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Conspiracy Theorists Are Losing Their Minds About CERN’s Big Shut Down

VICE asked CERN’s scientists how likely their work is to open up a portal to hell, time-traveling aliens, or alternative dimensions.

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Global warming, the slow creep towards World War III, the natural world being chewed up to feed our ever-deepening dependence on AI—there are already plenty of reasons to feel like Earth is on the cusp of irreversible catastrophe. And, as if that weren’t already enough, CERN is today being switched off for its third long shutdown, a process that will take four years. Predictably, many people are seriously freaked out about it. 

The thousands of scientists who work there claim this vital maintenance will allow them to unlock more of the universe’s secrets and in doing so answer some of the biggest questions we have about matter, energy, and existence. However, if certain pockets of the internet are to be believed, it will also allow them to pry open portals to other dimensions, merge our timeline with parallel universes, summon demonic entities, and generally cause limitless chaos.

CERN—officially the European Organization for Nuclear Research—is the world’s largest particle physics lab, based near Geneva on Swiss-French border. At the heart of CERN’s sprawling campus is the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC: a 27km underground ring where beams of protons are fired in opposite directions at close to the speed of light before being smashed together. Scientists then study the debris from those collisions to better understand the particles and forces that make up the universe. One of the most feared outcomes of these experiments is that scientists will open up—inadvertently or otherwise—a black hole or doorway to another dimension, allowing evil forces to invade our realm.

“Unfortunately, the phrase ‘black hole’ fueled a lot of conspiracy theories”

“Unfortunately, the phrase ‘black hole’ fueled a lot of conspiracy theories”

So, who’s right? The smartest scientists on Earth, or some people on the internet?

VICE put some of these concerns to Steven Goldfarb, an experimental particle physicist working for the University of Melbourne on the ATLAS Experiment at CERN. He told us that, theoretically, it would be possible to create a black hole—but it would only last 0.000000000000000000000000001 of a second. Furthermore, rather than being used as a doorway to let in aliens, werewolves, or doppelgangers (any of whom would need to be quick), any man-made black hole would be aiming to get to the bottom of the gravity conundrum that has plagued scientists for centuries.

He said: “We have limited understanding of gravity compared with other forces. One idea was that there could be extra spatial dimensions where gravity operates, while we, as electromagnetic beings, simply don’t notice them.

“Before the LHC was switched on, some theorists suggested that if it reached high enough energies, it might give........

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