No worries
September 13th, 2006
Maybe it’s just me, but I find this phrase a wee bit disturbing: “They estimate the possibility of accidentally destroying the planet as extremely low.” That might not be so bad, but just a few sentences earlier appears the text: “For the first time in many decades we have built a machine that exceeds our powers of prediction.”
Hmmm…
(source)
Don’t Panic
“The risk is calculated at about 10 to the minus 40”:
So you’re saying there’s a chance! [Dumb & Dumber reference]
On a serious note: i don’t see any reason to perform this experiment. It sounds just as crazy as “hey, let’s drop a nuke on that island over there to see what it’ll do…”, but it risks the whole planet as opposed to an island (although some were worried the H-bomb would destroy the planet). But this is going to do what for us? Did I miss something about how this would help humanity/the world in some way?
Yeah, you have to wonder which of today’s activities will be frowned upon by history. On the other hand, some of societies stupid moves come in handy in later years. For example, scientists can use caesium-137 to determine the age of wine; thanks to atmospheric nuclear tests, all wine produced after 1945 contains the isotope.