Don't cross the streams!

In a few hours, some scientists near Geneva, Switzerland, plan to fire two particle beams in opposite directions around a 17-mile tunnel, smash them into each other, and see what happens. 

In the immortal words of Egon Spangler, "Don't cross the streams!" 

The Ghostbusters, with their nuclear-powered, ghost-catching proton backpacks didn't quite know what would happen were they to cross two or more of their fancy multi-colored light beams. And they figured it was a bad idea to just try it and see. 

And even with some of the most brilliant minds in the world working on the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, all of which are certain the world won't come to an end, skeptics warn of tiny black holes opening up and swallowing the earth. They've filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Hawaii to stop it. I'm not sure about the venue there, but the suit, in any case, hasn't seemed to slow things down. It's not surprising, since the U.S. government put up more than $500 million of the project's $10 billion cost.

Stephen Hawking has a $100 bet that scientists won't find everything they're looking for -- namely some unknown particle that's believed to give all matter mass -- but maintains the experiment won't obliterate the planet either. Let's hope he's around to collect. 

How ironic it is I ran across a TV showing last night of Stanley Kubrick's movie "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb." I hadn't seen it in years, but have been meaning to rent it from the video store. The airing was part of some channel's salute to Peter Sellers. 

In the film, Sellers plays a crazed and crippled former Nazi scientist working for the United States during the Cold War; the president of the United States; a British air force officer assigned as second in command to a psychotic U.S. general, and... I think that's it. He may play another role, but I'm not sure. 

So the psychotic general, fearing a growing Red threat, sends an entire wing of B-52s armed with nuclear weapons to bomb Russian targets. When U.S. officials find out, they fess up to the Russians and help them bring down all but one plane, piloted by Slim Pickens, which is still able to fly after an indirect hit.

It might've been OK for Slim Pickens to make the target, but it comes to light the Russians have a "Doomsday Machine" designed to eliminate all human and animal life should a nuclear attack occur on Russian soil. It is operated on auto-pilot and designed to trigger itself if someone tries to "untrigger" it. Peter Sellers, as the Nazi, explains he had looked into a similar device for the U.S. but decided, if I remember correctly, that it would be somewhat foolish to build one. He points out, rather astutely, that using the device as a deterrent only really works if the world knows you have it. 

It was supposed to be announced to the world the next week at a political event, the Russian ambassador says, because "the premier loves surprises." 

The film's bitingly sarcastic and hilariously dark, but there's no doubt about the filmaker's view on nuclear weapons, and the men who foolishly believe they have the sophistication to wield them responsibly -- as deterrent or otherwise. My how things have changed, huh? 

I'm pretty sure the hundreds and hundreds of physicists involved in the particle collider project -- 1,200 of which come from the U.S. -- know what they're doing. They've got to be at least as smart as our world's politicians, right? 

And if they're not, I only hope we never know the difference.