The world breathed a sigh of relief as our predicted demise - at 5pm - came and went with not even a whimper, let alone a bang.

According to some, the beginning of the end was to happen at 5pm Melbourne time.

The timing wasn't based on a religious theory or some wild premonition.

What had many people worried - including some Herald Sun readers here and here - is a scientific experiment happening in an underground bunker below the Swiss Alps.

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At 5pm, the switch was to be flicked on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a giant particle accelerator built by European science organisation CERN, in an effort to replicate the Big Bang.

In today's test, scientists will attempt to beam protons around a 27.3km track.

Eventually, it is hoped that two proton beams could be steered in opposite directions around the LHC at close to the speed of light, BBC reports.

Scientists want to manipulate the beams to cross paths and collide, potentially revealing fundamental insights into the nature of the cosmos.

Opponents fear the $A9.3 billion machine, which will generate temperatures of more than a trillion degrees centigrade, could create a black hole that could swallow the planet.

One theory suggested that after a series of random earthquakes, Earth would start to crack up; molten lava would wash over the land and the seas would start to boil; mega-hurricanes and cyclones would level buildings and forests; and eventually, mountains would crumble as Earth's crust continued to disintegrate.

Another theory is more simple but arguably more terrifying: Earth would be destroyed in an instant (about 1/20th of a second), simply vanishing from space. Within a few minutes, the rest of the solar system would allegedly follow.

But after commissioning a series of safety reviews, CERN scientists have scoffed at such notions, with Professor Brian Cox of Manchester University telling the British Telegraph that anyone who thinks the earth will be destroyed by the machine is a "t--t".

Eminent scientists agree, with Prof Stephen Hawking describing the LHC as "absolutely safe", telling the UK Telegraph the experiment is vital to the survival of humanity.

The LHC team hopes to find the theoretical Higgs-Boson Particle, or the God Particle, but Prof Hawking isn't confident, and has bet 100 pounds they don't find it.

The particle is thought to have given mass to all other particles and such a discovery would help gain a better understanding of things like antimatter, parallel universes and dark matter.

http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/