Does "Halo" make you think science or shootout?

September 26, 2008 | 4:33 pm

OK. I agree the name Large Hadron Collider lacks sex appeal or the ability to turn into a catchy acronym, but boring may be preferable to linking the world’s largest science experiment to violence and the military. 

In a poll organized by the Royal Society of Chemistry in London and reported in the Telegraph, people voted to rename the LHC as Halo. According to the RSC, “Halo conjures visions of radiant beauty, power and wisdom. The circle of light reflects the collider’s form; it is a crowning achievement of science and engineering. It also gives more than a nod to the experiment’s importance to religious debate.”

Maybe in Europe. But in the United States, at least, Halo conjures up images of adolescents and short-attention-span adults wasting hours playing a first-person shooter video game while linked to other gamers across the globe via the Internet and a headset.

Death and destruction, even if just in a virtual world, doesn’t seem like something one would want associated with non-military basic research, period, especially in light of the black-hole-devouring-the-world lawsuits.

You can get an idea of how the game works by viewing these trailers.

Tona Kunz
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