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Published online 2 May 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.797
Column: Muse
Of myths and men
Worries about an apocalypse unleashed by particle accelerators are not new, says Philip Ball. They have their source in old myths, which are hard to dispel.
When physicists dismiss as a myth the charge that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will trigger a process that might destroy the world, they are closer to the truth than they realize.
In common parlance, a myth has come to denote a story that isn’t true, but in fact it is a story that is 'psychologically true'.
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