However, when I got to the security line, I started to get the feeling something was different here. Big posters sporting full-body scanners were put up, saying something to the effect that at this particular airport, enhanced security measures were in effect.

Being slightly concerned about the radiation effect of said full-body scanners, I thought to myself that I can always opt out, as is possible in the states, believing this to be an option in the UK too. Sure, an enhanced search is not altogether pleasant, but better than receiving an unnecessary dose of radiation.

However, while I was in the queue – a long queue – I looked up some info on my phone. It turns out that if you refuse a full-body scan in a UK airport, travel will be declined. And that, while the airport maintains that the scanners are completely safe (stating that the amount of radiation received is equivalent to that of 5 minutes of background radiation), highly competent researchers have posed serious questions with regards to the potentially cancer-inducing effects of these scans.

As I walked through the queue, I considered my options, should I be selected for a body-scan. Having some time to reflect, I came to the conclusion I had none. If I resisted the body-scan, I would not be allowed to travel. £100 out the window, and no way to get back to Denmark. If I went through the scanner, potential long-term health-effects. I looked with envy on the business-class travellers, and the aforementioned couple with the kids and the pram, who somehow got onto the fast-track security line, which, besides providing a vastly more expeditious security process, was completely devoid of these scanners.

I was not selected for the body-scan. Unlike many of my fellow travellers. The worst thing about the experience was that I did not have a choice. Had I been been selected, I would have been compelled to go through with the scan.

On reflection, this is probably the first time government agencies have resorted to imposing potentially health-damaging security checks on its population, let alone the vastly upgraded privacy intrusions. Sure, the liquid restrictions were annoying, but they did not impose any harm on me, other than having to throw out the occasional face-wash that I forgot to take out of the hand luggage Nor are the metal-detectors or the x-ray machines harmful to us in any way. Enter the body-scanners. Radiation-exposure is now mandatory in order to fly.

The reality is that there is some debate on the health effects of the scanners. In addition to the mentioned expert comments, there is a recent case of scanners in the US having emitted much higher radiation than they should, or at the very least being measured incorrectly. And there are the comments of scientists in this wired article, not exactly inspiring calm. As the icing on the cake, Bruce Schneier, a well-renowned security expert and cryptographer, makes some interesting comments on the effectiveness of these new security measures (though he admittedly elsewhere believes them to be safe health-wise).

Bottom-line, I am sceptical towards new technology that is being rushed in, proclaimed safe, and put to mass-use in the name of security. Mass x-ray scans of vast amounts of people is certainly not something to be undertaken lightly.

“The king asks Archimedes to determine if a present he’s received is actually solid gold. Unsolved problem at the time. It tortures the great Greek mathematician for weeks – insomnia haunts him and he twists and turns in his bed for nights on end. Finally, his equally exhausted wife – she’s forced to share a bed with this genius – convinces him to take a bath to relax. While he’s entering the tub, Archimedes notices the bath water rise. Displacement, a way to determine volume, and that’s a way to determine density – weight over volume. And thus, Archimedes solves the problem. He screams ‘Eureka’ and he is so overwhelmed he runs dripping naked through the streets to the king’s palace to report his discovery.” (Sol’s point is that Max needs to ‘take a bath’ to solve his problem, but this quote spurred my interest, apparently)

Not remembering the quote exactly, I seemed to remember something about weight, and claims being made that the amount of water displaced were somehow related to the weight of the object, but I couldn’t get it to make sense that anything but the volume of the object would determine how much water it would displace. Enter google: Search archimedes gold displacement.

It seems reasonable to go from the top, and this site is on a .gov domain, carries the emblem of the US department of energy, so it seams at a 10-second glance to have some reliability. While, when reading it again, the scientists answering do not appear to give any outright wrong information, they don’t at all seem to convey the essence of the story. And when initially reading it, I strongly got the sense that some of them were arguing for a heavier object displacing more water than a lighter object (of the same volume).

Right, let’s try link 2: Now, suddenly, the crown under inspection could be partly silver instead of iron (as claimed by the first site), and this site is more or less about posing a critique against the method anyways, ending up suggesting a setup with scales, reminding me of the epic scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Sir Bevedere goes ‘we shall use my largest scales’.

Browsing through the google-list once again, my eye caught (after having discarded link three as relatively unuseful for my purposes) a debate at ‘Science forums’. This debate again reminded me of the debate preceding the use of Sir Bedevere’s largest scales in the forementioned movie. A guy called Vexer seems determined not to get it, and during a full 2-page discussion seems to hold that the water displaced has to do with weight and not volume.

While scrolling down the list further, my eyes catch something most welcome: What looks like an authoritative source indeed – the Encyclopædia Britannica in it’s very person (the linked page was followed through a couple of additional links). However, my rejoicing is short, since you can read about 5 seconds off that page, before a nag screen pops up asking you to register. So I took a screenshot of the info and read it at my leasure. It seems that indeed, the volume of water (or any fluid for that matter) displaced by a fully immersed object is – dam dam dam – the volume of that object; irrespectable of its weight I might add (while it is of course true that the upward force has to do with the weight of the object, and so becomes relevant for determining to what degree the object will be immersed). Which incidently is the same conclusion found (albeit in even more understandable terms) at Wikipedia. Which adds another point to the trustworthiness of Wikipedia.

So I’m happy; I got confirmed what I initially thought to be true (which raises again another set of questions on the biasedness of my inquiry). However, what’s the point of writing it here, or, as one of my lecturers like to reiterate, ‘so what?’

I had a chat with my dad yesterday evening about postmodernism and the pluralistic society in which we live. He thought much of it had come from technology (perhaps somewhat like Lyotard). And I was reluctant to accept that (there must be more). However, as this little exercise confirms, on any given topic – even the ones we consider to be very established and universally true – we can find a host of both confusing, opposing, and confirming information, since anyone with a keyboard and Internet access can contribute even further to the confusion (you and me both).

I think my dad said something about how it used to be simpler. I agree. Maybe I’m missing a bit of that simplicity, even though I’ve never experienced it, or rather, I’ve probably experienced it growing up, since as a child, you tend to trust your authorities much more. I don’t think I’d like to go back though.

And even further, within especially religious communities, there tend to be those groups who view everything as being very simple. I am envious. However, I find it difficult to go back. And yet I agree. It is very simple. But perhaps simplicity is about choice, and that choice starts out with examination. And entails inspection. And then perhaps in the process, we learn which voices to ignore and which to include.