Welcome To Black Mesa

Posted on September 20, 2006 by Scott Jennings| 44 Comments

CERN is threatening to open a gateway to another dimension.

If they do, *I’m* not killing the giant alien fetus, because jumping puzzles in RL suck.

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  • Toma Levine

    Laugh while you can, monkey-boy. We’s a-goin’ home.

  • http://ambernight.org Amber

    Any project where one of the steps is to calculate the odds of destroying the planet has my full support.

  • http://midnight-guild.org Mist

    Does that include the RNC?

  • Freakazoid

    Where we’re going, we don’t need eyes to see.

  • Nonentity

    Shades of Metal Gear Solid 3-esque ‘You’ve created a time paradox!’ start floating around with this grand revelation.

  • Lietgardis

    “They estimate the possibility of accidentally destroying the planet as extremely low.”

    Good to know!

  • Rich

    “* They estimate the possibility of accidentally destroying the planet as extremely low.”

    Shouldn’t even an extremely low possibility be considered a 100% possibility?

  • http://www.corpnews.com Andrew Crystall

    Nonentity, I was thinking “Forever Peace”, personally. But don’t bother reading it.

  • http://www.vinull.com Michael Neel

    “The risk is calculated at about 10 to the minus 40 – a 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance.”

    *translate geek to redneck*

    “Hey guys, watch this!”

  • Garrett

    “May I pass along my congratulations for your great interdimensional breakthrough. I am sure, in the miserable annals of the Earth, you will be duly enshrined.”

    Yeah, I know Toma beat me to the Buckaroo Banzai reference, but it was the first thing I thought of. I do think someone should check on the number of techs working on the project named “John.”

    Damn John Worfin and the horse he rode in on.

  • David

    This is not good. Referencing this site: http://qntm.org/destroy we can see that option #3 provides us with a 3/10 chance of destroying the earth which is exactly what these people are doing. Damned New Zealanders.

  • Jurrasic

    More like shades of http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm

    There are several scenarios there that this little experiment can fall into, 1 in umpteen-billion chance or no.

  • http://www.damnedvulpine.com/ J.

    If you check the chance of intentionally destroying the planet, the chance of doom is several orders of magnitude higher.

    THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO HIT RESET.

  • http://www.beafraid.com Hellfire

    Methinks it’s time to stock up on canned food and shotgun shells.

    Wonderful time for the marines to be on the other side of the planet. WHO WILL FIGHT THE CACODEMONS?

  • http://www.makemepope.com tsweatt

    Hmm. Perhaps it’s time we learned to ‘take off every zig’

  • Soulflame

    The probability of a resonance cascade scenario is very low.

  • Lophat

    “Glory be to the Bomb, and to the Holy Fallout. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. Amen. “

    Where’s James Franciscus when you need him?

  • Lophat

    Also, how do you call some black holes “tiny” and not others? I mean, given that they are singularities, they are all as tiny as can be, right?

  • GreyPawn

    Edward Teller and Robert Oppenheimer disagreed on one key issue during the Manhattan Project. Teller, you see, wasn’t entirely sure that recreating the powerful heat and energy of the sun on the face of the Earth wouldn’t ignite the hydrogen in the atmosphere and turn the planet into an ocean of fire.
    Oppenheimer was more optimistic. Aren’t we fortunate that it worked out?

  • VPellen

    This can’t end well.

  • http://www.nerfbat.com/ Ryan Shwayder

    How can they estimate the risk at 10 to the minus 40 if they have no idea what will happen?

  • Xyntar

    “how do you call some black holes \’e2\’80\’9ctiny\’e2\’80\’9d and not others? I mean, given that they are singularities, they are all as tiny as can be, right?”

    Maybe tiny in the sense of gravitational pull (compared to real black holes) rather than size.

  • Evangolis

    “”For the first time in many decades we have built a machine that exceeds our powers of prediction”

    Graduate Science schools really need a required course in things you don’t say to reporters.

