In article
,
" wrote:

On May 2, 12:56*am, Michael Press wrote:
In article
,
*"Paul G." wrote:



On May 1, 4:00*pm, Fred Fredburger
wrote:
Paul G. wrote:
On May 1, 12:56 pm, Fred Fredburger
wrote:
dave a wrote:
www.thedailyshow.com
Unfortunately, I don't know how to link directly to this, but please
watch the Large Hadron Collider piece beginning around 3:15 into it.
There is a 50/50 chance you will understand it.
- dave a
Watching the media clips mentioning Wagner's theory tells you all you
need to know about the news media.

These doomsday theories have a rich history:

"Teller also raised the speculative possibility that an atomic bomb
might "ignite" the atmosphere, because of a hypothetical fusion
reaction of nitrogen nuclei. Bethe calculated, according to Serber,
that it could not happen. However, a report co-authored by Teller
showed that ignition of the atmosphere was not impossible, just
unlikely."

So they held their breath as the Trinity bomb went off...
-Paul

Yeah, but that was Teller. He's a smart guy. Presumably, Penn is too.
They're not just some dumb-assed High School science teacher.

Yeah, my father was a physicist and nuclear engineer. I lived in Las
Vegas as a kid... near the atomic test site. He told me that story,
the Hadron theory reminded me of it, so I looked it up. *The Hadron
black hole theory can be put to rest by the fact that cosmic rays of
much higher energies than the Hadron can generate bombard the
atmosphere all the time, and don't create black holes.

They _may_, but black holes decay, and the smaller, the faster.

What does "They may" refer to? Ultra-high energy cosmic rays
entering the atmosphere may create black holes? This has never
been observed. Black holes have never been observed to decay,
either. Although the theoretical grounds for black hole decay are
well-motivated, this is a regime where theory is not at all tested
by observations, and many non-theorists regard it as "interesting
if true."

Paul's summary was basically correct. Cosmic rays of higher
energy than hadronic particles accelerated by the LHC enter
the atmosphere all the time, and the universe hasn't been
destroyed, nor have any growing-without-limit black holes been
created, nor have any microscopic decaying black holes
been observed. The amount of time and people's energy spent
on this would have been better spent on the catastrophic
consequences of collateralized mortgage obligations,
which it turns out _do_ have the potential to destroy the
world as we know it.

I emphasized "may". Agree about the energy of cosmic rays
compared to man made accelerators.

As for the latter, I read Liar's_Poker when it was
published in 1989, and knew the mortgage thing was
in the cards. What do you propose to do about
greed and power mongering?

--
Michael Press