Ask the Large Hadron Collider

Last night the YTP Spouse posed an interesting question: if the Large Hadron Collider is, indeed, being plagued by time traveling forces that dislike what it is trying to do – a situation that some notable physicists suggest proves the existence of God – could you not begin running experimental questions against those forces? Put another way, it would be kind of a “Ask the Magic Eightball” for existential questions of universal import, only in this instance, we would ask the Large Hadron Collider.

As ridiculous as this sounds, most everything in physics sounds ridiculous when you really think about it, and especially when you first think about it. String theory. Granular solids as a form of matter distinct from regular solids. Quantum mechanics. Non-linear wave theory. All of them sound a bit ludicrous when first defined, until they are proved.

YTP Spouse’s idea is actually quite practical: if you can’t get the Large Hadron Collider to make the Higgs boson particle (the “God” particle, as it is often called), then use the Large Hadron Collider in a systematic, scientific manner to ask the God particle – traveling back in time to deliver its answers – various questions in the form of experimentation.

Not only would this be just as interesting as actually making Higgs boson, if not more so, it would certainly salvage the nine billion dollars spent on the LHC so far and put those dollars to use.