The world’s most powerful particle-accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, is scheduled to be switched on for the first time tomorrow. There are assorted kooks who believe that the LHC will destroy the world in one or more of the following ways:

• Create a microscopic black hole which will devour the Earth.
• Trigger the hypothetical vacuum metastability disaster.
• Create a strangelet that will devour the Earth.

The whole thing is reminiscent of the fear many years ago that the first atomic bomb test would burn the entire atmosphere of the planet.

There another possibility that the kooks don’t seem to have considered. The LHC may open a gateway to a parallel universe full of evil creatures.

Here is a page with some really amazing pictures of the LHC under construction.