Ah, I see. It’s probably a scam.
Exhibit #1:
[quote author=“Honolulu Advertiser”]A Big Island grand jury yesterday indicted the founder and former president of a Big Island tourist attraction called World Botanical Gardens north of Hilo on charges of first-degree identity theft and attempted first-degree theft. The indictment alleges that Walter L. Wagner and his wife, Linda M. Wagner, used deception to gain control of property worth more than $20,000 belonging to World Botanical Gardens on Sept. 10, 2004, and alleges the couple transmitted personal information from July to September 2004 with intent to commit theft.
[More here…]
It is alleged that he sued the WBG for ‘back pay’ for him and his wife after they were laid off, but served suit on the ‘company treasurer’ (in the person of his wife), then represented the WBG in court himself and conceded a summary judgement in favour of the plaintiff (i.e. him).
Exhibit #2:
[quote author=“LHC Defense Fund”]This is the interim web-site for the Large Hadron Collider [LHC] legal defense fund. This fund has been established by Walter L. Wagner, a nuclear physicist, to initiate legal action to require that CERN and the Large Hadron Collider engage in a full safety analysis for all potential theoretical hazards inadequately addressed to-date.
[...]
We are seeking donations to provide for legal intervention. We suggest a donation of $10.00, but would be delighted if your donation were larger. We expect to encounter expenses in excess of $100,000 in this action. If you wish to contribute to this fund, please do so via Paypal at our account at XXXXXXX@XXXXXXX or make your checks payable to LHC Defense, and mail to:
[More here…]
It turns out Wagner has graduated from law school, which makes me wonder where much of the $100,000 in legal expenses will end up?
Exhibit #3:
Interestingly, but only peripherally, The Register mentions the fact that Wagner claims to have discovered a magnetic monopole in a balloon-born cosmic-ray experiment, Wikipedia supports this and cites him as the lead-researcher and discoverer. This is a real result, though the actual science paper announcing the discovery does not include his name among the authors.
[quote author=“Physical Review Letters 35”]Evidence for Detection of a Moving Magnetic Monopole
P. B. Price * and E. K. Shirk (Physics Department, University of California)
W. Z. Osborne † and L. S. Pinsky (Physics Department, University of Houston)
A very heavy particle passed through a balloon-borne stack of Cherenkov film, emulsion, and Lexan sheets. In 33 Lexan sheets it produced tracks expected of either a nucleus with 125≲Z≲137 and β≲0.92 or a magnetic monopole with g=137e. Its track structure in emulsion indicated it was moving downward with β=0.5-0.05+0.1 and was either a nucleus with Z≈80 or a monopole with g=137e. These facts strongly favor identification of the particle as a magnetic monopole of strength g=137e and mass >200mp.
[Edit: Ooh, beaten to the punch, and how! The Entropy Bound blog notes that Wagner is mentioned in the PRL paper’s acknowledgements, while a TIME article credits Wagner and Julie Teague as the technical assistants who first spotted the anomalous track.]
