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Jul 22, 2011

The UN Security Council Does Not Want Its Agenda to Be Known Beforehand…

Posted by in categories: existential risks, particle physics

… but am I allowed to offer to the highest board of the planet to answer to its questions?

18

Comments — comments are now closed.


  1. Hansel says:

    Oh yes. Perhaps they will ask a few scientists to formulate the questions.

    I can imagine the first one:

    What is the dimension of the T?

    Would be funny to see your strategy of avoiding any clear answer again. ´But all scientists are brainwashed nazis. That would explain anything.

  2. Anthony L says:

    Also enlightening would be Hansel’s real name, affiliation and expertise, not to mention age.

    That would be interesting. A photo would be handy too. How about role at the LHC, that would be relevant as well?

    What is it about anonymity that lets people off the hook of good manners and what Rossler rightly calls the “friendship” of genuine scientists?

  3. Robert Houston says:

    Foremost on the agenda of the UN Security Council should be an issue which, in terms of catastrophic potential, far outranks all the current wars, terrorist operations, and environmental dangers facing mankind. This issue is the profound threat to the existence of the planet that is posed by the operation of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. CERN’s own scientists are on the record as saying that the LHC may become “a black hole factory” and could generate strangelets. Both phenomena have the potential of apocalyptic destruction with the identical cost: the loss of every living human.

    In answer to CERN’s 2008 safety reports, which whitewashed the dangers of its “Big Bang” machine, a mutidisciplinary panel of experts in physics, astrophysics, risk assessment, and international law found that the project had unacceptable catastrophic risks. In addition to the important studies by Professor Otto Rossler, their background report “Critical Revision of LHC Risks” should be considered in evaluating the urgent need for Security Council action to halt further operation of CERN’s potential doomsday machine. See: http://lhc-concern.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/critical-…ed-int.pdf

  4. Anthony L says:

    Regrettably, after many hundreds of posts in this and other threads, Professor Rossler has not been able to establish that his physical speculations can be explained in English and mathematics to other physicists or other observers in a manner which is cogent and authoritative.

    So while his fears are shared by others, it is not possible to accept his own justification for them as making sense in a way which outsiders such as politicians or science writers can quote.

    It is not even possible to be sure that he is responsibly replying to the critical challenges here, which he should do even though they may be antagonistic and thus not very conducive to constructive debate.

    This lack of responsible explication which strives to be intelligible and acceptable to outsiders is a sine qua non of being taken seriously, and if this is Professor Rossler’s objective, he must try to do it.

    His statements in regard to the UN and CERN are not reassuring in this respect, either, as another poster has pointed out.

    As the unfortunate incident in Norway has shown, the wildest ideas which fundamentally lack any basis in reality can be endlessly justified in long texts which on the face of it make some kind of sense, but which experienced people can judge as void of real content rather quickly.

    If Professor Rossler really wants people to take him seriously, and his work is serious, then he has to write in a more serious and coherent manner, and explain his theorem in a way which can persuade others to take it seriously.

    Till then the efforts of the physicists here to deconstruct what he says must be taken as having proved that it is not worth taking seriously.

    If Professor Rossler wishes to rectify the situation he must act accordingly.

  5. PassingByAgain says:

    wow! Are you the same guy who four days ago wrote “One has to admire Rossler for his evident superiority of mind and scientific attitude”? (Anthony L on July 24, 2011 10:10 am in the “Korean” thread)

  6. Anthony L says:

    Operating on a higher plane of theoretical intuition and generalities doesn’t let him off dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s when asked to justify his conclusions, or at least do it as best he can according to the requirements of those he wishes to take him seriously as a political influence and act in accordance with his beliefs.

    The whole issue of whether to rate any deep thinker as a genius or a crackpot is a difficult one, since you cannot go by general reputation, as the unfortunate Peter Duesberg in demolishing the HIV=AIDS claim intellectually but not politically has shown.

    It is up to the crackpot/genius to demonstrate which he is to the lay audience unless other experts of proven reliability are willing to insist he is reliable, which in this case hasn’t happened. All that outside observers can conclude is that his fears are shared by some other experts, one of whom — Rainer Plaga — is apparently reliable. But they haven’t joined forces with Rossler directly, as far as we know.

    Working on a high plane is one thing but one has to show others that one is flying and not falling.

  7. Otto E. Rossler says:

    Dear Anthony L: I am astonished.

    Let me copy here my answer to TRGM on the other blog:
    July 28, 2011 10:53 am:
    Thank you for asking about the picture. The waves of course represent unit wavelengths in time (or clock periods). Since arbitrary ratios are possible, the best way to illustrate is to youse a simple integer ratio. As valid for the surface of a not yet discovered quark star on the bottom line.
    Then a bijection across clock speeds occurs. It illustrates Einstein’s clock-redshift result. Nothing more, nothing less. I am totally surprised that such a simple fact (Eq. 1 only reflects it) can cause so much disorientatiom amongst the younger generation.
    Can you explain to me why? (The fact that it is not in the textbooks is not a sufficient explanation to me.)

