Mr. Calm Khaki Pants

On an episode of Modern Marvels they visited several underground facilities; bunkers, labs, flood channels, etc. One of the facilities was a lab that housed a particle accelerator. They explained that particles are accelerated to 90% of the speed of light, while doing so, the process creates large amounts of radiation. One of the scientists stood in front of an accelerator bay and calmly said, “this process creates such a large amount of radiation that we will never be able to open this room again”. OK Mr. Calm Khaki Pants, I’m not buying that this is no big deal. I have seen too many movies to not know how this goes. The lab loses funding and must shut down, it’s then abandoned, after some time the materials used to build the accelerator bay begin to break down, then a crack in a wall, and now radiation in high levels is flowing out into the world. I need you to be a little less calm.