And I still feel fine.<\/p>\n
The latest brouhaha, of course is the LHC, which is supposed to destroy us all, but this is not the first time that science, some (quasi-) scientific phenomenon, or scientists, have supposedly threatened to pushed us into the abyss. Here’s a sampling of recent scenarios, ignoring the many-more-numerous armageddon\/rapture predictions (there are some people who have predicted the end of the world numbering in double digits, and yet their credibility with their followers seems undiminished)<\/p>\n
Leading up to its startup in 2000, amid all of the Y2k and Millennium hype, the relativistic heavy-ion collider (RHIC) was supposed to do almost exactly the same thing<\/a> as the LHC: make baby black holes that would devour us.<\/p>\n In 2003, it was was feared (by some)<\/a> that the Galileo probe, scheduled to crash into Jupiter, would initiate a fusion reaction, either igniting it like a star, or blowing it up in a massive explosion.<\/p>\n 2003 was also to have brought Planet X <\/a>close to earth, amid cataclysm, wailing and the gnashing of teeth.<\/p>\n In 1999, the Cassini probe did a flyby of earth in a slingshot maneuver to send it to Saturn, and was going to be the death of us all<\/a> (some especially egregious physics in that one)<\/p>\n 1997 was to have the earth enter the “photon belt”<\/a> which would cause electrical disruption and, paradoxically, several days of total darkness.<\/p>\n In March of 1982, it was the planetary “alignment,” when all nine of the planets (Pluto was still an evil conspirator back then) were within a sector of less than 100 degrees in the so-called “Jupiter Effect<\/a>” that was supposed to cause earthquakes and other other disasters (I got a cool night of viewing out of this, since it was so easy to see Mars, Jupiter and Saturn)<\/p>\n yaddayaddayaddayaddayadda LEONARD BERNSTEIN<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" And I still feel fine. The latest brouhaha, of course is the LHC, which is supposed to destroy us all, but this is not the first time that science, some (quasi-) scientific phenomenon, or scientists, have supposedly threatened to pushed … Continue reading