James Griffin: Is the Large Hadron Collider even a good idea?

I think my brain is full.

Seriously, I think all my synapses, or whatever my brain uses to store information, have been used up. Thankfully, I have managed to tuck away pretty much everything I need to continue as a functioning human being, but anything else over and above that, sorry but there is now no more room at the inn.

The reason my brain stopped accepting new information is because they re-started the bigger, better, new, improved and more powerful Large Hadron Collider and, like a fool, I tried to understand the need for the new mega-Collider and just what mysteries of the universe the mole physicists buried under the French-Swiss border are trying to uncover with their giant ring-thing.

I could feel my brain starting to pull down the shades when I started to read about "multi-verses" and "rainbow gravity" and "quantum effect" but the clincher, for me, was when I twigged to the idea that what the mole geeks are trying to do is to open up tiny little black holes to see if there are universes parallel to our own. Now while the idea of parallel universes is kinda cool in a mind-blowing way, I and my brain have seen enough episodes of Doctor Who to know that black holes, as their name implies, are not good things. So what actually filled my brain to the brim and caused its current overload state was my attempt to answer my own big question: how the hell is this even a good idea?

What if they do open a tiny black hole but the black hole isn't happy being a tiny black hole and instead wants to become a massive black hole that drags France and Switzerland then the rest of us into oblivion? Is there an off switch on the Large Hadron Collider that prevents this from happening?

My guess is not, because the scientists at CERN freely admit they are dealing with stuff they know very little about - which is why they are doing it in the first place. Take "dark matter" for example, which is an awesome name for a TV series, but is actually something no one has ever seen but which apparently makes up 84.5 per cent of the universe. The very name alone implies it is not something to be messed with. Is it called fluffy matter? No it is not, it is dark and generally dark things are best left alone and not prodded with a giant particle-accelerating stick.

But, best-case scenario, what if the dark matter doesn't rise up like something from a Stephen King novel (one of the good ones) and destroy us all, what then? What if we open one of these black holes and we look into it and there is another parallel universe there, with parallel beings looking back at us? Then what? My best guess is that we, collectively, as a planet, will freak the hell out. Then, because this is the nature of humans in our universe, we will probably feel threatened by it and treat it like it is our enemy and before long we will be at war with it. What is wrong with our universe? Isn't one infinite, timeless thing we don't understand enough for us?

And, worst case scenario, if there are, in fact, infinite parallel universes and Paul Henry is, as according to the ads, everywhere - does this then mean there are actually infinite Paul Henrys? That is not a comforting thought. And what if a Paul Henry from one universe meets a Paul Henry from another universe? Will the bringing together of two gigantic super-egos lead to such an implosion of self-love that a black hole much blacker than any previous black hole will be created and everything from every universe will be sucked into this black hole until only Paul Henry exists, everywhere.

If we can contemplate a universe where there are infinite Paul Henrys, then we can extrapolate from this that surely there must also be infinite Mike Hoskings but no John Campbells, which thus means that the physicists at CERN, through their tinkering with the universe, will have created a black hole in the human psyche where there is only dark matter and light cannot escape; therefore evil triumphs and good cannot exist.

This was when my brain decided it had assimilated enough information for one lifetime and shut down.

And all that was left, in the silence, was an image of the smug, moonlike face of Paul Henry, grinning like a loon, saying, "I told you I'd be everywhere."

Scientists of CERN, please think again before pushing the on button, for even you with your brain way more giant than mine cannot comprehend the horror you might unleash.