Ayers.PA@XEROX.COM (02/28/86)
Regarding Mr. Slocum's "I'm sorry but this is not "non-science
nonsense".
Let me conjoin some of his statements 9my caps):
"I remember HEARING during the news ... with a force of about a
kiloton"
"that SHOULD be ample to pulverize a significant portion
of the 43 pounds"
"WHO KNOWS where the little pieces came down, or whether
they even have come down yet."
"I thought I was being pretty conservative by saying
'several thousand, perhaps several hundred thousand'.
Translation:
The facts are mostly unknown; I assert that the deaths would be over
10-3.
I repeat that this is not science, or reasoning.
Scientific reasoning might be something like this (an artificial line,
since I don't have many facts either):
200 kilos of Pu were finely dispersed over xxx square kilometers of
Nevada,
where the population density is ppp.
Current medicine sets an upper limit of ten extra deaths from this
contamination.
We propose to disperse 50 kilos of Pu at a point over the Atlantic
fifty
miles offshore.
This is Pu288, rather than Pu289, which makes it ddd times as
deadly.
[Thanks to dietz@slb-doll.CSNET for pointing this out.]
We hypothesize the dispersion-into-breathable-dust efficiency of the
shuttle explosion to be eee.
We hypothesize a wind pattern of thus-and-so.
Calculating, we discover ....
Mr. Slocum did not supply any of this. Yet he made a scientific-sounding
claim, complete with numbers.
Non science.