5 Things You Need to Know About the Large Hadron Collider Now

• Large Hadron Collider
• CERN
• physics
• extreme machines

The largest particle accelerator in history will take another step on Wednesday toward living up to its own celebrity. In the ongoing autopsy of the subatomic functions of the universe, the Large Hadron Collider could be the best hope yet to transform theoretical reality, such as dark matter and extra dimensions, into observable fact. And we'll be on hand to watch the LHC turn on, so stay tuned.

But why, exactly, are people without advanced degrees in physics counting the minutes until the first proton beam travels the length of the LHC's 27-kilometer (about 17-mile) accelerator ring? Is it because the bad science of the machine's supposed doomsday potential traveled faster—and louder—than responsible dissections of quantum mechanics? Is it because the LHC, which sits underneath Switzerland and France, feels like a turning point in the loss of American scientific primacy? Or is it because, however complex the physics might be, there's simply never been a larger, more powerful proton-smashing mega-gadget like it?

The answer is probably the doomsday thing, but on the eve of the accelerator's first full beam (and despite the glut of existing coverage) there's still a lot to be learned from—and about—the LHC.

1. It isn't the world's first doomsday machine.

Anyone who continues to believe that the LHC has the potential to end the world, by belching out a planet-engulfing black hole, or even to collapse or rewrite the fundamental structure of the universe, isn't going to be swayed by science. Forget that the tiny black holes the accelerator could generate will instantly pop in and out of existence like phantom soap bubbles, without the necessary mass to sustain themselves. Black holes are compelling, and like storm chasers hoping for every hurricane to swell to a Category 5, it is fun for the doomsayers to talk about the unprecedented devastation that could break up an otherwise dull Wednesday afternoon.

So without diving into the statistical and scientific illiteracy of anyone seriously worried about an LHC-related doomsday, consider that this is the third time in 15 years that a new accelerator has sparked fears of Armageddon. The last time was in 1999, when Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) was about to go on line, recreating the big bang in miniature. The worries were almost identical to what's been said about the LHC—black holes, and/or a fundamental reorganization of the universe at a quantum level. And in the mid-1990s, the idea that the Tevatron accelerator at Fermi National Particle Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) was about to create a supernova was floated. The champion of that theory was Paul Dixon, a psychologist from the University of Hawaii who showed up at Fermilab with "Home of the Supernova" scrawled on a bedsheet.

"It's very different now," says Judy Jackson, head of the Office of Communications at Fermilab. "When Dixon talked about how dangerous the Tevatron was, some people got in touch with their representatives and their senators. So we put out a fact sheet, and that was it. He was a guy with a bedsheet. Now, the bedsheet is the whole Internet." The more recent LHC fears are no more real or troubling than the rumors surrounding Tevatron and RHIC. Knowing that previous accelerator doomsayers were wrong might not silence the current crop, but it might prevent the bad science from spreading even further.

CLICK FOR MORE: Top 5 Cold-Hard Facts on the LHC
1. Not the First	2. Not End of the World	3. Not the Biggest	4. Not Alone	5. Not a Sport

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