Says Who?
Well, that’s what some people are saying anyway. On Wednesday September 10th the new Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland and France, will begin smashing things together in an effort to understand the time immediately following the Big Bang – and try to learn a few other things about our universe as well.
However, some people are afraid that the microscopic collisions might actually create tiny black holes that could suck in the entire Earth! Stephen Hawking, however, doesn’t believe that will happen, saying instead that its research will be “vital for humanity.”
How Does This Relate To Science Ficton?
This is all cool stuff, but did you know that there is a short story about this very idea? Yep. The Clockwork Atom Bomb by Dominic Green is about an African nation using black holes to dispose of their garbage. How irresponsible! What happens if one of the black holes falls off its platform? Could anybody lift it back up? Would it fall to the center of the Earth? Interesting ideas all. Be sure to check out this story before the world ends – or, if you are reading this after September 10 2008, at least have a look and see what could happen if black holes get out of hand on Earth.
According to Wikipedia it appears that the Large Hadron Collider has been providing authors (especially science fiction ones) with doomsday fodder for a few years now. Although I haven’t read any of the books talked about in that article’s “popular culture” section, I would love to hear the thoughts of anyone who has.
Or, if you are feeling really dicey, we can all place bets on when the world will end exactly! My bet: 1/1/3000 
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I don’t think the LHC destroying the world could appear in any hard science fiction, since it borders on fantasy. Only crackpots and people who don’t know what they’re talking about think it’s dangerous to the planet.
(Not that that’s bad, not all good sci-fi is hard sci-fi. I’m just saying.)
Ha! Great answer Paolo, however I think it’s possible to put real science into hard science fiction stories – as long as the “speculative” part of the story isn’t based on faulty ideas about real science. There is a point in every hard scifi story where the plot leaps from “real” to “speculative” – that is why they are so fun to read!
One of the most famous stories of the kind is Larry Niven’s “The Hole Man”.
Set on Mars, & the planet is destroyed slowly – in an apparently realistic style since the initial black hole is tiny.
Thanks Tinkoo,
I had never heard of that story, but it sounds like a great one that I’ll have to try. I have liked most Niven stories, so it’s a good bet that I’ll like this one too.