I wasn't intending to imply the universe doesn't exist (though it would be interesting if it could be shown that if agnostics exist, and also that their beliefs are rational, then this implies the universe and therefore God, do not exist ;)

I was just pointing out that to justify agnosticism on the basis of logical reasoning causes a problem or 2. Of course it depends how you define agnosticism - perhaps I was being a bit cheeky with my broad definition as it needed to include all non-proven beliefs, not just religious ones. For example there's no inconsistency in saying that agnosticism has a basis in logic, if agnosticism doesn't refer to "truths" within logic. I guess it's a bit like the problem that it is not possible to prove the consistency of any grammar using only statements in that grammar, but it is possible to prove the consistency of other grammars.

It's all a bit academic really as there are clearly differences between the statements of "self-evident truth" found in logic and those found in faith. But from the point of view of logic are these statements any different?

And by the same logical reasoning the only answer to the "Ronald McDonald is an alien from Mars" argument are: 1) "Unknowable" 2) "not relevant"

So agnosticism based on logical argument is not particularly useful.

Furthermore, if logic is the reason for your agnosticism as you seem to suggest, then to be consistent you cannot have any unsupported beliefs, including those regarding the truth of axioms in logic. Thus agnosticism cannot be a rational stance either - the same logic denies the concept of rational argument.

In other words it's not logically consistent to assert "I take to be true only those things that can be proven to be true", as the proofs you are relying on depend on unprovable truths.

It is statements such as this that contribute to the public suspicion of the nuclear industry IMO. Nuclear power is not "safe", it has risks like any other industrial scale power generation. The public knows there are risks, it knows that the nuclear industry has a history of trying to hide the risks, and it knows that human factors are often more significant than reactor design when safety is concerned.

At some point the industry needs to hold their hands up and say "yes we have been doing it wrong", and if the risks really are less now than they were in the past, try to convince the public that things will be different. But I suspect this wont happen while we are still using reactors with all the same attributes as the ones at Fukushima for example, or storing fuel in ways that were never envisaged by the original designers.

My view is that there will always be accidents (until proven otherwise) and it's not acceptable to rely on people risking their lives every time there's an accident in order to prevent further risk to the public. Both Chernobyl and Fukushima would have been far worse but for the actions of a few "heroes". Nuclear safety should not have to depend on heroes.

This accident proves nothing except that the consequences of nuclear accidents are unpredictable.

You are quite a long way off with your estimate, though you're right that the effect would be small.

One mole of lead is 207 grams so the energy you are talking about would cause a 1 K rise in only (207 * 2 * 10^12) / (6.02 * 10^23) or 6.9 * 10^-10 grams of lead.

That's less than the mass of a human ovum. Orders of magnitude (mass)

And the heat capacity (by mass) of water is about 32 times that of lead so you could heat up even less than that - just over 2 * 10^-11 grams of water.

Though the detectors are perfectly capable of detecting boots, due to the low penetrability of the electromagnetic waves I think you should be reassured your boot will remain well hidden.

The use of *gate is so common now, perhaps the phenomenon should be called gatezilla.

+1 informative for the posting the link, -1 interpretation for implying the opposite of what the graph shows.

That's my next challenge - once I've finished reading the web.

A well-trained dog would be good, but I reckon having an un-house-trained dog would deter most unwelcome visitors.