By now, you’ve probably heard what mischief the Swiss are up to these days. They have built the world’s most powerful atom-smasher, currently in its early testing phase to begin a study of the building blocks of the universe.

We’re talking an investigation of dark matter, extra dimensions, string theory, subatomic particles, and even the ever elusive Higgs boson. (If you’re curious what that is, it’s a hypothetical massive scalar elementary particle - just wanted to clear that up). Call me cautious, but when a country can’t even make cheese without holes in it, I’m worried what’s going to happen when they flip this baby on to full power, later this year.

Seems there is a chance that this machine (known as the Large Hadron Collider - as opposed to the Small Hadron Colliders available through mail-order from Lands End) could malfunction just a tad. So are we talking about fusing out a few villa toasters in the Alps? Blowing out the street lights in downtown Geneva? Melting down the European power grid? Nope. How about spawning a hungry, black hole that could swallow up the entire Earth.

Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing. If it means I don’t have to listen to any more smarmy, election-year political rhetoric for another two months, it might just be worth it.

But fear not. The experts say that the chances of the Earth being vaporized are about the same odds as winning Lotto. Is that supposed to be reassuring? Generally, when it comes to planetary meltdowns, a probability of ZERO might be a little more comforting.

Of course, this isn’t the first time the possibility of a world-destroying, cataclysmic event has been raised. Over the centuries, various nutty characters have predicted something like this would happen, even without the aid of the ingenious Swiss. Many of these world-ending prognostications had their origin in religious doctrine which, for some reason, often seems to attract leaders who delight in making depressing predictions of Armageddon.

Consider the case of New Yorker William Miller who - modest man that he was - founded the Millerite Church back in the 1800s, and predicted the end of the world would come on April 3, 1843. When it didn’t, he tried again for July 7; he struck out a third time on March 21, 1844. Finally, on October 22 the same year, the Earth held together once more, much to Rev. Miller’s annoyance.

Oddly enough, despite his failures, Miller was revered by many of his Millerite groupies, which is a bit hard to fathom. I mean, if you’re going to follow someone who claims he can predict the end of the universe, at least wait until the guy gets the date right before you begin worshiping him. It seems some of the Millerites were, in fact, disenchanted with their doom and gloom leader, and formed a splinter group: the Miller Lites. They were, by and large, a more optimistic and relaxed bunch.

Along these lines, of course, we all hope the predictions of the atom-smasher-induced demise of the Earth are exaggerated and that if something does go wrong, it will more than likely just take out Norway. "Obviously, Europe has nothing to worry about," one of the scientists in charge of the project confidently predicted, as he boarded a plane to spend the rest of the year in Tasmania.