Giant Air Bag Could Save Earth

The National Post ^ | August 29, 2002 | Tom Blackwell

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

Giant Air Bag Could Save Earth

From the title, I thought this might be a story about Al Sharpton.

[Rick.Donaldson]

Does this mean we've finally found a good use for Rosie O'Donnell?

[TN4Liberty]

comets are very loose conglomerations of pristine matter

Sounds like the pledge class in a sorority.

[tictoc]

Everything considered, the chances of being killed by an asteroid are considered to be about one in 12,000, compared to the one in 10,000 possibility of being killed in an airline crash, he said.

World pop. = six billion. Divided by 10,000 = 600,000, divided by avg. life expectancy (let's say 60 years) = 10,000. Are there really 10,000 people killed in airline crashes every year?

And how do they figure the chances of being killed by an asteroid - when nobody in recorded history has ever been killed by one?

[Poohbah]

And how do they figure the chances of being killed by an asteroid - when nobody in recorded history has ever been killed by one?

Basically, they calculate the number of asteroid impacts relative to the age of the Earth.

As for the 1 in 12,000 figure: what it doesn't say is that it's an all-or-nothing issue. No asteroid impact: no deaths. 1 large asteroid impact: over six billion (or, as the late Dr. Carl Sagan would say, "six BILLL-YUN") deaths.

It's like smoking a cigar in a fireworks shop. If nothing goes wrong, you're fine. If something does go wrong, you're hosed.

[HEY4QDEMS]

The figure is based on total passangers divided by crash fatalities which puts the annual numbers at less than 100

[HEY4QDEMS]

total passangers divided by crash fatalities ....Reverse that.

[tictoc]

Thanks for your reply.

Please be patient with me while I'm trying to figure this out.

Frequency of asteroid impacts that wipe out all higher lifeforms on the planet: 1 in 65 million years.

If the frequency was once per average lifetime duration, i.e. 60 years, then probability of being killed in an asteroid is 1 in 1, i.e. 100%.

However, since killer asteroids come only every 65 million years, we divide 60 years by 65 million years, giving a probability of less than one in a million.

Where is my mistake?

[Tulsa Brian]

I thought Al Gore and the rest of the greenie weenies WANTED something bad to happen to earth mother in order to show the rest of us the error of our ways. Why would he turn away an asteroid?

[MrConfettiMan]

Dr. Hermann Burchard suggests an air pillow...

Might I suggest something else...

[LouD]

Everything considered, the chances of being killed by an asteroid are considered to be about one in 12,000, compared to the one in 10,000 possibility of being killed in an airline crash, he said.

Bullsh*t on both counts. I'm guessing the odds for being killed in an air crash are significantly higher than that (although I don't have the data in front of me) - As for being killed by asteroids, I would dare him to name a single person, ever who was killed by an asteroid. (Maybe he was confused, and thought they meant hemmorhoids.)

[discostu]

they're not talking about the asteroids that destroy everything on the planet. They're talking about the little buggers (generally meteors or even meteorites) that occasionally do things like crash into your house killing you. Which happens more often than people think.

[Poohbah]

Like I said, probabilities based on long-term averages do not adequately describe all-or-nothing scenarios.

However, I think the key is to understand how many known AAA earth-crossing asteroids (so called because they fall into three orbital types, each type epitomized by a specific asteroid--Apollo, Aten, or Amor) there are, how many come too damn close for comfort, and how long you keep rolling the dice.

Spin the cylinder and pull the trigger enough times, and the odds of you blowing your brains out approach 100%.

[varon]

One suggestion is to attach a giant solar sail -- something like a "20 square-kilometre bubble-gum wrapper" -- that would use the wind created by high-energy particles emitted by the sun to shift the asteroid

I can just imagine, if this was done, years in the future in some unknown galaxy, a resident intelligent being looking up in the sky and seeing this comet with a sail go floating by and saying “what the F*** is that and where in the H*** did it come from?” ;-)

[Cyber Liberty]

"Spin the cylinder and pull the trigger enough times, and the odds of you blowing your brains out approach 100%."

< nitpick >

Common fallacy of probability. What are the odds of getting "heads" when you've just flipped 100 "tails"? The same as when you first started: 1:1

< /nitpick >

;^)

[Cyber Liberty]

I'd love to see the Environmental Impact Statement on this....

[Poohbah]

Common fallacy of probability. What are the odds of getting "heads" when you've just flipped 100 "tails"? The same as when you first started: 1:1

Not when it is expressed across N tries, as it was in my example. The odds get close to 100% when you have six tries.

[Cyber Liberty]

The aggregate odds do, but the individual odds of a bullet or "heads" remains the same. "Is this the trigger-pull that gets me" odds, therefore, remain 1:6, assuming a 6-chamber revolver.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

A giant space bra could catch and lift two asteroids at the same time.