Prometheus by Phil Guest on flickr
Wikipedia is a wonderful place for mythology. As well as the basic story of a myth it gives different versions, source material and other media. And as we contribute material to the myth it helps it stay alive in text like it was once organically alive as an oral tradition. This is useful for the myth of Prometheus, as it changed over ancient times. The myth of Prometheus has often been associated with innovation; but not always well. Yet some amplification of it’s meaning can help us understand some of the stumbling blocks that seem to pop up from nowhere when we go to put ideas into action.
Muon Barrel by µµ on Flickr
Remember the CERN Large Hadron Colider? It hasn’t been too successful yet. There’s been two explosions that have interrupted things and there hasn’t meen much to show for all the money and hype . This is perhaps western humanity’s most ambitions (and perhaps most Promethean) project yet. One of its aims is that the machine will create tiny replicas of the primordial “big bang” fireball thought to have marked the creation of the universe.