Turning on the Large Hadron Collider (again) in June will be… Tom Hanks

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That’s right, ladies and gentlemen – Forrest Gump will be pressing the big red button when the Large Hadron Collider comes back on in June, potentially dooming us all into getting sucked into a vast black hole. If I do end up ending my life in that way, I’ll be a little happier knowing that it was all Tom Hanks’ fault.

In a scene right out of Blackpool’s Christmas Lights, a Hollywood actor will be taking precedence over the world’s biggest and brightest minds to switch back on the massive, costly, science experiment that was switched off shortly after it was turned on, following a massive plasma leak.

Seriously, though – why Tom Hanks? It’s not like they need the publicity that a Hollywood star will bring to the proceedings. In fact, his presence only detracts from the event, and makes whoever booked him look very foolish indeed. I don’t have anything against Hanks, in fact I enjoy his work, but seriously – in big gold, shining letters – WHY?

(via Crunchgear)

Hadron Collider repairs to cost £14m

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Turns out that fixing the slight liquid helium leak down below Geneva earlier this year is going to cost rather more than the vase you knocked over at Auntie Flo’s house when you were 13, which cost you all your pocket money for the following three months. To be precise, the exact cost of fixing the LHC is £14 million.

The team behind it also say that “realistically”, it’s going to take until next summer before things are up and running again. Originally, we thought that it’d be going again around now, but the damage was more severe than the team realised. Most concerningly of all, the cost of fixing the thing ‘falls within CERN’s budget’. Damn – that’s one hell of a budget.

LHC (via BBC)

Related posts: OPINION: The Large Hadron Collider goes live tomorrow – fingers crossed | Teen suicide over LHC Apocalypse fears; let’s rename the beast

Teen suicide over LHC Apocalypse fears; let's rename the beast

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Sadly, an 16-year-old Indian girl took the fears of an all-encompassing black hole being formed by the Large Hadron Collider, and took her life instead of carrying on as normal as the rest of us have.

On the scheme of things, if there was even the remotest possibility of being annihilated by a lethal black hole sucking, I’d rather die that way than fairly unpleasantly by drinking pesticide. I guess the girl believed that suicide is painless.

In related news, the Royal Society of Chemistry has launched a competition to find a new, more meaningful, name for the LHC. Dr Richard Pike said that it “fails to reflect the drama of its mission, or the inspiration it should be conveying to the wider public….