Swiss-based mad scientists at CERN test-fired the Large Hadron Collider today, and the world failed to end. The 17-mile vacuum-sealed loop, which has been under construction for about 10 years, is a giant accelerator that whips particle beams into each other at 99.9 percent of the speed of light.

Why? Well, as any four-year-old who's ever smashed toy trucks together can tell you, it's to see what cool things will happen--and best of all is when pieces fly off. The major hoped-for outcome is the flying off of, and verification of, the existence of the Higgs boson.

The Higgs boson is an elusive particle whose study might help us understand why things have mass and whose observation might lead toward a Grand Unified Theory of how the universe works. Abundant Internet rumors, however, claim that one kind of piece that might just fly out of the lightspeed collision of billions of protons could be tiny black holes that might grow to devour our planet.

CERN has taken the apocalyptic FUD (we hope it's FUD) seriously enough to post a press release debunking it. The consensus seems to be that even if any black holes were produced, they'd evaporate in a shower of radiation.

Or maybe they don't emit radiation, but they'd still be very, very small black holes that would slide through the earth, doing little damage. Or, even if they somehow got stuck, they'd be so tiny as to have such small gravitational pull that it would take them a very, very long time to devour the earth--like one hundred billion years long. Or maybe it wouldn't take so long. In any case, we'll be fine, seems to be the thinking. These are not the black holes you're worried about.

It's worth noting that ending the planetary death-watch might be premature, however; while the LHC was fired up today, no actual collisions have occurred yet. The first collisions aren't scheduled to happen until October. Keep your fingers crossed! In the meanwhile, if you want to know more about the LHC, some of the staff at the project have put together this popular, educational YouTube rap.

Post by Sean Carroll

UPDATE: BBC Radio 4 is broadcasting "Big Bang Day" on 10 September 2008 to coincide with the LHC being switched on. Included in this event will be a radio episode of the TV series Torchwood, with a plot surrounding the LHC, entitled Lost Souls.