NAKED CITY: FIRE UP THE HADRON – THE END IS NIGH!
It was arguably the most important scientific discovery of the century – one that will almost certainly have enormous consequences and benefits for the future of mankind. Nevertheless it failed to grab the headline spot on any of our nightly news bulletins and was treated more as a quirky novelty item than a bone-shaking breakthrough. Even the endangered Sydney Morning Herald chose the State of Origin result as its headline story giving a footy game priority over our whole understanding of the beginning of time.
We are talking of course about last Wednesday’s announcement that scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland had isolated the Higgs boson or so called ‘God particle’ – the theoretical particle that could be the key to the scientific understanding of all matter. Ho hum you might say, particle physics doesn’t give me a ‘hadron’ and it’s all too much for the layman to absorb.
But what an opportunity was missed. If the media had given last Wednesday’s announcement the kind of saturation build-up it gave State of Origin we are sure Sydneysiders would have responded accordingly. ‘Hats off to the Hadron’ would have been the theme for parties all over town with thousands gathered at Circular Quay to watch the announcement on a giant video screen. The footy would have taken a backseat as the real ‘State of Origin’ was celebrated with Professor Peter Higgs as man of the match and Stephen Hawking providing sideline comments. And the Lord Mayor Clover Moore would surely have hosted a VIP cocktail party to greet the announcement inside the Rotor at Luna Park with A-list guests sucked precariously to its sides as the old amusement park ride was cranked to a rapidity approaching the speed of sound.
Overshadowed by the current publicity given the Higgs boson discovery is the continued opposition to the Hadron Collider from groups such as Citizens Against The Large Hadron Collider and a small group of physicists who claim the gadget is unsafe and might even generate a massive black hole. If that’s the case it would certainly be one way of solving our garbage disposal problems and ridding the world of nuclear waste not to mention the entire Kardashian dynasty.
As predicted by the Mayan calendar, the end of the world (as we know it) is scheduled for later this year and maybe that’s the time to put the Large Hadron into turbo charged overdrive. If we are not all sucked down an enormous black hole, the Collider might generate another Big Bang and the whole goddamn mess will start all over again!
THE HIT LIST: Look out for an astonishing night of music and visuals, a veritable big bang of artistic endeavour this coming Saturday 14 July as part of the Sound Series at the AV Union at 365 Parramatta Road, Leichhardt. It’s a drug free trip when the mercurial Alex White on AV synthesizers combines with James Brown with his remarkable animation and synesthesia and the equally amazing Circlepath featuring Harriet Birks and Nick Deacon using vocals and midi guitars to generate realtime 3D shapes. Check out all the details at: www.facebook.com/avunion
