The Large Hadron Collider is being started up today. Despite the press going mental today is only one beam starting up and the whole thing is entirely safe.
It is nice to see some attention in the mainstream media for this kind of big science, though.
The LHC is a massive project which has involved some of the best minds on Earth and cost billions of pounds. The goal of the project has no direct practical application that I’m aware of – it’s pure science. I’m sure that in creating the accelerator and the systems for processing the data it produces there will be many side-effect benefits, but the core goal is knowledge for its own sake. It’s like the Great Pyramids or the Colossus of Rhodes – it’s a huge monument to what humans can achieve beyond simple survival and multiplying, and, of course, a massive idol to the gods. In the case of the Ancient Wonders those were literal gods, but with the LHC it’s a place of veneration to the non-existent gods of Science.
There’s often an anti-science or anti-technology thread in modern society (see back to all the absurd scare stories about the LHC), and it’s important to celebrate the awesomeness of the technology we have. From the pyramids to the LHC, technology represents the best of us and the worst of us. As a species, we’re just clever monkeys – what makes us special is that we use tools – technology – to make us better than we were before. We find the limits of our mind and body and push past them by using technology.
Most technology has a directly practical use, but sometimes we feel the need to make something just for its own sake. That’s what the Large Hadron Collider is – science for its own sake. A reminder of what makes us special, what makes us, as a species, even remotely worthwhile. A shining example of the part of us that brings so many successes and failures.
The Large Hadron Collider is a big pointless waste of money, and I absolutely love it.
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