The one sure "certainty" about the IPCC's methods
● The IPCC’s "certainty" about its certainty is a fraud, and latest report makes that clear. In order to fully appreciate its legerdemain, we need a reminder of how real scientists deal with uncertainty.
Let us start with the concept of time, which can now be measured in intervals hundreds of trillions of times smaller than a second, thanks to clocks made from ytterbium, which have the potential to be 100,000 times more precise than the current gold standard – the caesium atomic clock. All you need to do is cool ytterbium atoms to within ten-thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, and use a laser to stimulate transitions between two of the atoms' energy levels. Such clocks would gain or lose less than a thousandth of a second in around 100 million years. I find this stuff absolutely awesome -- not as in “your new hairdo is awesome”, but as in truly awe-inspiring.
Precise time-keeping is just what we need to Usain Bolt reduce any uncertainty associated with his world records. If the International Olympic Committee (IOC) engaged physicists to improve timing techniques, atomic clocks would probably not be recommended (despite their incredible performance). Instead, the physicists would methodically go through all the uncertainties involved and improve them, starting with the most significant ones.
