You may have heard about CERN. It's the Centre Européen pour la Récherche Nucleaire, the European center for nuclear research. It's located on both sides of the Swiss/French border near Geneva, and it's where the intarwebs was invented.

You also may have heard that CERN is building - respectively has built - the LHC, the Large Hadron Collider, which is a huge bad-ass particle accelerator. Quoting a google group: This mechanical behemoth located along the French and Swiss border with a total estimated circumference of 17 miles will be the most powerful particle accelerator in existence. [...] The Large Hadron Collide is hoped to discover what is referred to as the "Higgs Boson". Although a theoretical scalar particle theorized by Peter Higgs in 1974, it is actually a member of the standard model, and it is believed that the Higgs Boson is what gives matter "mass". To achieve the observation of the Higgs Boson, the LHC will be smashing these Hadrons (specifically Protons) together at speeds almost unimaginable to the average person, at near [light speed].

This fills me with glee, because I have a thing for big bad-ass particle accelerators. What fills me with amusement, however, is the reaction CERN is getting for building this accelerator.

( Cut to spare the f-list. )

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