Mankind's New Toy

I was wondering how our new Swiss Toy was managing a couple of hundred kilometers away from where I live in Geneva, so had a look at a couple of newspaper reports and was quite amused.

It seems that Geneva has not "yet" sunk into an endless hole in the ground and our CERN tunnel is still there. However, they did have a problem. A group of Greek computer hackers managed to infiltrate the CERN computer or as our national daily rag the "Blick" wrote

"Great applause last week: The LHC (large haldron collider) was switched on, a photon ray was sent on its way - the experiment begins. The start was a success, the researchers were satisfied. CERN was in everyone's vocabulary, CERN throughout the world.

However since this moment the evil tidings have accumulated. First of all a 16 year old Indian girl killed herself out of anxiety for the end of the world, after she had read a report about the developments at CERN.

Then there was a hacker attack on the information center - the hackers were even laughing at the scientists. The attack was on Wednesday, the day after the launch of the machine, although the invaders swore that they did not want to disturb the largest experiment in the history of science, they just wanted to expose the risks in the computer system. According to the CERN spokesman James Gillies the Hacker attack was immediately discovered and there was no damage, It seemed that it was just being shown that the system was not risk-free.

The next problem for the big bang investigators: The LHC had to be switched off! The last proton ray passed through at the week-end. It seems that an electricity problem caused a collapse of the cooling system. For further tests the coolant system is indispensable. For an acceleration of the Protons at the speed of light is a temperature of minus 271.3 degrees celsius necessary."

In other words we will have to wait a bit longer until the first black hole appears. Scientists say it is happening all the time in outer space. Black holes appear and disappear again regularly. What a relief to know that we are in good expensive capable hands? I have a programme on my computer called Astronomy Picture of the Day and if you take a look every day you will see that planets, stars and other such objects are colliding, exploding and disappearing all the time. If you happen to believe in life out there, then who knows, perhaps that life also discovered a LHC machine. On the other hand, we should not see it too much on a negative side. After all jobs have been created, we will know where we come from and will probably find out where we are going. And above all we have spent a lot of money for a good cause?

I'm Still Alive

Well you must admit if we Swiss do something, then we do it properly. I mean what country builds a circular tunnel measuring 27 kilometers, under one of its largest towns, in our case Geneva, Now why do we, or better said, our scientists, build a tunnel stretching along the French border and meeting again in Geneva. It is not an act of revenge for the super Phoenix atomic power stations that France has built near the Swiss border, which does give you a funny feeling hoping they will never explode or have a slight accident as happened in Tschernobyl some years ago. No, our scientists are clever and it seems bored. The tunnel has been built to send atoms on a journey through it and it was switched on today, despite a few warnings, but I am still here so nothing has happened up to now. The actual fun starts in October when atoms will be sent clockwise and anticlockwise through the tunnel at the same time and our super scientists hope that the atoms will meet, the problem being that when atoms meet they do not combine and shake hands and have a sort of atom party. No, they split showing their insides. Wasn't the atom bomb created by splitting an atom? or perhaps that is a misunderstanding on my side. There is even a video sponsored by CERN, the association responsible for playtime in West Switzerland.

So what is the aim of this new toy. The Swiss have decided to find out how the solar system came into being. Throw away your books on this theme, they will be written anew, if we are still here to read them at the end of October. Some scientists not involved in the project have a strange feeling that this little experiment which cost billions (not millions) of Swiss Francs, could mean the end to our civilisation as we know it, even to the world, as they fear the a black hole could be created and we would fall into it. Personally I just find it a waste of money. There was an interview on the tv yesterday with the scientists in charge, a man and a lady. Sorry, but I think they just want to set a memorial for themselves, only what good it will be and where they will put it I don't know, especially if our world does turn into a black vacuum. But let us not worry about such trivial things. I am sure it will all turn out ok in the end.

Original Size

And now for something completely different. One of my neighbours lives on the second floor in an apartment building next to mine. We often exchange books to read, as she is a fan of english books and she promised she would call me when she has a good view of the alps from her balcony. This week we had the ideal weather so I was invited. I would also add she is one of the only neighbours I know that makes a perfect pot of English style tea. I took a few photos, but this was about the best I could get. They are still quite a distance, about 200 kilometers, so I had to use the zoom. The mountain on the left is the Finsterahorn and the two on the right are the Eiger and afterward the Mönch. We often spent our Summer holidays in Grindelwald and once we had a holiday apartment opposite the Eiger. We made many walks in the area and eventually I got to know all the peaks in the Bernese Overland.

My husband promised to go out this evening, but is already back. I think he said something about wanting to watch the football match Switzerland v Luxembourg for the world cup qualifications, so guess what I will be doing this evening. See you all some time later this week.