The Hadron Collider is the largest machine ever built and tomorrow, it's being turned on. Buried below Switzerland, manned by a team of University of Sydney scientists, the 27-km (yes, kilometer), $9 billion dollar ring was built for the sole purpose of smashing things together. Not just anything however, subatomic particles and speeds so high and with forces so great that it very well might end life as we know it. No, that is not an exaggeration. 

The Collider is literally trying to recreate the Big Bang so scientists can learn more about the origins of our universe, which in theory sounds cool, but then you remember that you're recreating the Big Bang! There are probably better ways to figure this stuff out. Also on the table is the possibility of time travel, yes time travel, scientists think the atom smasher is full of all kinds of tricks. The Collider might be able to create wormholes in the time-space fabric with all its fabulous particle smashing, which could open up the necessaray conditions for time-travel, or at least that's what happened in Contact.

So what's on the docket for tomorrow when the machine is turned on? Some good old fashioned particle smashing in order to determine if the "God particle," the Higgs boson exists. Pretty much they'll be smashing two tiny particles to see if tinier ones fall out. 

Tomorrow might prove to be the end of the world, if instead of finding the Higgs boson they end up blowing up the universe with another Big Bang or going back in time to kill Genghis Khan or something, but I'm guessing that they'll turn on the machine and somewhere in thousands of miles of wiring and circutry, something will short out and they'll spend the next two years trying to figure out just what the hell went wrong.

But in case the world does end, I just wanted to say, I love you, I always have.