Some lucky person might finally get to flick the switch on the Large Hadron Collider in December.The LHC, an underground atom-smasher at the Cern research centre in Geneva, was built to search for the as-yet undetected Higgs boson, aka the God particle, upon which current theories of the universe’s inception are pegged. (There was a hugely publicised switch-on in September 2008, swiftly followed by an embarrassing switch-off due to a technical problem.) But don’t believe all the guff out there about the God particle travelling back in time to sabotage the LHC like an evil youth tripping back decades to murder his own granny. Physicists say that this would break all natural laws. It is theoretically possible, however, for a person to invade an alternate universe and slay his alter ego’s gran. Well, that’s alright then.
God particles aside, I shall be dishing out The Atheists’s Guide to Christmas (The Friday Project) to all my sceptical scientist friends this year. Among those writing about what the festive season means to them are AC Grayling, Simon Singh, Ben Goldacre and, of course, Richard Dawkins. All the proceeds go to the Terrence Higgins Trust.
If even this genial godlessness seems too festive, visit the LSE on 1st December for “The Value of Nothing,” a lecture by academic and activist Raj Patel, based on his new book of the same name. Best known for Stuffed and Starved (Portobello), his account of the global food supply and inequality, Patel combines sociology and neuroeconomics to ask the most fundamental question of the season: why do things cost what they do?
God particles aside, I shall be dishing out The Atheists’s Guide to Christmas (The Friday Project) to all my sceptical scientist friends this year. Among those writing about what the festive season means to them are AC Grayling, Simon Singh, Ben Goldacre and, of course, Richard Dawkins. All the proceeds go to the Terrence Higgins Trust.
If even this genial godlessness seems too festive, visit the LSE on 1st December for “The Value of Nothing,” a lecture by academic and activist Raj Patel, based on his new book of the same name. Best known for Stuffed and Starved (Portobello), his account of the global food supply and inequality, Patel combines sociology and neuroeconomics to ask the most fundamental question of the season: why do things cost what they do?
