brave new cosmos

Columnist

Thursday 21 February 2013

Latest news from the Large Hadron Collider is that we are all doomed.

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Tom Shields on …

Doomed, I tell you. Doomed.

The scientists who worked away studying particles whizzing round in that big £6 billion hole in Switzerland tell us the cosmos is "inherently unstable". I have long suspected this to be the case. Only last week in the queue at the Post Office I heard an auld biddy say to her pal: "I don't know what this cosmos is coming to."

Next time I see this auld biddy I can explain the problem is the cosmos is suffering from a wee touch of vacuum instability. Dr Joseph Lykken of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Geneva explains further: "What happens is you get just a quantum fluctuation that makes a tiny bubble of the vacuum the universe really wants to be in. And because it's a lower-energy state, this bubble will then expand, basically at the speed of light, and sweep everything before it." Basically, a whole new universe will open up and replace the existing one. It's inevitable, like when a woman gets the living room wallpapered and buys a new three-piece suite when no makeover was necessary.I wouldn't be surprised if Glasgow City Council has already granted planning permission for blocks of flats to be built on our bit of the old cosmos with remaining green areas covered over in red tarmac. We'll be decanted to a parallel universe during refurbishment. It's part of Glasgow's ambitious plan to regain its title as the second city of the cosmos.The scientists are working out when the world as know it will end. Apparently it depends on the mass of the Higgs boson particle.It could be billions of years hence. (Or the day after Scotland votes Yes for independence, according to the Better Together campaign.)I think it's best to be prepared. My advice is take time off work to get your affairs in order. Have an affair with the barmaid from the Dog and Duck before it's too late.Spend every penny of your ISAs. Max the credit card. Go on a cruise. Take the weans to Camp Nou in Barcelona to see Lionel Messi play. Give the wife a wedge of cash for a new sofa and some rolls of the finest wallpaper money can buy.

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