Sunday, May 20, 2007

Wilczek's Wife Put A Stop To The Destruction Of The Universe

This is a rather hilarious anecdotal account. I'm not sure if it is true or not, but hey, it's an amusing story nevertheless.

Reported in this blog is the account from Frank Wilczek's wife on how she put a stop to the destruction of the universe. Back in 1999, Wilczek published a letter in Scientific American that cause quite a ruckus. He was examining the possible scenario that the about-to-be-commissioned Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven might create a black hole and destroy our world. He later studied it a bit deeper and concluded in another report that the possibility of it happening is minuscule to negligible.

But while this is going on, his wife Betsy recalls how she put a stop to it:

Cambridge's Betsy Devine's husband is Frank Wilczek, an MIT professor who shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 2004. On her eponymous blog, Divine recalls how, in 1999, he seemed to have been quoted as suggesting that a planned "heavy ion collider" could possibly trigger a reaction that would destroy the universe. And she recalls how she put a stop to it:

"Betsy: But the universe is not going to blow up, right?

Frank: Of course not.

Betsy: You really thought about it and it's not.

Frank: Yes, I did. And no, it's not.

Betsy: Good, because if it blew up I'd be so mad at you . . .


That is just precious!

Zz.

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