    And please, explain to me and others your strange shift of mind. Is it a majority effect that caught you unawares?

  8. Anthony L says:

    Professor, I have not changed my mind. I am merely seeking to clarify your position as I hoped that your critics would clarify theirs, in relation to each other and also in relation to the extremely important issue being indirectly assessed, the danger in escalating the LHC without proper safety review.

    Like other investigative science journalists, of which there are only a handful in the world, as far as one can see, I always have time and attention to give those whose ideas conflict with the group mind, since this is how scientific understanding has to progress, replacing received wisdom with something shown to be more in accord with reality.

    Your credentials demonstrate that you are an original thinker at a high level of theory, and have at least one widely acknowledged achievement in chaos theory, and possibly many more.

    But in advancing ideas which oppose huge institutions and are opposed by very large political interests involving vast sums of money, it is necessary to make calm full statements in an authoritative and considered manner demonstrating that you can be taken seriously by journalists and others who have to satisfy readers with evidence that you must be taken seriously.

    Whether it is a language problem I am not able to say, but the statements you are making in English in your set of blog posts here do not provide this investigative journalist with material that he can refer to or quote to demonstrate that you should be taken seriously. In other words, they do not seem to evince the great responsibility you say you feel for the fate of the Earth, by being full, complete, well laid out statements.

    So all one can report at the present time is that on this platform of Lifeboat blogging you have expressed fears based on your own physics thinking which are shared by other people who have theorized that the LHC cranking up might create devastating new entities such as strangelets or black holes, or even vast explosions.

    Your response to the assault of the CERN kids here do not seem any more quotable, since they are just as fragmented and partial as their accusations, and after almost a thousand posts do not settle what looks like a relatively simple objection.

    If they do, please summarize in a manner which can be quoted in any report on this affair. It is not for me to tell you what to do, but this is my request.

    What the world, or at any rate the journalists reporting to the world on this matter, need are full statements, which explain why you predict the consequences you fear in a way which can be reported intelligibly to average readers, which includes politicians and government officials.

    On individual points such as Eq 1 it also should be possible for you to make statements in line with accepted physics which make your position clear after so many hundreds of posts, whether or not the kids continue to attack your physics as reversing textbook truths.

    Otherwise these many threads will be dismissed by most people as inconclusive and suggesting that you cannot make yourself clear to those that you want to take you seriously.

  9. Robert Houston says:

    It would appear that Anthony has read little, if any, of Dr. Rossler’s articles concerning the danger of black hole production at the LHC. Most of these articles are clearly written and cogently presented in regard to substantive safety concerns (see links are at LHCfacts.org). Dr. Rossler is the only scientist with the insight, integrity and courage to speak out publicly over time on what may be a major threat to future of our world. Ultimately, he deserves the gratitude and support of all people and nations for his noble efforts to alert us to the danger.

    Rather than acknowledge being part of a journalistic dereliction in having made little effort to find and read and understand Dr. Rossler’s writings, Anthony apparently prefers to lash out at Rossler as being the inadequate one and to join the gang of detractors, most of whom seem motivated to defend CERN at all costs for their own career reasons.

    It’s easy to see why someone could be confused by the discussion at Lifeboat, for the gang of detractors has concentrated monotonously on the form and terms of single equation, isolated from all context and meaning. One would suppose from the hundreds of snippy comments about Eq. 1 that there was a fundamental disagreement with Rossler, but as TRMG asknowledged, there isn’t any. Apparently, no one disagrees with Rossler and Einstein and DESY that time slows down in the lower part of an accelerating rocket — the basic point that Eq. 1 was expressing.

    According to physicists of DESY, “a clock attached to the rocket’s ceiling (i.e. furthest from the motor) ages faster than a clock attached to its floor… Einstein postulated that any experiment done in a real gravitational field…will give a result indistinguishable from the same experiment done in an accelerating rocket, so the idea that the rocket’s ceiling ages faster than its floor (and that includes the ageing of any bugs sitting on these) transfers to gravity… This difference…has been verified experimentally” (DESY, The Relativistic Rocket, pp. 3–4).

  10. robomoon says:

    Thank you very much, Sir Houston, you told what responsible press agencies should have published before. Sorry, but the press had a helping hand by potentially hateful bloggers who were naturally more in favor of supporting one LHC from noble Internet inventors but one LHC from governmental investors who are just funding research equipment and related services to keep some financial profits up somewhere we do not know where, how, and who it really is or was who sells or sold. Oh no, I do not have a wrong idea about bloggers, I am commenting to them much. No need to buy my thought, but I must ask the question: which LHC of both mentioned above is the real one? In here, we only know so far that investors from one LHC failed to support global safety while the press has shown its incompetency to overrule the bloggers in their ability to involve Prof. Rossler and various other responsible scientists themselves on practically quite a daily base. And the UN has not chosen to get over to global politics. Now, a leading group with our world in their hands are obviously the physicists incl. their educational elite and their allies in industry and finance. Not good for survival. For security there must have been more qualified experimenters in psychology science and less qualified physics experimenters doing their job in greater labs. This is the worst time of psychological instability with an existential risk for one final consequence — unfortunately not only traumatic but completely fatal in highest potency. Even when I am not usually going after this thing, posting comments between a scientific discussion so often in time, I must do, because we want life being alive. Therefore, also thank you to any scientist who alarmed about nuclear experiments decades ago.

