Reminds me of Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman. If I remember correctly, a bunch of those wild and crazy scientist types send some nanotech-drive probes out to Jupiter. Once there, they begin assembling humanity's biggest particle accelerator -- and realize that in duplicating the effects of the big bang, they could end up destroying the solar system.
And I think some of the characters speculated that this is the kind of research -- which could lead to the creation of the "ultimate bomb" could be the reason why we haven't made contact yet. Figure every civilization starts playing around with this kind of technology, and then blows themselves up (intentionally or unintentionally -- doesn't really matter when your solar system is toast).
Pretty good book, although not as good as his earlier "The Forever War".
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Reminds me of Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman. If I remember correctly, a bunch of those wild and crazy scientist types send some nanotech-drive probes out to Jupiter. Once there, they begin assembling humanity's biggest particle accelerator -- and realize that in duplicating the effects of the big bang, they could end up destroying the solar system.
And I think some of the characters speculated that this is the kind of research -- which could lead to the creation of the "ultimate bomb" could be the reason why we haven't made contact yet. Figure every civilization starts playing around with this kind of technology, and then blows themselves up (intentionally or unintentionally -- doesn't really matter when your solar system is toast).
Pretty good book, although not as good as his earlier "The Forever War".