russian roulette - big time

risk assessment
for the large hadron collider
semi quoted from different sites

" the chances of catastrophe are negligible
" based on astronomical evidence and
" assumptions
" about physics
" one report put the odds of a disaster
" at less than one in 50 million
" less than a chance of winning
" some lottery jackpots

in other words
every time they do an experiment
we have the same odds to disaster
as playing russian roulette
with 50 million chambers
one - or more - of these chambers has a bullet
this bullet can kill 6 billion people

" dr. Kent
" used standard insurance company method
" to calculate expected losses
" he multiplied the disaster probability
" times the cost
" in this case the loss
" of the global population
" six billion
" a result was that
" the Rhic collider could kill
" up to 120 people in a decade of operation

statistics are strange
... i agree with the statement below

" Alvaro de Rujula of Cern
" involved in writing a safety report said
" extending the insurance formula that way
" violated common sense
" "applied to all imaginable catastrophes
" it would result in world paralysis"

comforting

" besides
" the random nature of quantum physics means
" that there is always a minuscule
" but nonzero
" chance of anything occurring
" the new collider could spit out
" man-eating dragons

if there was a dragon now
he'd be in real trouble

russian roulette
really big time