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by jjgreen·8y ago·view on hn ↗
I’ve always imagined that the adjective was needed because under a desk somewhere, perhaps pedal powered, was a “small hadron collider”

Robert E. A. Harvey, Comment on The Register, 28th December 2011

Prescient!

3 comments
There are lots of small hadron colliders. Hadrons are just composite particles made up of quarks and held together by the strong force. This includes "exotic" particles like mesons and high energy baryons, but it also includes the "mundane" baryons such as protons and neutrons. So technically any proton accelerator is a hadron collider. Which includes the first cyclotron, a proton accelerator built in 1932 that was only 27 inches across, a very "small hadron collider" indeed.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: You know, it just occurred to me that we really haven't had a successful test of this equipment.

Dr. Egon Spengler: I blame myself.

Dr. Peter Venkman: So do I.

Dr. Raymond Stantz: Well, no sense in worrying about it now.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Why worry? Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.

Try A. E. van Vogt, Slan, 1946 for even more precient.