Diaz
Posted on 01/15/2007 1:57:53 AM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1767741/posts

Physicists Say Can Find No Sign of ‘God Particle’
Reuters / Yahoo | December 5, 2001
Posted on 12/06/2001 4:46:03 AM PST by Darth Reagan
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/584881/posts

-and-

Big Bang at the atomic lab after scientists get their maths wrong
Times Online | 4/8/07 | Jonathan Leake
Posted on 04/08/2007 8:55:49 AM PDT by LibWhacker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1814013/posts

[SunkenCiv]

[CheezyChesster]

The LHC will whizz protons to 99.9999 percent of the speed of light in two parallel beams in a ring-shaped tunnel 27 kilometres (16.9 miles) long and up to 175 metres (568 feet) below ground_______________________________________________________________99.9999% the speed of light, Hmmmm. Probably long enough to finally capture that wascally Higgs within the first few moments after ignition. Soooo, What do we do with our Billion dollar investment after it proves itself the first day ?............Why that’s easy. We keep turning it on and off untill we actually DO produce something detrimental, Silly people. Failed Diplomacy be Damned. We got to much money into this thing just for one shot !

[kipita]

Okay, “Love” is to humanity as the “Higgs Boson” is to an infinite number of universes.