In an early episode of The West Wing entitled Dead Irish Writers, White House senior staffer Sam Seaborn battles a US senator at the request of his old physics professor over a major scientific project that has lost Congressional funding. It was something called the Super Conducting Super Collider.

For all these years, I had thought it strange that a series whose storylines were so politically authentic should include a subplot of such science fiction mumbo-jumbo.

Until now that is. Tomorrow, an extraordinary experiment takes place in a 17-mile long tunnel under Jura Mountains just outside Geneva.

Scientists will try to recreate the Big Bang by crashing sub-atomic particles into each other at the speed of light. It all happens in the Large Hadron Collider which has cost £3.5 billion to build, of which Britain has chipped in £500 million.

For some critics that's too much for something that will not have any guaranteed outcome.

A high price for the luxury of knowledge when that kind of money could buy so much in tangible results, especially when tens of millions of people can't afford a bag of rice.

I am inclined to support the scientific theory that the experiment, though having no immediate practical outcome, may constitute a giant step forward to unlocking the unknown in areas like medicine and the global environment.

Then again, if the doomsayers are right, a re-run of the Big Bang could destroy the planet.

So by Thursday we may have nothing to worry about. Ever again.