  • http://www.killtenrats.com Zubon

    I really would like to see the calculations on 10^-40, especially given \’e2\’80\’9dFor the first time in many decades we have built a machine that exceeds our powers of prediction.\’e2\’80\’9d

    Also, I don’t drink, but maybe I should start.

  • Capn John

    “We don’t know what 95 per cent of the universe is made of – which is a bit embarrassing for a subject that claims to be fundamental.”

    I think accidentally destroying the planet would be a bit more embarassing.

    “Oops. Sorry about that.”

  • Evangolis

    Doing it on purpose would be even more embarrassing, and is a lot more likely an outcome than the risk of this study. But making statements like those in the article is also pretty embarrassing, and something people as bright as these guys should know better than to do. If there is one thing people clearly do not have a good intuitive understanding of, it is low probability outcomes. If they did, nobody would play the lottery.

  • Noel

    Surprised no one’s brought up a Terry Pratchett quote yet. Such as:

    “Scientists have calculated that the chance of anything so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.”

  • http://ve3d.ign.com/ Apache

    for real

  • http://cnn.com ubvman

    That Terry Pratchett quote?

    For real.

    We are Doomed.

    BTW, Didn’t Doom the game start out with the opening dimensions bit? …

  • Aceris

    They’re waiting for you Lum.

    In the test chamber.

  • Ironwood

    That Gizmo even LOOKS like it should open a portal to hell. Awesome.

  • Dren

    How timely. I woke up just this morning and my first thought was,”I really wish I knew what Dark Energy is.”

    It’s been bugging me all day.

  • xzzy

    As someone who works on the extreme fringe of the particle physics scientific community, and have heard lots of chatter about CERN in recent years, I have never heard one person speak as breathlessly of the LHC as that fellow.

    The dominant opinion seems to be guarded optimism. “Yeah, it’ll be great.. when they can actually get the thing to work.” There seems to be some doubt it’ll actually function at any useful capacity when they turn it on next year.

    Moral of the story, outlook is grim for interdimensional portals in 2007.

  • Gwaendar

    I wonder whether all the US manufacturers who contributed with equipment to the LHC actually checked whether “tiny chance to blow up planet” is compliant with US export laws…

  • http://www.eqclerics.org Boanerges

    “There has never been such a jump in particle physics. It will go into an area that we don’t really understand,” he added.

    So we’re boldly going where no man has gone before? And this is important because…?

    Besides, it’s not like they have any test subjects to try it out. Besides, if it’s unknown what will happen who knows what might become of us?

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  • John Arras

    Terrorists. If someone has a nonzero chance of harming the US, then they’re evil terrorfascists and need to be stopped. We need to invade CERNistan. Now. Before it’s too late.

    Btw, the movie “Event Horizon” freaked me out. You should see it if you haven’t.

  • http://www.thisisnotacommunity.org D-0ne

    Zac Hobson, July 5th. One: there has been a malfunction in Project Flashlight with devastating results. Two: it seems I am the only person left on Earth.

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  • http://www.damnedvulpine.com J.

    “There’s a hole in the sky
    Through which things can fly.”

  • http://www.grimwell.com Grimwell

    Sounds worse than it is, and we’ve apparently walked down a similar road before.

    That said, at some point we will be able to build a doomsday device, and it will likely be a scientists going ‘Oops..’ right before we all die.

  • http://www.sachant.com Sachant

    I told my husband we better get crowbars.

    He said to me, “We could put them in glass boxes in the house.”

    I replied, “What would we use to break open the glass boxes?”

    I actually considered the humor of it for a bit and then decided that no one that visited the house but a select few would get it and it probably wouldn’t be a very attractive addition to the decor.

  • http://www.damnedvulpine.com J.

    Pick up box.
    Smash box on floor.
    Pick up crowbar.
    Walk through glass to next level.
    Cry.

  • http://www.marshawj.org/toscana toscana

    E grande io ha trovato il vostro luogo! Le info importanti ottenute! ))