Cross posted from Geoff Brumfiel at In the Field

It’s only a few days before the official “start up” of the LHC, and people everywhere are getting all excited. Unfortunately, a lot of that excitement is focused around a single, erroneous question: “Will the LHC destroy the world?”

The answer, of course, is no. Even the Sun, the silliest of British tabloids, knows that (although they do have some pretty good ideas about how to pass the end of days, think Super Mario Brothers).

Nevertheless, there’s a vocal and determined group of folks who are doing their best to convince the public that there really isn’t going to be a 11 September. Some of them will post shortly on this blog I’m sure, and fair enough; it’s a free world. But others are going too far. In the past few days, reports have come out that a few physicists at the LHC are recieving death threats from hardest of the fanatics.

Enough is enough. Leave your case to the courts and stop trying to scare the poor physicists.

Image: cern