More posting of old material

Sorry guys. Bored in class, so I'm going through my Google docs and posting a blog entry.

Enjoy! (and stop me if you've heard this one before)

"Of course it's harmless. Just think of it as a large microwave." The tour guide beamed like a newscaster.

"I heard this thing can cause the end of the world and blow everything up!" A man wearing a shirt emblazoned with the words "These Colors Don't Run" bellowed loudly.

"And if in large enough amounts, doesn't microwave radiation cause cancer?" A woman chimed in, clutching her hyperactive, candy-scarfing children even closer to her as they struggled.

It was just another day at the Hadron Collider facility in Geneva, Switzerland.

"All right, perhaps a large microwave is a bad comparison." Unfazed, the tour guide continued. "But in all seriousness, the experiments done here are done under numerous controls and fail safes. Not to mention that such collisions of subatomic particles occur in the universe naturally."

It was amazing what one often-misquoted passage from a book could do to hamper scientific progress. What made it worse was to make up for the pulled funding due to all the public panic, the researchers had to make up for it by running guided tours of the facility. Next, for all they knew, they would be shut down for turning a supposed doomsday device into a theme park.

"You mean like the big bang?" Someone's kid said. "This thing can really blow up the entire universe?"

"Actually, no, the big bang is what created the universe."

Before the tour guide could further explain, the kid interrupted. "Well, my parents tell me that God created the universe."

The tour guide was tempted to ask the kid why they were even here, as this was a scientific research facility and his family seemed to prefer believing in magic.

"That's right, you tell 'em son!" The tour guide didn't even need to look up to recognize the voice of the "These Colors Don't Run" t-shirt guy.

Granted, she could have launched into an introductory course in physics, but chose not to. Even though she was qualified, went to university and got a degree in physics, all she could do is smile and read from the script ever-emblazoned in her mind.

"I believe the best example would be as one of our researchers put it." She said. "Even if a collision of two protons -- positively charged sub-atomic particles -- occurred, any potential black hole resulting would be smaller than any known to astrophysicists."

"You mean to say that this thing can result in black holes! Those just eat up everything around them and get bigger, right?" Once again, it didn't take much deduction to figure out where that comment came from.

You fail physics forever. This was what our tour guide wanted to say. Still, that would only prove the smug sense of esoteric elitism lurking in academia. That would definitely not increase tours or awareness about the fact that the hadron collider is not a doomsday device.

Instead, our tour guide continued walking backwards and smiling, albeit while distracted in her thoughts. There was something that she seemed to be forgetting. What was it?

The good news was that the other tourists did not seem to be feeding into the panic line of questioning. So that was a plus.

"As I was saying earlier--"

The murmuring suggested that perhaps panic was not completely off the menu for today. When she turned around, she saw several technicians incapacitated on the floor.

This wasn't good.

"Stop! If you reverse the polarity of the--" A smartly-dressed man shouted, struggling to stand up from the kneeling position in which he had been tied.

"Shut up! I've had enough of you giving me long-winded explanations of why what I'm about to do is horribly wrong and will result in the death of everything as we know it!" A young woman in puzzling attire fiddled with the knobs and entered in a series of frenzied keystrokes.

The display lit up like Guy Fawkes on November 5.

This was really not good.

"Ah ha! The terrorists have taken over! I told you this was a threat!" The loudmouth from the tour group shouted.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to be quiet." The tour guide looked to see if there was anyone else with the young woman.

"Be quiet? I--"

There was simply no time to be civil about this. The tour guide whipped out a small pistol from her coat pocket and shot the man.

"Frank!" The woman next to him wailed, falling to her knees beside him. "You crazy bitch! What have you done?"

"Relax, it's only a tranquilizer." She tucked the gun back into her pocket and cautiously started approaching the controls. "And please, Madam, watch your language. There's kids about."

"You there, help me out of these ties! I have to stop her! I have to--"

"Shut up." She said and ran past the bound man.

Huffing and puffing along the way, she caught up to where the young woman had run. It was basically a large circular corridor, a doughnut made of steel and concrete and intricately calibrated instruments.

"You!" She pointed a finger to little effect. The young woman continued... whatever it was she was doing with all those wires and gadgets.

"I apologize for the inconvenience, and for incapacitating your team... not so much for the investigator charged with tracking me... but I really don't have time for much more of these pleasantries. I just want to go home." The young woman prattled hurriedly.

"Well, I suppose I'm not exactly in a position to stop you, what with me being a lowly research assistant tasked with tour hosting." She shrugged. "Nonetheless, by the authority of this research facility as well as the international scientific community, I am going to have to ask you to leave, especially if what you are going to do will endanger the population in any way."

"Oh, I'll be fine. Thanks for asking though." The young woman took out a soldering iron and continued fiddling about. "It'll just be a moment and then..."

"Then what? You're going to blow up the universe?" The tour guide seized the soldering iron from the girl's hand. It seemed to be one of those neat ones that cooled on contact with non-metals like skin and heated up on contact with metal.

The girl rolled her eyes. "Trust me, I know what I'm doing... now kindly, get out of my way."

For someone her size, the kid packed a mean right cross. The tour guide knew, if only because she used help her father train her younger brothers in boxing. She didn't have much time to reflect on it, however, as her view grew dark before she even hit the floor.

"Crap!" She sat up with a start, immediately wincing in pain and clutching her head in her hands.

After a moment's realization, she realized that the fact that she was in pain meant that she was still alive and that the universe had not exploded or collapsed in on itself. Maybe the girl managed to get home after all.

Had everything worked out all right?

"See, I told ya. This thing's a danger to the general public. Oughta be shut down..." The tour group materialized in front of her muddled vision.

Maybe the universe was better off imploded.

"No worries!" She stood up, flashing a beaming grin. "This was all just part of the tour. Now see, the universe is just fine. Now let's get back to the main room for some coffee and doughnuts."

This seemed to appease everyone, including the hyperactive sugar monster children.