Particle Collider Prompts Doomsday Suit

A particle smasher in Switzerland could suck up Earth and possibly the whole universe, a US lawsuit claims. The suit warns that the $8 billion Large Hadron Collider near Geneva could spark a matter-sucking black hole or a "strangelet" that turns our planet into "strange matter." But one Princeton scientist dismisses the claim, saying the Collider is as likely to "make dragons that might eat us up," the New York Times reports.

Walter Wagner and Luis Sancho, who filed the suit, warn that the project should be shut down pending a safety review; Wagner calls past reviews "propaganda." But scientists behind the Collider say a Hawaiian court has no jurisdiction over their work. One theorist admits that an Earth-eating black hole is possible, but is “too serious a threat to leave as a matter of argument among crackpots." (More physics stories.)