Tesla Labs Say End of the World Not Immenent

Polk: Scientists at Tesla Research Labs hope to quash suggestions that a $350m experiment planned for the beginning of the year 2000 could cause the destruction of the Earth.

     Tesla Research Labs is located just outside the State Capital in Hopkins Grove, IA. This state of the art research facility conducts highly sensitive studies in areas not entirely sanctioned or even recognized by the United States Government or the general scientific community at large. It is funded wholly by independent grants and an anonymous patron rumored to be Hans Abbadon. The facility takes its name from the brilliant Nikola Tesla, American electrician and inventor, but administrators hasten to point out that the facility is in no way sanctioned by the Tesla Memorial Society.

     Among those currently posted there are its head, Dr. Leonid Rosenweitz, and his Deputy Scientist-in-Chief, Alex Cavallari. It was with Dr. Rowsenweitz himself that I discussed the testing of a new and controversial device and its part in the upcoming experiment.

     "There is no chance of our little atom-smashing experiment causing a disaster, such as a blackhole that would devour the entire Earth." Rosenweitz stated through a thick european accent which was difficult to identify.

     Researchers at Tesla have spent eight years constructing their Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Its goal is to smash the nuclei of atoms together and study their wreckage to determine the fundamental properties of matter. Huge magnets are needed to accelerate the particles. RHIC takes atoms of gold and swings them around two 3.8 kilometre (2.4 mile) circular tubes where powerful magnets accelerate them to almost the speed of light. When they collide, they do so in minute collisions that are 10,000 times hotter than the Sun. Tesla scientists hope to create a quark-gluon plasma, a fundamental state of matter that probably has not existed naturally in the Universe since the Big Bang. When asked for further clarification on the potential for this work to rip the world apart and utterly destroy life on our fragile planet Rosenweitz simply smiled and sucked on his pipe, blowing a large cloud of oddly scented smoke toward the ceiling fan.

     "Armageddon? Is that what you are thinking we are making here, some sort of Doomsday Device? We hear that sort of thing everytime we make a public announcement about one of our little projects."

     I reminded him that the public announcement had followed a leak of information with a confidential memo signed by him stating that "no public scrutiny should be allowed to hinder this important step in the ascension of man to his original god-like status in the cosmos".

     "Well, we're rather isolated up here, you see, and sometimes we have a tendency to be a little dramatic in our memos--to keep each other entertained. Now you see why so few scientists are also comedians...I admit its not a very funny little joke, but a joke it is. Go ahead, laugh, it is a little bit silly, isn't it? Yes, I thought so. Have a little cookie, too." Try as I might, I couldn't help but like the fellow...but that damned pipe smoke was making me dizzy, and I devoured the cookie he held out a lot faster than I intended as well. I suddenly realized I was famished and had to fight the urge to go to the local Get n' Gone for snack food in order to complete the interview.

     Depsite Rosenweitz's cavalier attitude, my sources told me that such a device might not disintegrate the planet, but certainly posed a threat of creating a mini-black hole or a new form of particle with unknown properties that could expand and engulf the Earth. I told him so.

     "Yes, yes," He said dismissively, "I read the letters section of Scientific American , too, and I am unconcerned. For a mini black hole to become stable and grow into something really dangerous, something that could be drawn towards the centre of the Earth, where it could begin a process that might engulf the entire Earth within minutes would require very specific circumstances we have no intention of allowing to exist in this highly controlled experiment. This sort of thing is too far-fetched when you recognize that we are all responsible scientists."

     Meanwhile, state environmental groups and watchdog organizations continue to plan demonstrations against the use of the device, and contend that while the experiment may have controlled conditions, the sale of the technology once proven will make the possibility of someone less responsible than Tesla scientists getting ahold of it too dangerous to consider. Already protestors are picketing Tesla Labs carrying signs which read: "Don't make Iowa the home of the next supernova!" "Remember Black Eleven!" and "Keep your science off my atoms!"

     Experts say their fears, are baseless. What do you think?