CERN Large Hadron Collider aka Armageddon Cometh

Wednesday may be the beginning of the end.

At approximately 9:30am Geneva-time, CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) will send a beam of protons around the 17-mile long Large Hadron Collider. Over the next few weeks, protons will be accelerated to a speed of 7 trillion electron volts and then smashed together. The resulting conditions will be equivalent to a trillionth of a second after the big bang, and theories abound as to what will follow.

The physicists orchestrating this galactic roulette are hoping that the experiment will offer the most profound insight ever into our universe's origins. Others (and not kooks, rather well-respected physicists) believe that the machine will produce a tiny black hole a second, consuming us all. They have even sought legal injunctions to prevent the experiment (and save the world).

At best, our entire understanding of the universe will be turned upside down and the Higgs boson (or 'God particle') will be revealed. At worst...Armageddon cometh.

Down the rabbit hole we go...