So after all, the world did not come to an end.

At a cost of $9 billion spent over 25 years punctuated by delays and repairs, the largest machine ever built is up and running, and smashing both particles and records.
According to 'Information Week' researchers: Cern's Large Hadron Collider set a record last week by smashing two protons together in a head-on collision and releasing 7 trillion electronic volts (7 TeV) of energy -- three times more than the previous record.

A cutaway illustration of The Cern LHC

Researchers hope to use the LHC to test the Big Bang theory and other theories about the origins of matter, mass, and the universe. The idea is to recreate events similar to those believed to have occurred when the universe formed 4.54 billion years ago, and to study the data for clues to the origin of the universe.

Naturally there were those trying to bring a halt to this work, because they believed that experimenting with these forces of nature might somehow cause another big bang which would cause the end of the world, or perhaps the universe.

There have been many others who have forecast the end of the world, and the most frequently quoted, or rather misquoted is Nostradamus.

In fact I have read that there are countless sites stating that Nostradamus "predicted" that the end of the world would occur in 2012. I have also been given to understand that this is nonsense, written by people who are simply copy-pasting what others have said, without ever having themselves read the prophecies of the medieval prophet himself. Actually Nostradamus predicted events up to the year 3797 in a book published centuries ago... Why should he have written and published all these prophecies from the 16th century to 3797, if he knew - according to his "lost book" - that the world would end in 2012?

Oh my what a relief that is... a great weight has been finally been lifted from my mind. Perhaps I should now look to the Mayan or Gregorian calendars for further reassurance. On second thought, perhaps not... I'd really rather not be forewarned that the end is nigh.