🚀 go-pugleaf

On destabilizing the vacuum:

Excerpts from netnews.sci.physics: 5-Nov-92 Re: Scientists Plan to
Blow.. Mcirvin@husc8.harvard.ed (1323)

> I once opined to Eric Carlson that this was an idea that had been
> insufficiently exploited in science fiction.  He pointed out to
> me that "it would be a very short novel."

It has been done (and yes, it was a short story.  :-) In _Analog_,
several years ago. (No, I can't remember a title or author.) I'll
summarize it, because it also touches on another favorite sci.physics
topic...

Scientists build superduperlooper collider. But every time they try to
start it up, it fails. Not strange inexplicable failure; it's always
some 27-cent transistor, or a computer crashed, or a wire shorted out.
This has happened dozens of times. No pattern. The probability of all
these failures happening by chance is infinitesmal. Scientists going
crazy, suspect sabotage.

Finally someone figures out that the collision events would destabilize
the vacuum and destroy the universe. Thus, they have *experimentally*
validated the multiple-worlds interpretation of QM -- they (the people
watching the failures) must be in one of the few remaining un-fried
universes! 

Perhaps silly, but I liked it.

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."