This is Sparta!!!!

So I saw 300 and it was really fantastic! Some people liked it less than I did and all I really have to say about this is, it was a freaking movie, not a historical document. I really enjoy movies that really focus on being artful and this movie was one of them. Some other movies that make this list for me are:

Legend
Titus
Hero
Pan's Labyrinth
Mirrormask

Moving on, it seems some bright-eyed scientists out there are looking forward to creating a tiny black hole in a laboratory. I know I am no physicist but it does strike me a a dumb idea. They are conducting an experiment that is based almost entirely on vague theories of quantum physics. I had this conversation with Jeff Fredrick and he offers a lot of probablys, mostlys and likelys to my ifs, ands and buts on the topic.

"What if it starts sucking in other matter?" I ask.

"It has a very small event horizon," he counters.

"And an event horizon is what?" I inquire enthusiastically.

"A gravitational radius around a singularity from which matter that enters cannot leave," he replies nonchalantly.

"And if perhaps a stray molecule happens to enter that event horizon, will it not increase the event horizon?" I proffer, pressing for a glimmer of epiphany.

"Even if that happens, the theory is that the singularity would probably dissipate into Hawkins radiation which would mostly stay inside the event horizon as it implodes which is likely to be harmless," he rebuts with a shrug.

Okay look, we've all been to the movies, we know for a fact that the vacuum this experiment will be performed in will have a strange mishap involving an over-intelligent robot mouse one of the scientist affectionately calls "Milo". This mouse will chew through a liquid nitrogen hose which escapes into the experiment and causes this tiny black hole to suddenly get much larger. The nitrogen gets gobbled up, then the mouse, then the scientists and their cars, then North Carolina... The world starts to panic, then South Carolina gets gobbled up, nobody cares very much, then Idaho and the fast food franchise starts a lobby group.

And a hypotheses is dreamed up from thin air. "It will happen very slowly," he says with a chuckle.

You see, I have a theory about this. Everyone is scared of big bombs and viruses and other massively destructive things because if they die from it, some other people will probably live. I think we are somehow passive about a black hole because it would kill everyone. As long as everyone else dies, we're fine with some scientists making the most destructive force in the universe.

Now, we know about black holes because we have observed them in space while they swallow stars and such. What if every black hole we have observed out there is not caused by a star that took in too much matter. What if every black hole we see is actually a couple of scientists on a planet orbiting that star who say to themselves, "I have a great idea, let's make a black hole!!!"

In other news, I bought a Wii finally. I am awaiting its arrival on my doorstep. Once I have it, I cannot be stopped. I will finally have the tools I need to rule the world and end this black hole menace.

EDIT:

I just wanted to fortify my position that world-ending scientific experiments have been shrugged off before. Edward Teller speculated that an atomic bomb might "ignite" the atmosphere, due to a hypothetical fusion reaction of nitrogen nuclei. During the first test of the initial nuclear bomb "trinity" tests, this was the mood of these daring scientists:


"To break the tension, Fermi began offering anyone listening a wager on "whether or not the bomb would ignite the atmosphere, and if so, whether it would merely destroy New Mexico or destroy the world." Oppenheimer himself had bet ten dollars against George Kistiakowsky's entire month's pay that the bomb would not work at all. Meanwhile, Edward Teller was making everyone nervous by applying liberal amounts of sunscreen in the pre-dawn darkness and offering to pass it around."

-Aaron
257/241
Level 55