  11. Otto E. Rossler says:

    I take your word very seriously, Anthony L, and so I take robomoon’s. Thank you both. I shall try.

  12. Anthony L says:

    “It would appear that Anthony has read little, if any, of Dr. Rossler’s articles concerning the danger of black hole production at the LHC.”

    It would appear that Houston has not read and understood what I wrote, so I can only advise him to read the relevant posts above and on the other threads initiated by Professor Rossler (eg http://lifeboat.com/blog/2011/07/food-for-my-detractors-all-…ment-88497 in reply to another firing of your revolver without removing it from your holster to aim it properly) before accusing me of “lashing out” at Professor Rossler.

    As the good Professor apparently appreciates better I am merely asking him to clarify what he says here in response to the CERN kids and in supporting fears about the LHC is terms which can be quoted and conveyed by journalists to readers who have no scientific background, which is what journalist do, so that he can gain the respect he needs to influence policy.

    There is nothing “confusing” about the exchange so far. It is partly incomprehensible to physics outsiders, and partly answers their objections in terms that they do not accept.

    Physics is not a private system subjectively and differently understood by each person who wishes to theorize in it. It is like any other science something confirmed by measurements in the external world which act to justify or deny the speculations of any theorists as to how the external world works.

    Whether Professor Rosslers theorizing makes sense in these terms has presumably been established up to some point, and can be stated clearly to get rid of any “confusion” or doubts as to whether he is a reliable authority, which the CERN kids here like to encourage.

    Which of his papers which you have read would you recommend as having persuaded you that he knows what he is talking about, in which journals, and how have they been referenced by colleagues in the field? If you have any that impressed you state the link here and state why you are impressed.

    That would be more useful than repeating your belief in the Professor’s integrity and insight without explaining why other than it coincides with your own persuasion that the LHC needs further safety review,as Rossler says it does. Unless you occupy some position of prominence in the field that you can tell us, your opinion cannot be quoted by a journalist to back up Professor Rossler’s authority.

    Ultimately though it is as I stated above, up to Professor Rossler to supply journalists with proper quotes here to show readers why they should take him seriously. Why wouldn’t you agree with that request? Surely you do not lack faith in the good Professor’s ability to supply them?

    If you do then perhaps you yourself could supply quotes and more from his papers with which you are familiar, to assist reporters in doing their job reporting accurately on his credentials and his theoretical conclusions.

    Or do you consider that his statenent at http://lifeboat.com/blog/2011/07/food-for-my-detractors-all-…ment-88497 is sufficient?

    If you do perhaps you would like to translate it into English of the kind the average politician or official can understand.

  13. Anthony L says:

    “answers their objections” refers to the CERN squad, of course

  14. Anthony L says:

    “fears about the LHC IN terms”, sorry.

    By the way, it is reported that Wheeler and Professor Rossler were friendly colleagues. Did they ever write any paper together?

  15. Robert Houston says:

    Anthony, it is impressive how quickly Dr. Rossler has honored your request by producing a new report (“Black Holes are Different”), which in my view quite clearly and cogently presents his case against black holes at the LHC and in favor of a safety conference. It was also surprising how promptly you appended to it another patronizing bit of petty faultfinding.

    For other articles, I would refer you to the website mentioned in my previous comment: http://www.lhcfacts.org/ , It opens with an overview by Dr. Rossler and gives links to some of his major articles. Particularly clear and useful is “A Rational and Moral and Spiritual Dilemma,” which summarizes seven safety concerns at the end. Also valuable is his scientific paper, “Abraham solution to Schwarzschild Metric implies that CERN miniblack holes pose a planetary risk.” There are many other worthwhile pieces by Dr. Rossler on the internet.

    I disagree with your view that he is under some obligation to jump through hoops at the demand of young adversaries who merely swear and jeer in response. Whether or not any of the commenters are physicists, their lack of civility would disqualify them from serious scientific discussion or reply.

  16. Anthony L says:

    Professor Rossler can determine what he will do to advance his urgent plea that humanity get itself together at the official level and put CERN on a leash, mounting the conference on the safety issue regarding the LHC which CERN is trying to evade. I am merely suggesting that if he can properly answer the CERN squad here with a bunkerbuster he should do it, because otherwise many people will conclude that his whole theory is incorrect, without his agreement, it appears, on the basis of their claim that his initial premise and his later thinking are not in line with good physics or even math.

    Scattershot replies are not going to preserve his credibility in the eyes of onlookers.

    The statement he has produced which you refer to is the kind of thing he should deliver on this specific issue, in my opinion, so that journalists can quote it and politicians and officials can refer to it.

  17. Emiw says:

    Keep it coming, witrers, this is good stuff.

  18. Otto E. Rossler says:

    Emiw wrote: “Keep it coming, writers, this is good stuff.”

    Thank you, Emiw