By Finlo Rohrer
BBC News Magazine
A huge particle accelerator experiment is about to start and a tiny group of people believe it could spell the end of the world. But why are we so obsessed with the possibility of apocalypse?
The world will end. That much is a certainty. But it may not be soon. And in all probability it will not come to a shuddering, fiery, boiling, cataclysmic end on Wednesday this week.
That is when the Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss/French border has its first full beam. The collider is a giant particle accelerator which, by smashing one particle into another, will tell us amazing things about the birth of the universe, scientists hope.
But there are a small but significant group of naysayers who worry that the LHC is not 100% safe. Opponents say it is possible the collider could produce micro black holes and dangerous "strangelets", and that catastrophic effects from these cannot be ruled out.
In this worst case scenario the earth could very well have had its chips.
However, the consensus of physicists is that the collider is perfectly harmless. Micro black holes would vanish almost instantaneously.
But when you see a headline in a newspaper that says "Are we all going to die next Wednesday?", one can't help but wonder at our fascination with the idea of the end of the world.
Whether you refer to it as eschatology (religious theory of the end of the world), millenarianism, end time belief, apocalypticism, or disaster scenario, it is one of humanity's most powerful ideas, and it goes way back.
"It is a very ancient pattern in human thought. It is rooted in ancient, even pre-biblical Middle Eastern myths of ultimate chaos and ultimate struggle between the forces of order and chaos," says cultural historian Paul S Boyer, author of When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture.
"It is deeply appealing at a psychological level because the idea of meaninglessness is deeply threatening. Human societies have always tried to create some kind of framework of meaning to give history and our own personal lives some kind of significance."
And although end of the world thinking crops up in many religions, those in the West are probably most aware of Christian eschatology. In the early days of the church it was taken as a given by many believers that the Second Coming and the end of the world were imminent.
Mainstream Christianity moved away from this type of thought, but large numbers of believers returned to it at various times.
"It isn't just the lunatic fringe, it's an integral part of all Christianity. But [in mainstream Christianity] it is put into perspective that it may happen 'one day'," says Stephen J Hunt, a sociologist of religion and author of Christian Millenarianism: From the Early Church to
"But certain groups and movements believe it is in their generation. They are saying we have got the truth and nobody else has."
Cataclysmic scenarios
There have been many groups that have predicted the end of the world, or Tribulation, or Rapture, dealt with it not coming to pass and then issued new ones.
Jehovah's Witnesses have issued predictions about cataclysmic scenarios that have manifestly failed to come to pass, only ceasing predictions of the end in recent years. Failed predictions seem not to have alienated core believers. Indeed, it is denied by some that specific predictions - as opposed to speculation based on scripture - have ever been made.
No such luck applied to the 19th Century Millerite sect, led by William Miller. He didn't just predict the end would be soon. He nailed the day - 22 October 1844. As the day neared the sect's popularity snowballed, with thousands of newspapers sold. Only one thing was able to derail the movement's popularity - the safe and unexpected arrival of 23 October 1844. The failure of the world to end was known as the "Great Disappointment" and followers left in droves.
"The current prophecy popularisers are much shrewder," says Prof Boyer. "They say no man knoweth the day or the hour, but it's coming soon."
Carlos Roa thought he kneweth the hour. The Argentinian goalkeeper, best known for his penalty heroics against
And for all it is easy to mock those who have tried and failed, thinking about the ways the world might end, or the timing, may be fulfilling a basic human need.
"It comes down to an issue of power," says Michael Molcher, editor of the magazine The End is Nigh. "What you get during times of particular discontent or war or famine or during general bad times is a rise in apocalyptic preaching and ideas.
"It is a way for people to control the way their world works. The one thing we can never predict is the time and manner of our own deaths."
The great periods of millenarianism - Europe around the year 1000, the English Civil War, the Industrial Revolution on both sides of the
"A lot of fundamentalists are what we call 'sign watching'. If there's another tornado in
Sometimes the links to the temporal world can be tortuous to say the least. A common theme on the fringes of Christian millenarianism is a revived
It was historically linked to the EU, but now there are 27 members attention has shifted to the 10-nation Western European Union.
And these end times beliefs seem easily to find their way into popular culture. The Left Behind series of novels have sold millions and cinema-goers have happily trooped in to see three instalments of the Omen.
But it is wrong to say that belief that the world could be about to end is entirely confined to religious people. When the Cold War was going on, the likely culprit was nuclear weapons, at the moment it might be a catastrophic climate change scenario that leaves the world intact, but humanity gone. And Mr Molcher's favourite prediction of recent years involved a woman who was convinced that Chinese plans to build a base on the moon would throw its orbit out and send it hurtling towards earth.
And end of the world believers, whether religious or not, have one thing going for them. The world will, one day, end.
And there are still plenty willing to name a date.
Preacher Ronald Weinland's book 2008 - God's Final Witness, predicts that the US will be destroyed within two years.
Sadly anybody wanting to find out more by e-mail receives an automated response. One can only assume he is too busy preparing for the end that is nigh.
THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER
- At Cern on French-Swiss border
- One of biggest and most expensive experiments in human history
- Critics say micro black holes could be created, that could swallow the earth
- Cern says any black holes will evaporate quickly and harmlessly
- Effects will be less than cosmic ray collisions in atmosphere
- LHC collisions could shed light on creation of universe
- First beam on Wednesday
- First collision later in year
- Action ongoing at European Court of Human Rights to stop experiments
- LHC Kritiks lead opposition
FAILED PREDICTIONS
- Jehovah's Witnesses have predicted end several times, but have stopped
- Millerites predicted end of world for 22 October 1844 - day known to followers as Great Disappointment
- Edgar C Whisenant wrote 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988 - followed up with predictions for 1989, 1993, and 1994
- Argentinian goalie Carlos Roa gave up football in anticipation of end of world in 2000
- Hal Lindsey in 1970's The Late, Great Planet Earth linked end of world to the EU
RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR
"End of world" concepts include:
- Destruction of planet
- Extinction of human race
- Significant change in situation of human race
Secular scenarios include:
- Catastrophic climate change
- Asteroid or comet strike
- Massive nuclear war
- Destabilisation of earth or moon orbit
Religious scenarios include:
- Islam refers to "last judgement"
- Some Buddhists believe in disappearance of Buddha's teachings
- Christian end of world linked to second coming of Jesus
- Hindus believe in cycle of ages
- Zoroastrians may have had first codified end of world theory
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