Current Events: The Apocalypse Happened Last Night

So around 2am CST on Wednesday, September 10, 2008, I was sleeping. But unbeknownst to me (and probably you too) at that time, one of the most significant creations in all of Science was turned on.

Now if you don't know what I am talking about, here is a brief background. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the largest particle accelerator every built. It has taken over 14 years with the help of approximately 2300 scientists to build it, and it is located in a tunnel under the Swiss Alps at a total length of 17 miles. So now you are asking yourself; Why is this significant?

Well, it is significant to me because first and foremost I am a Creationist. This thing is suppose to prove the Big Bang Theory, and hopefully find the "God Particle." So, naturally, I am interested in its inevitable failure. Secondly, this is my blog, and I do what I please.

But thirdly, and this is the most fascinating, is that literally thousands of people thought the world was going to end when the LHC was turned on. Some people thought that it would create a black hole that would engulf the Earth followed by the rest of the Milky Way. Others thought it would cause massive earthquakes, volcanoes, and hurricanes that would simultaneously destroy the earth and immerse us all in flames. And still others thought we would all just vanish in one, tiny blip.

Now, of course the scientists close to the project all thought those to be ludacris ideas. Yet, even though they were still not sure what would happen, they risked the lives of 6.5 billion and people flipped the switch anyway. Think about that for a moment.

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So, were our lives in danger? Maybe, maybe not. But what this really got me thinking about were my favorite Apocalyptic Movies. Especially the ones that include battles where we (me, you, and the general public) have no idea that our lives were ever at stake in the first place. My top 5 are as follows:



5. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Apocalyptic you say? Well, just here me out. The reason I chose this particular title has to do with the actual Fellowship entrusted to care for the Ring until they are able to destroy it at Mount Doom. There are some major factions of the world that are involved in this plot, on both sides. But there are only 5 hobbits that know anything about it. The rest of Hobbiton is oblivious to the fact that each and every day they wake up, their lives are in the hands of a few of their neighbors that just seem to have gone on a very long vacation.



4. Terminator 2: Judgment Day

We are all screwed, we just don't know it yet. But the Connors still try their hardest anyway. Other than a couple of news reports about some liquid metal guy fighting in the mall, the world will never know about the apocalyptic future until it becomes the present.



3. Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Sometimes I feel like this scenario plays out every day. It's probably just not as funny.



2. The Fifth Element

Awesomeness abounds as Bruce Willis uses the Fifth Element for his own personal pleasure before sacrificing her to save all of mankind. While we were all vacationing on intergalactic cruise ships, it was only Bruce, a couple of priests, the military, aliens that looked like a fat General Grievous, and a dark evil ball that knew anything about what was going on.



1. The Matrix Trilogy

If you weren't "really human," you didn't know anything in this movie. All you knew is that you would wake up in random places, either the street or Heaven, because some agent took you over and went to battle The One. Or you were just driving down the freeway one day and saw people jumping off of bridges onto moving cars, or agents hopping from cars to cars at 100mph, or the biggest explosion ever between two crashed head-to-head semis. Either way, if you were plugged in, you were clueless. I am sure that even after Smith took us all over and then was subsequently vanquished by Neo's awesome internal anti-virus software, we still did not know anything about pithy little truces.

Well, there you have it. Maybe my next near death experience will bring about another cool list. Hopefully it will have to do with mystical creatures like unicorns or cute, killer bunny rabbits. Ah, one can dream.