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From: breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel)
Newsgroups: net.physics,net.sci
Subject: Re: What's All This, Then (Workshop on Exploding Particle Accelerators)
Message-ID: <916@h-sc1.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 8-Feb-86 10:38:18 EST
Article-I.D.: h-sc1.916
Posted: Sat Feb  8 10:38:18 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Feb-86 05:01:34 EST
References: <572@hounx.UUCP> <1987@orca.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center
Lines: 30
Xref: watmath net.physics:3839 net.sci:518

|In article <572@hounx.UUCP> kort@hounx.UUCP (B.KORT) writes:
||	              They have a notion that new particle accelerators
||	may create subatomic collisions intense enough to trigger a
||	chain reaction and thus vaporize the entire Universe!
|
|When the first nuclear bomb was exploded by the Manhattan project, there was
|a pool started to predict the force of the explosion. One scientist predicted
|that most of New Mexico would be wiped off the face of the Earth.
|
|Another scientist predicted that the reaction could not be halted, and would
|eventually consume the entire planet, perhaps continuing to destroy the
|entire Universe!!!!!!

Isn't it funny? When molecular biologists started working with recombinant
DNA, there were actually bozos who thought it was dangerous!!!!! :-(

We must be careful with technologies that are not well understood.
Molecular biologists worked with extreme care and precautions until
it was found that recombinant DNA from non-pathogenic organisms is
harmless. I wish that physicists had exercised the same caution
when exploding the first fission and fusion bombs. I am not certain
about the historical development, but it seems to me that *at the
time* of the first atomic bomb, there was no way to exclude the
possibility of starting a chain reaction in the atmosphere or ground
with a reasonable degree of certainty. It does not matter whether
it turned out to be 'harmless' after all, if there is the possibility
that an experiment endangers the survival of our whole species, it
is irresponsible and criminal to conduct it.

						Thomas.