Post 13. The Cost of Science

The Large Hadron Collider, a $10 billion science machine that many believe will end the world, made one big step towards that goal yesterday when scientists managed to get two proton beams collide at high energy.

And yet, our cars remain flightless.


Stare into the face of death...from your bicycle.

Last year, this machine shut down when a bird dropped some bread into it.

Not making this up.

You would think that $10 billion would be enough to prevent against this sort of animal interference, especially since the entire 17 mile long device is completely underground. I would hate to be the guy who forgot to shut the door behind him and let that bird in.

If $10 billion seems like an exorbitant amount of money to spend on understanding particles that no one is able to see with any instrument and may not even exist...it is. Imagine the breakthroughs in convenience that could be achieved with these kinds of resources. A car that drives itself. A television in that same car. The possibilities are endless.

Instead, the French use all of that money to build a potentially apocalyptic laser beam that can be thwarted by a hungry duck.

This is why no one likes them.