Large Hadron Collider restart delayed till September

Oh, bollocks! When CERN's Large Hadron Collider started up this past September, we figured it was only a matter of time before the world as we knew it imploded. Thus, we did as any reasonable group of individuals would do and evaporated our life savings before being beamed up. Now, we're stuck waiting around (with four or five pennies) for this September, as that's the new restart date following the LHC's run-in with bad luck late last year. If all goes to plan this go 'round, the machine will run into autumn of 2010, when engineers will hopefully see collisions of lead ions. Needless to say, gurus are implementing a new enhanced protection system to keep things from going so wrongly again, but you never can tell what'll happen when smashing atoms, now can you?

[Via CNET]

[Saad Rabia @ Feb 10th 2009 9:17AM]

More time to live.

[zioncat @ Feb 10th 2009 9:39AM]

You know I’m not nearly smart enough to understand the inner working of this device. All I know is small black whole with-in our atmosphere can’t be good. The fact of the matter is even if they have all the facts, science, and theories in order isn’t there still a chance this could be bad..I’m just saying

[AlekZander @ Feb 10th 2009 10:25AM]

Seeing as you can't even spell "black hole", I think your opinion counts for very little.

[Gnaget @ Feb 10th 2009 10:32AM]

No, you don't... if they don't hurry up, I'm going to build my own black hole machine and destroy the earth. All I want in life is to be able to say I died by being sucked into a black hole

[Josh @ Feb 10th 2009 10:39AM]

Quite so. If you were smart enough, then you'd realise that it's not going to destroy the universe. Or indeed create a black hole that could destroy the universe, or even that much anyway.. there are trillions of black holes in the universe and we're still here. The possible creations at CERN won't even be big enough to suck in an atom, let alone exist long enough to do anything.

And what are you going to do if it does? Write them a threatening letter?

[OneLove @ Feb 10th 2009 11:16AM]

Dogs Bollocks!!

[Mustaine @ Feb 10th 2009 11:22AM]

What is every LHC experiment was the cause of other black holes where planets used to be?

[a ham sandwich @ Feb 10th 2009 1:44PM]

...but i MUST know if the Higgs exists!!! :(

[OneLove @ Feb 10th 2009 2:09PM]

He got stuck scrubbing the warp coils again.

[d889 @ Feb 10th 2009 2:50PM]

i cant believe people are actually seriously afraid of this thing.....

i hope you all know it will take YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS after they start using the machine to get any usable readings.

[Greg @ Feb 10th 2009 2:28PM]

Soon: LHC Delayed Till Dec. 21, 2012

Then we'll all be laughing.

[Aaron @ Feb 10th 2009 9:17AM]

Everytime I read the name of that thing, it always plays out as "Large Hard-On Collider" in my head.

Not sure why...

[Wwhat @ Feb 10th 2009 9:33AM]

I call your condition youtube-dyslexic.

[Aaron @ Feb 10th 2009 9:35AM]

Wut Wut?

[DER GORF @ Feb 10th 2009 10:28AM]

Since no one else is going to say it, I will say it.

"Childhood traumata."

[Jonathan-DBOSS @ Feb 10th 2009 11:03AM]

Since no one else is going to say it, I will say it.

"He has a small penis."

[Kegas @ Feb 10th 2009 12:28PM]

Really? I'm going to be the one to have to say this?
"GENITAL WARTS!"

[maveric101 @ Feb 10th 2009 12:12PM]

lysdexics untie!

[Leo @ Feb 10th 2009 1:18PM]

I think Sigmund Freud would say it's either because you had a fixation on your daddies winkey or you're generally obsessed with c*ck... not that there's anything wrong with that - I'm just saying...

[chris @ Feb 10th 2009 2:08PM]

Thank you for saying this.. I was going to.. I have the same exact problem, but was afraid to admit it....
hahaha

[DErick @ Feb 10th 2009 9:19AM]

the collider word itslef makes me scare !

[ClarkyAC @ Feb 10th 2009 9:19AM]

can't believe how many people panic over this thing..

Yay media coverage! :D

[fieldcar @ Feb 10th 2009 9:20AM]

I shun every time I see photography of a welder at close distances. Isn't it bad for a CMOS, moreso than a CCD?

[schmitty338 @ Feb 10th 2009 10:59AM]

...that is why they have filters, my friend.

