Last week, the Daily Show aired Jon Oliver's top-notch investigation into the dangers of the
LHC. The
collider is going to come back on-line soon, and the public, or at least one man, is still screaming that the sky is falling. The
Internet told me that everything is fine, but Walter Wagner believes, despite the overwhelming evidence against, that there is a 50% chance that the
LHC will destroy the world. He even filed suite in the district court of Hawaii, where he outlined
doomsday by black hole:
Micro Black Holes: Under this theory, the compression of the two atoms colliding together at nearly light speed will cause an irreversible implosion, forming a miniature version of a giant black hole, the remnant of a collapsed star. Like its much larger cousin, a miniature black hole would not emit light, and any matter coming into contact with it would fall into it and never be able to escape. Eventually, all of earth would fall into such growing micro-black-hole, converting earth into a medium sized black hole, around which would continue to orbit the moon, satellites, the ISS, etc.
Quite a detailed vision of the future. For one, even if that is true, it would not be a medium-size black hole, it would still be a super small black hole. We are comparing masses of a planet with that of a huge star. They also seem to think the moon will be safe, at least we know there is a escape route. Thank goodness
the court is smarter then these goons.
Scientists who have proposed the construction and operation of the particle collider known as Large Hadron Collider (“LHC”) at CERN are aware of problems associated with quantitatively assessing the risks involved with this novel project. This is not a new problem and virtually every new significant activity must face it. Instead of ending the pursuit of significant scientific endeavors, the scientific community has developed processes to identify all imaginable events that may lead to an adverse effects and use the best available information and scientific talent to mitigate them. No other procedure has been suggested by any professional society, any government or international organization. Amici contend that the Plaintiffs’ suppositions are without merit, and cannot be the basis of a particularized injury sufficient to confer standing.
Undeterred, Wagner explains the simplicity of the statistics to the daily show. His only expertise is that he teaches a variety of high school science classes. Paraphrasing Wagner: If something could happen, or something could not happen, then there is a 1 in 2 chance that it will happen.
Ughh! They allow this guy to teach our kids. Oliver's response to this unfounded argument, "I'm not sure that is how statistics work, Walter." Damn straight.
Check out the clip,
mucho hilarious.
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