[ WP ] The absent-minded genius tests out the new invention not realizing he/she forgot to carry the 1 . Oops .

It's really not a big deal. When you are conducting experiments on the subatomic level a miscalculation does n't often bring any results. You flip a switch, nothing happens, you check your math. These are theoretical physics for a reason; we're trying to boil the rules of the physical universe to a formula you can write on a note card. Imagine if someone handed you ten pages of the Bible at random. Would you be able to comprehend the whole text? Of course not! So we go little by little, discovering what we can to piece the whole picture together. But if you miss a line or two, the concept does n't crumble before you! 
 
 Usually... 
 
 There were scattered fears that when the CERN super collider was tested, it would create a black hole. These concerns were mostly unfounded; black holes being the result of incredible pressure on huge amounts of matter. Not even all the mass of our Sun will become a black hole, so you can see why we scoffed at the idea. As we believed it, the [ Chandrasekhar limit ] ( http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar_limit ) was the hard and fast rule for matter collapsing infinitely on itself. 
 
 Most likely... 
 
 But would believe that those enigmatic voids were n't **quite** how we imagined! We turn a few dials, alter a few equations, and test a few theories. THEN WHAM! We wiped out half of France and almost the entirety of Switzerland. It was such a minor change in the process we did n't think it would matter! We had a few lines of the story and figured we knew the next few paragraphs. The problem was the mathematical story did n't allude to the existence of forces that can kill a few million in a matter of seconds. 
 
 Oops... 
 
 The black hole we created was beyond your comprehension for the term `` small.'' It was microscopic! And it only lasted for a trillionth of a second! But apparently that was enough to devour almost 300 square miles of our planet! Any scientist will tell you that many discoveries happened from accidents! It's part of the process! Unfortunately discoveries like Penicillin did n't destroy 1.5 countries... 
 
 The paperwork on this will be a real bitch...
