3254: Detector
| Detector |
 Title text: No other experiment has a lower false negative rate. |
Explanation
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Transcript
[Hairy is standing next to a large machine labeled "Detector". The front of the machine has two lights, labeled "Detected" and "Not detected". The "detected" light is lit up in green. Ponytail and Cueball walk towards the machine]
Ponytail: Over there are our electron microscope, XRF scanner, and mass spectrometer. And this is our most sensitive detector.
Cueball: What does it detect?
[The next panel zooms in on the detector]
Ponytail: (off-screen) Lots of stuff.
Ponytail: Gas, dust, particles, light, radio waves, gamma rays, protons, neutrons, electrons, fields, forces, events, potentials, or states.
[The next panel zooms out.]
Cueball: I don't understand. Aren't most of those always present?
Hairy: Yeah, it's been saying "detected" continuously since we turned it on.
Cueball: What happens if it says "not detected"?
Ponytail: Oh gosh.
Hairy: That would be pretty bad, I think.
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The deluxe edition of the machine probably has "Detected/Not detected" lights for each of those items. I would guess its cost would be significantly higher. 47.248.235.170 21:39, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Pat
To whoever wrote the initial transcript: the title text should not be included. Barmar (talk) 21:57, 3 June 2026 (UTC)
It doesn't even detect a vacuum? Useless thing, showing not even a vacuous truth. 2A02:590:1402:2E01:102F:245D:DD57:1937 22:15, 3 June 2026 (UTC)
It also has zero false positive Rtanenbaum (talk) 23:17, 3 June 2026 (UTC)
- Not necessarily. We are told that it never says "No" when it should be saying "Yes", which suggests that there will be no false negatives. If were trust that assertion.
- But we aren't given any assurance at all (even a simple nodding statement with no provability behind it) that the machine will not continue to say "Detected" even if it somehow really shouldn't. Should it do so, it would be be a false positive. Even though various other existential problems might be more important to anyone around who might care about it, at that point. 81.179.199.253 23:45, 3 June 2026 (UTC)
- My point is that there is no circumstance that the machine would exist where all of the items it detects are no longer present i.e. the case of a false positive just cannot happen. Rtanenbaum (talk) 03:03, 4 June 2026 (UTC)
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