And we're upping the ante, and hedging against postmodern groupthink and tenured hypesters by calling them out, and betting them $137 that their claims are false. That would be $137 per claim.
Let's start with claims made by the esteemed Dr. Kip Thorne who in a recent interview stated, http://discovermagazine.com/2007/nov/the-man-who-imagined-wormholes-and-schooled-hawking/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C=,
Cosmic strings are an idea that comes from string theory, the most studied area of theoretical physics. This area is still a long way from being a coherent unification of quantum and classical physics. Do you think string theory is exciting enough to merit the amount of attention it’s gotten?Absolutely. I think there’s no question. It shows many signs of being on the right track toward a correct quantum theory of gravity. It has given rise to a number of very important ideas that have a good shot at being correct, such as higher dimensions, such as the possibility of forming mini-black holes at the LHC [Large Hadron Collider, a new particle accelerator that may be up and running next year], and thereby probing higher dimensions. String theory is now beginning to make concrete, observational predictions which will be tested. Claims that it is just theorists playing mental masturbation are, I think, nonsense. --http://discovermagazine.com/2007/nov/the-man-who-imagined-wormholes-and-schooled-hawking/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C
Well, we hereby bet Mr. Kip Thorne $137 that the LHC doesn't create any mini-blackholes. We hereby bet Mr. Kip Thorne $137 that the LHC doesn't find any higher diemensions. And we hereby bet Mr. Kip Thorne $137 that string theory makes absolutely zero predictions that will be tested by the LHC.
So far our total bet is $411.
We expect this will grow throughout the year.
