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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kelseysuncle who wrote (59759)	2/5/2007 3:30:30 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197320

KU, I think we agree and you are mistakenly thinking that I'm suggesting that the probability of getting brain cancer from using cellphones is significant. The effect I'm thinking of is at the low end of the curve you mentioned for chemical reactions. I spent a lot of time dabbling in lubricants [and fuels] and it is a business of oxidation, polymerisation, cracking and generally being in a wide range of conditions involving the lubricant getting in trouble from heat. That's why I don't cook food at high temperatures. I dislike the carcinogen-producing reactions which one gets when cooking organic materials at 170 Celsius. By keeping things below 120 Celsius, the bugs and cooking is done, but without the death-dealing products being formed. At 37 Celsius, oxidation is really, really slow and one should go and watch a cricket test match instead. <If there is enough energy around to make a reaction go, it goes. It doesn't magically happen when it gets one millionth more energy.> It's not a magical process. Each molecule either has enough energy at the right time, in the right place, in the right orientation, in contact with the right molecule to react, or it doesn't. An incoming ionizing photon either has enough energy to break the molecule or it doesn't. A bucket of reaction, which you are talking about, is made up of umpty billion individual reactions and as in democracy and calculus, the big picture is made up of umpty hordes of individual effects. Chemical reactions don't go on or off like a light switch. They happen molecule by molecule. The tiny little bit of microwave energy even with a lot more zeroes than you gave it, would still contribute a tiny bit more energy. When you do calculus, the little slices are considered to be infinitely small, but that doesn't make them insignificant because the whole is still made up of those vanishingly small pieces. Everything is made up of such ridiculously small things that we could say that nothing even exists if mere smallness was all that matters. Suppose for a given molecule, it is one femtojoule away from succeeding in an attempt at a reaction. Adding 2 femtojoules will tip it over into a reaction. Hey presto, cancer! Or ionisation if that is what the energy was needed for. How about a 58 year old? It would be fun to win that. <And in golf, a 55 year old 17 handicapper might win the US Open. It could happen, but I sure wouldn't want to make any decisions, financial or otherwise, based on it actually happening. > Because I lack a big hit, I'd have to sink a lot of 40 foot putts. Fortunately, my putting is quite good, so that's possible. If there was a field of 10 million 12 handicap 55 year olds, playing in a special US Open, I wonder if one of them would win if 10 x Tiger Woods was the opposition. The 10 Tigers would only need to have an off day and some lucky guy have a ridiculous run of luck. It would be a bit difficult for any 17 handicapper to do a sub par pro round. But with 10 million of them, some would be getting close. I was with a 17 handicap friend who did 1 under par for a half, so he'd have only have had to do another half the same. Obviously doable, if he tried 10 million times. The moral of the story is to wear a tin hat to keep cosmic rays out of your head, avoid coffee and other comestibles with carcinogens, and use the cellphone as much as you like. It's unwise to say there is zero danger from cellphones, because that sets one up for being a liar and being found guilty by a jury for a $10 billion award to some mother of 5 who suffered brain cancer and had been told cellphones cannot cause brain cancer. And apart from that, it's obvious that there is some slight risk. It's like many hazards these days. There is no longer a safe level, so much as an acceptable risk level. Aircraft do still crash, but there's an acceptable [to most people] risk. <At a milliwatt input the number of reactions that occur is close enough to zero to be negligible. > True, but not if one is the unlucky one, or are particularly scared of such a thing [as some people are of flying in 747s]. Or could have a big class action suit awarded against one. Mqurice