Why Would Anyone Want A Large Hadron Collider At Home? Because.

PLHCs need not be standalone devices. They could integrate with current technologies to supplement their functionality.

So how many of you heard about the recently activated Large Hadron Collider and immediately thought, "I want one"?

Come on. It's all right. Don't be shy. You know what, how about everyone closes their eyes and raises their hand if they wanted a Large Hadron Collider? I'll count the hands, but I won't say who raised them, just so nobody gets embarassed.

Nobody? Am I the only one? I don't believe any of you. How could you look at this thing and not immediately want to have your very own? Fine, you guys don't think you want to have a Large Hadron Collider in your backyard? Well, guess what? You do now.

The Large Hadron Collider may seem like a tool for advanced science experiments. It may seem like it's only useful to people who went to school for 10 years and know more about physics, chemistry, and mathematics than any average person could ever hope to. Well, I want to take you back to the 1950s for a bit. Or even the 60s or 70s. The situation was exactly the same. How could it be, you ask? The Large Hadron Collider wasn't even conceived of until 1984! Well, my friends, it was exactly the same situation, except instead of the Large Hadron Collider, we had something called the computer.

But everyone can see why a computer is useful, Zack! They're everywhere, they're ubiquitous, they store our knowledge and our memories, manipulate different pieces of things, and entertain us! In fact, you're using a computer to type this right now!

Of course, Ageless, Faceless, Gender Neutral, Culturally Ambiguous Internet Person (I'll just call you AFGNCAIP for short), I know that, and you know that, we all know that. But how many people back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s looked at these gigantic supercomputers and thought they'd be useful for everyone in the world? How many people back then believed they could possibly do anything besides mathematical mumbo-jumbo or science experiments, and that the general public could be made aware of how to use them? Very few, you'll find. And when those people spoke up, top scientists and mathematicians had no idea why anyone would want a computer at home. Decades later, it's all too evident. We have computers at home, in our backpacks, in our pockets, in our schools, workplaces, and maybe someday inside our heads.

But the Large Hadron Collider is different! It's 27 kilometers in diameter, and that's just one component of it! Sure, it's huge, and much larger than the aptly named 8 foot tall Colossus computers used by the British in World War II, but if we can build a tiny cellphone that's lightyears faster than that 8 foot tall "supercomputer" of old, then how is it such a stretch to take a 27 kilometer bowl and shrink it down to something that could fit on a desk, and make it even better?

It's inevitable that one day, perhaps in a hundred years but more likely, considering how fast technology advances, in 20, every man, woman, and child will be very experienced with personal large hadron colliding. There will be a short period of time when the first personal large hadron colliders come in mail-order kits that cost $666.66, and you have to build them yourself, which requires you to be proficient with both a soldering iron and a nuclear fission reactor. The teenagers and young adults who have their very own large hadron colliders sitting on their desks will experiment with them, and jump for joy when they figure out how to get lithium ions to spell out "Hello World" for a nanosecond, but when they show it to their family and friends they will be met with misinformed confusion regarding the labor required for such an act. But those who are not discouraged by their status as social outcasts and neo-geeks will press on, and someday they will make these personal large hadron colliders better, faster, and easier to use. Years later, the other children who passed these geniuses off as nerds will freak out because they left their pocket large hadron collider at their ex's house and it would be sooooo totally awkward to go back and get it.

Now, this is all well and good, but I'm sure you're wondering why. Why will we all have our own large hadron collider someday, and why will we be unable to live without it? That's something I can't tell you. However, if you asked a computer science in the 1950s where computers would be in the year 2008, they would probably say nothing that sounded anything like the Internet. Nobody can precisely predict what radical new things will exist in the future, but there is one thing that is always true: whenever scientists build something awesome, everyone else needs one. They just won't know how much they need it until they leave it in their pants pocket, do their laundry, and discover that their large hadron collider got fried.

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