[Deeznuts420 @ Feb 10th 2009 9:21AM]

hopefullly they keep pressing the button every 108 minutes

[loocas @ Feb 10th 2009 3:10PM]

I don't get the joke... :(

[Jay @ Feb 10th 2009 4:30PM]

Well... A few years ago many Americans sat down one a week to watch a man press a button every 108 minute. For no apparent reason they were hoping something interesting would eventually happen... It never did.

[Dave Chappelle @ Feb 10th 2009 9:23PM]

@Jay

We all felt for that crap in Australia too now many have gotten over it, others still stay up till 11:30 watching channel 7 at night waiting for something to make sense... but it never does.

[Cassini @ Feb 10th 2009 9:43PM]

@Loocas

Watch the TV series "Lost" from the beginning, and you'll get the joke.

[Zane @ Feb 10th 2009 9:33AM]

O SNAP!

[Big Al @ Feb 10th 2009 9:35AM]

Every delay brings their restartup date closer to 2012...

[BarryBee @ Feb 10th 2009 9:39AM]

Sadly this was my first thought hearing about the delay.

[Aaron @ Feb 10th 2009 9:43AM]

I was about to post something about that, but I got distracted and when I refreshed the page, I saw you posted it.

[tadghostal @ Feb 10th 2009 9:59AM]

Exactly. Not saying I believe all the Mayan witchy-voodoo, but it definitely makes one wonder.

[teej @ Feb 10th 2009 10:09AM]

lol i was thinking the same thing. except, barbara streisand will be the one to start the collider, and in the process, becomes caught in the LHC's extreme magnetic field, whipping her into a frenzied daze of catastrophic morphism. the end result...the world will be begin to fear: Mecha Streisand.

[Bob The Builder @ Feb 10th 2009 9:42AM]

http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/

[giuliop @ Feb 10th 2009 10:28AM]

Does it update automatically when the world is destroyed?

[DracoDan @ Feb 10th 2009 3:08PM]

For the first time, I read the page source for that site expecting to see a simple page layout with the word nope. instead, I laughed my ass off.

[blarvh @ Feb 10th 2009 11:36AM]

From the source code of the page:

[blarvh @ Feb 10th 2009 11:36AM]

I will try again:
!-- if the lhc actually destroys the earth & this page isn't yet updated
please email mike to receive a full refund --

[Xenoterranos @ Feb 12th 2009 11:01PM]

if (!(typeof worldHasEnded == "undefined")) {

"typeof worldHasEnded". The very essence of lol.

[Riley @ Feb 11th 2009 10:19PM]

I find it funny that he actually wrote the javascript to update the page if/when the world actually is destroyed

[fieldcar @ Feb 10th 2009 9:52AM]

Useful for extra-terrestrials.

[Jimmijam @ Feb 10th 2009 9:55AM]

My money is on 2012. :-D

[sepirioth @ Feb 10th 2009 11:14AM]

HAHA! was gonna say the same thing. Totally gonna come up in 2012, apocalypse or not, just for the suspense of what if they should do it.

[Scott @ Feb 10th 2009 9:59AM]

they'll get this puppy fired up dec 21st 2012 and then Quetzalcoatl will return
yea!

[SonicEarth @ Feb 10th 2009 10:05AM]

That's the Aztecs, you idiot.

[Scott @ Feb 10th 2009 10:12AM]

Mayan, Aztec, Hopi
they all believe this is the 4th world and that the 5th and final world is coming in 2012
it's also the precession of the ages, Age of Aquarius

2012 is the year of the dragon in the Chinese zodiac and Quetzalcoatl is a winged serpent (dragon)
it's amazing that cultures on opposite sides of the world created the same religious archetypes

[Joel @ Feb 10th 2009 10:38AM]

I have never read anything that says the Aztec calendar also ends in 2012. Unlike the Mayan calendar, I doubt the Aztec calendar was accurate enough to predict that far ahead. Furthermore, the Mayans don't predict that the world will end in 2012, the calendar simply ends on that day. The calendar in my pantry ending on Dec. 31 2010 does not mean I predict the universe will end on that day.

Chinese Dragons and Quetzalcoatl have nothing to do with each other or the Mayan calendar.

[lostmotel @ Feb 10th 2009 10:25AM]

Where's the Apple news. I'm getting bored.