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Miscalculation Invalidates LHC Safety Assurances
KentuckyFC writes "In a truly frightening study, physicists at the University of Oxford have identified a massive miscalculation that makes the LHC safety assurances more or less invalid (abstract). The focus of their work is not the safety of particle accelerators per se but the chances of any particular scientific argument being wrong. 'If the probability estimate given by an argument is dwarfed by the chance that the argument itself is flawed, then the estimate is suspect,' say the team. That has serious implications for the LHC, which some people worry could generate black holes that will swallow the planet. Nobody at CERN has put a figure on the chances of the LHC destroying the planet. One study simply said: 'there is no risk of any significance whatsoever from such black holes.' The danger is that this thinking could be entirely flawed, but what are the chances of this? The Oxford team say that roughly one in a thousand scientific papers have to be withdrawn because of errors but generously suppose that in particle physics, the rate is one in 10,000."
If they are correct, what are the chances they are wrong (or right)?
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
From last Sunday
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Great. Now in a matter of years we'll have hippies protesting abuse of Nature's Own Black Holes for generating power. It's not really sustainable energy if all the mass you add to the hole extends its event horizon. (Does it?)
Sam ty sig.
I STILL don't think the LHC will kill us all but the fact we're debating it says something.
I don't know what you're trying to imply here.
People are still debating evolution.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
My retirement fund is pretty much crushed at this point.
Being consumed by black holes created by a multibillion dollar scientific whiz-ma-gig is sounding like a pretty good exit plan.
Just feed them the darkety kind and we'll never miss it.
That this would be the end of the world that neo-cons hope and pray for. Now, they will not have to see a black president in for long, nor take responsibility for their actions.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"Anyone Who Thinks the LHC Will Destroy the World is a Twat"
He's a particle physicist from my physics department (Manchester), and hence let it be known Oxford physicists are twats!
'If the probability estimate given by an argument is dwarfed by the chance that the argument itself is flawed, then the estimate is suspect,'
But if the improbability is large enough, and you hook it up to a nice, hot cup of tea; then we'll travel instantaneously through every point of the Universe, and possibly create a worried-looking whale and a bowl of petunias.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Well if we want to find out who's right, we can just keep an eye on their webcam for anything suspicious.
I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean "bad"?
> You don't say, "Oh well, we don't know for sure that anything bad will happen, so we'll just assume that it won't." That is voodoo science.
I say that to myself every time I put on my coat. I know I am lying to myself - with our limited understanding of the universe putting on clothes may very well trigger an unforseen event that destroys the solar system - but the snow outside has convinced me to sacrifice a little intellectual integrity in exchange for being able to wear my coat. Don't worry, I'm not taking too many risks: I'm not wearing anything underneath.
Essentially their argument boils down to because people make mistakes and we can calculate the odds of them making a mistake, if they calculate the odds of something and it's greater than the odds of them having made a mistake then you have to use the odds of them making a mistake as the probability of the event happening.
Nuh-uh, that argument is solid and well formed.
Hey, I have another "scientific" theory, 1 out of every 460 scientific papers are about artificial intelligence, That means the LHC is alive and we don't even know it yet.!
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
Yeah it is voodoo. If I calculate that there is a 1:10^20 chance an asteroid will destroy the earth this month, and someone else figures there is a 1:50 chance I am wrong, that does not make the odds of an asteroid destroying the earth 1:50. As wrong as the person calculating the odds are, the odds are still going to be incredibly small.
If what you were saying was true we could destroy the earth by having a 10 year old do the calculations since they would almost certainly be wrong.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Who would remember if we all died?
The race of intelligent beings who, millions of years from now, finds a small black hole orbiting a star, with a flag on its moon.
Honestly, if the human race has to end, that is exactly how I want us to go out.
When it comes right down to it, though, the odds of creating a dangerous black hole is effectively zero, as evidenced by the fact that the various bodies of the solar system aren't black holes.
So what happened to the other 200 planets?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
No need for that. You can subscribe to this RSS feed
http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/rss.xml
This is funny too
http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/robots.txt
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I am sorry, The THEORY of evolution and the THEORY of creation both imply that I am somehow related to the people who make LOL cats and I just can not accept that. I CAN NOT accept that.
How many times can we roll the dice before our luck runs out?
Every single time. After that, there won't be any more dice to roll, or anyone to roll them if they did exist.
If we had some dice, we could roll them, if we existed.
Infuriate left and right
Are you really sure about this? I've played Katamari Damacy and a small little ball starting at less than 1 cm, bumps into random things thus growing in size. Eventually, the ball is able to roll over and absorb the earth, other planets, stars and other galaxies and (presumably black holes). What's left after I don't know - it was an computer-based physics simulation played on my television screen.
I have calculated that there is almost no chance of money spontaneously raining out of the sky above me. However, I was drunk when I made those calculations, so they are most certainly wrong.
*waits expectantly*
Yes, yes, but what is it if I look inside the box?
Welcome to slashdot, where an insightful post such as yours is moderated up as funny...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.