“The eyes of the world are on Geneva, where scientists are expected to throw the switch … on what may be the biggest experiment ever conducted. It’s certainly the most expensive. The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, has spent roughly $8 billion digging a 27-kilometer tunnel on the outskirts of the city and filling it with equipment that pushes the limits of technology …”

'Reading this Newsweek report (Sep 6, 2008, announced for Sep 15, 2008 issue) and thinking…

The governments of 20 European countries, plus the U.S., invest $8 billion to reproduce conditions just after the Big Bang… But “Big Bang” is a theory, one of many hypotheses of how the universe came to be. The fact that it is the most popular and best supported theory doesn’t prove it in any way.

The problem with theories is that we’re never sure of the results of their experimental checking. In his very optimistic interview to the Telegraph, Prof. Stephen Hawking, of the University of Cambridge, says: “Whatever the LHS finds or fails to find, the results will tell us a lot about the structure of the universe”. Thus, the scientists know that the experiment can fail. It happens in science. But does it happen in politics? In other words, should we all understand that governments of 21 countries paid $8 billion without being sure they didn’t throw such a huge sum away?'

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