The Bucket!

Maybe it's about time we started listening to those homeless loonies shouting on megaphones about how "The End" is supposedly near and how "All ye sinners should repent!!". Apparently, the world's ending soon and I didn't even have a clue that it's about already about to blow up. Well, it seems that no one (at least among the people I've encountered today) actually has a clue of the upcoming doomsday.

Earlier today I asked around some classmates to see if anyone has ever heard of something called the LHC, and the most I got were arched eyebrows , quizzical eyes, and mouths half-agape with "Huh?". Someone did give a slightly more verbose reply "Light Harvesting Complex?", but that's beside the point. Well to be fair, if asked the same question a day ago, I would've probably just shrugged off the question as just another joke if I ever gave a damn.

I just got the heads up yesterday from someone's twit, and I found it strange that it didn't appear on last night's news. Given that, it's no longer suprising why the LHC draws blanks on most people, myself included.

What is the LHC anyway? Through the ever so reliable source that is Wikipedia I learned that this is actually the Large Hadron Collider, a 27-km long particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland. Aside from the fact that it's the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, it's also been notorious for the concerns that have been raised regarding its safety. Okay to call safety concern an understatement seems like an understatement in itself, we're talking about Doomsday scenarios here.

According to some physicists, the high energy collisions that are scheduled using the LHC can lead to some pretty bizaare (again an understatement) events. On the forefront of these is the creation of strangelets, vacuum bubbles, and magnetic monopoles. I'm no physicist, but from what I understand, you just wouldn't like them present in our Earthly backyard. But the real danger they say is the possible formation of low velocity micro black holes. Now the scientists over at the LHC say that, if ever created, these would immediately be degraded by something called Hawking radiation. But then some point out that Hawking radiation is purely theoretical, and it's never been observed experimentally, so what would basically happen is that the black hole would get stuck in Earth's gravity and would just start sucking stuff up, and pretty soon the world as we know it would be gone.
Well, that sucks (no pun intended). It seems I won't be seeing some large fireworks (ala-LOST) at the end of the world as I've originally imagined it to be.

Anyway, the LHC has already circulated it's first laser beam yesterday. Doomsday (the first day of actual particle collisions) is set at October 21, meaning I've got a little over a month to savor our remaining days, and do all of the following before we all kick the bucket:

1. Take out a huge cash loan. No, make that the hugest( if that's even a word). A prerequisite I guess, for the following items.

2. Cliff dive. I've always dreamed of jumping freely off a cliff on a lazy sunny afternoon wearing nothing but my boxers.

3. Beat the world record for the world's highest sky dive. I'm not even sure if this is even remotely possible with money gotten off a loan here in the Philippines, even if granted the largest loan in Philippine History. So I'll hire a US shuttle to take me up the outer fringes of the earth's magnetosphere then drop me off 70000km from the ground. Oh, and before all that make a huge bet with someone rich as to whether I'll survive the fall or end up as a big splat on the ground.

4. Rain. So, if the above stunt doesn't exhaust my funds, I'll head over to Makati, climb up the rooftop of the nearest skyscraper and start throwing the remaining money off the side of the building. I'll probably start off with coins to test the myth that a coin dropped off a building can kill a person since the terminal velocity is supposedly something close to a bullet. People will start to crowd up at the sight of dead people on the street, and very likely trample the bodies once I begin raining down P1000 bills. All while watching the ensuing riot with binoculars.

5. But then what if the LHC scientists were right and the LHC is completely safe you say? Well then I'll just replicate Thích Quảng Đức, and set myself on fire in public. This would probably be my perfect end since I've always been a bit of a pyromaniac and have always pondered about self-immolation.