Professor Paul Dixon of the University of Hawaii, a three-time Nobel Prize nominee, joins to warn that high-energy particle physics experiments at Fermilab near Chicago could trigger a catastrophic transition into what physicists call de Sitter space, an adjacent dimension containing energy densities vast enough to produce a supernova on Earth. Such an event would vaporize not only the planet but the entire solar system and everything within 50 light years. Dixon explains that he previously helped convince Fermilab's director to keep the accelerator 10 percent below full power for a decade.
With Fermilab planning to increase energies tenfold by 1999, Dixon urges the public to pressure Congress and demand a thorough safety review before the upgraded accelerator comes online. He argues that Type Ia supernovae observed in distant space may themselves be evidence of advanced civilizations that accidentally triggered this same catastrophic physics.
Key Moments
Art launches the 6.890 MHz ET-listening experiment: Art declares a 48-hour worldwide listening experiment on a quiet shortwave frequency, asking everyone with a receiver to park on 6.890 MHz and tape any signal that arrives. He stresses no one is to transmit - this is purely a passive invitation to any extraterrestrial intelligence within the speed-of-light reach of his voice.
Veterans cemetery UFO photograph from Hawaii: Art unveils a 35mm photograph by Ron Sprouse taken Easter Sunday at the National Veterans Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. He has the raw print in studio, holds it up on the studio cam, and calls the saucer-shaped object above the tree line one of the best indecipherable UFO photographs ever taken - on par with Billy Meier in some ways.
Fermilab supernova warning: Art reintroduces Professor Paul W. Dixon and frames the alarming thesis: a single miscalculation in upcoming Fermilab experiments outside Chicago could tear our space into the de Sitter space and release energy equivalent to a Type Ia supernova - vaporizing Earth, the Sun, and everything within roughly 50 light years.
Fermilab Bevatron tenfold energy upgrade: Asked what specific experimentation worries him most, Dixon points to the imminent Fermilab shutdown for a six-month build of a new Bevatron stage that will increase collision energies tenfold. He argues a careful public discussion has to happen before the upgraded machine is switched on, because unlike a regional nuclear war this failure mode is instant species-wide extinction with no warning.
Dixon claims he helped kill the Texas superconducting supercollider: Dixon tells Art he submitted his physics papers to members of Congress and corresponded with the governor of Texas, and credits that quiet campaign - not budget overruns - with halting the Superconducting Super Collider when it was sailing through Congress. Art interrupts: he had assumed money killed the SSC. Dixon insists there was hidden knowledge of the de Sitter danger behind the scenes.