But the difficulties faced by those working on the project have prompted some members of the scientific community to speculate, in all seriousness, that the machine is sabotaging itself ? from the future.

The theory is that the particle that physicists hope to produce might be "abhorrent to nature," so that once created it would work backwards through time to put a stop to whatever created it. However Dr Mike Lamont, who works at the Cern control center, said that the nature of the experiment meant that glitches were inevitable.