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The Top 5 Technology Panics of 2009
destinyland writes "An A.I. researcher lists the Top 5 Technology Panics of 2009 — along with the corresponding reality. There's exploding iPods, the uproar over 'bombing' the moon, and even a flesh-eating robot. But in each case, he supplies some much-needed perspective. 'These incidents are incredibly rare ... the rocket stage weighs around two tons, while the Moon weighs in at a 73,477,000,000,000,000,000 tons... and desecration of the dead is against the laws of war — and plant matter is a much better fuel source anyway.'"
No. The correct nomenclature is 7.3477x10^19. And we certainly know it to 5 significant figures, which is all original value in TFA states.
Brett
In the US and most the rest of the world, it is too. But the article wrote ton which is short for a "short ton" which refers to a short imperial ton.
The differences is that a tonne is a "metric ton" equal to 1000 kg or 2204 lbs, an "Imperial ton" (also known as a long ton) is 2240 lbs, or about 1016 kg, and a ton, known also as a short ton, is 2000 lbs or roughly 907 kg.
It gets a little more confusing when they use the word tonne in combination with energy proxies like in explaining the strength of a bomb or explosion as in how many tonnes of TNT it is comparable to or with amounts of force as in a 10mega tonne bomb. Or in combination with certain metal trades where they calculate the amount of metal in a long ton of ore by the percentage or metal within the ore. Then there are hold overs from traditions like in the HVAC world where AC is generally measure in ton(s) referring to how heat absorption and how heat would be displaced by a ton of ice in one day. Melting one ton of ice in this way or a 1 ton AC unit would be equal to about 12,000 BTU/h or 3517 Watts/h or 12,661,200 joules of energy per hour.
The mathematics is largely redundant is answering the question of whether the LHC will destroy the earth. Particle collisions that are exactly the same (as well as some that are more powerful) as the ones in the LHC have been occurring in the earth's atmosphere ever since it first formed. If the earth has had several billion years to be eaten by blackholes or stranglets produced by one of these interactions, and still hasn't, then it's pretty safe to assume that those interactions simply don't produce those byproducts.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons