The end of Geneva – and the world – as we know it?

In Geneva, our former home, there is a large scientific research facility called CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research, but “CERN” is its acronym for its former name in French). It’s actually on the border between Geneva and France, which was deliberate – that makes it truly an international center for nuclear research, which is basically what CERN does. It’s a place where scientists from all over the world come to do research because there aren’t many other facilities like it in the world. One of the only other few places like it is Fermilab, outside Chicago. One of our good friends from our church in Geneva worked at CERN along with many Nobel Prize winners and other brilliant minds. If you have read one of Dan Brown’s high-powered thrillers – Angels and Demons – parts of the story take place at CERN.

For many years, CERN has been constructing an enormous circular tunnel way underground, under both Geneva and parts of neighboring France. Its purpose is to attempt to discover the very origins of our universe, to apparently replicate something like the Big Bang, by pushing atoms around the circle in the tunnel at extremely high speeds and then do the same thing in the opposite direction and watch them crash into each other. This enormous “machine” is called the Hadron Collider.

The Hadron Collider is due to be switched on on September 10. As this momentous event unfolds, people in the area might notice their lights dimming a bit as it powers up, but then they – as well as the rest of us in corners of the planet both near and far from tranquil Geneva – might notice something a little more: COMPLETE OBLITERATION AN ANNHILATION OF THE ENTIRE EARTH AND HUMAN RACE!!! This is the concern of a group of nuclear researchers from the U.S. who filed a class-action lawsuit to stop construction of the Hadron Collider because they fear the first experiments will create mini black holes, which will merge into one big black hole, which will effortlessly swallow up the planet. This lawsuit has been dismissed, and the switch will be thrown next week, with the Americans’ concerns addressed by scientists in Europe who say there is nothing to worry about.

This is quite a proposition to consider. First of all, it’s ironic – in attempting to discover the very first moments of our universe, its origins, its beginning, the “let there be light” moment when God Almighty Himself spoke, the scientists could be responsible for its very end, bringing several hundred billion years of work and evolution to a screeching halt. And how ironic and awful this potential end of the world would be coming on September 10, a day before the anniversary of our other near-Doomsday experience of September 11.

Second, if the experiments do go wrong, if the Americans are right, how would they be able to say afterwards, “I told you so!” (I would certainly be one of the first to open my mouth to say that.) If we all die, there will be no way to say, “Oops! I guess that didn’t work.” There will be no chance to feel regret or to do it over. It would truly be a one-time experiment, but if the worst happens, how would we all really know the results?

Is it even physically possible for humankind to create something that comes even close to what God did at Creation, to build a small machine that is capable of creating forces as vast and powerful as those found in outer space, able to swallow entire planets?

Genevans and all Swiss by law are required to have in their single-family homes a bomb shelter. Unfortunately, these are able to withstand only nuclear bombs and not black holes, so even the Swiss can’t protect themselves with such defenses. It would really be a shame if that group of American scientists is right and ironic as well that the end of the world should originate in such an idyllic and peaceful place like Geneva and among such modest people. But let’s all enjoy life for another week or so until they turn that machine on, okay?