Last week, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN, successfully tested its newly constructed Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border.

The LHC, according to CERN’s Web site, is the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Its purpose is to accelerate protons just under the speed of light until they collide. Hopefully, this process will replicate possible events which took place after the Big Bang.

Some skeptics believe these collisions have the potential to create a black hole and will begin swallowing matter, possibly endangering the entire Earth.

If so dangerous, why are the world’s top scientists comfortable with following through with this testing; why isn’t this a matter of national security?

With such high risks, the purpose of the experiment must be extremely significant. A theorized particle known as the Higgs Boson is the anticipated discovery. The Higgs Boson theoretically gives everything in the universe mass and could provide a better explanation of our natural world.

“We do not understand the source of mass and the Higgs is conjectured as an explanation,” explained David Hedin, professor of experimental particle physics, in an e-mail. “But there are different possible ways that the Higgs can exist. This will help us understand how our universe formed, why we exist, and if other universes would be the same as ours (that is have the same physics, chemistry, biology, etc).”

Still, someone certainly should be thinking about the hazards that the LHC possesses. Is a better understanding of how life began really worth destroying life as we know it?

“I have heard of the LHC and the hype built around it possibly destroying the Earth, but I have no clue who is making these claims,” said junior marketing major Jake Minol.

The LHC also has the approval of scholars and researchers despite the possible dangers. Most likely the approval comes because no one with credible insight on the subject has made any assertion of doom.

“It’s extremely safe,” clarified John Huth, a Harvard physics professor with emphasis in high energy phenomena. “The only chance of a black hole would be so microscopic that it would evaporate as soon as it appeared. Now, if it violated everything we know about physics and did not disappear, its gravitational pull would be so weak it would not pull in anything at all.”

Evidently, this apocalyptic laboratory is anything but an omega machine.

It wouldn’t make sense to destroy our world in an attempt to learn more about it; obviously the LHC’s experiment was well thought out.

Just like the LHC, we should also try to better understand things before we make hasty inferences. Reasonably, we must not become insecure with the unknown.