Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory. And nowhere do these theories find more love and acceptance than on the Internet.

But David Robert Grimes, a physicist and cancer researcher, might have just burst the Internet bubble. As a science writer for the Irish Times and the Guardian, he gets lots of emails and letters from "science-based" conspiracy theorists, who mostly accuse the entire scientific community of publishing fake data to fool the public at large.

So, being a mathematician and a man of reason, Grimes set out to dispel myths such such as NASA faking the 1969 moon landing, the medical community suppressing the cure for cancer and climate change fraud. He came up with an equation that considers the number of conspirators required to keep the secret, whether the conspirators merely had to remain quiet or if they had to actively maintain the conspiracy and the rate at which the involved people would die - either of natural or (shudder) nefarious causes.

“For a conspiracy of even a few thousand actors, intrinsic failure would arise within decades. For hundreds of thousands, such failure would be assured within less than half a decade,” Grimes says.

By his calculations, about 400,000 people would have had to work together to fake the moon landing and about half a million (including scientific bodies) to perpetrate climate change fraud. Both would have been exposed - either by accident or by a whistleblower on the inside - within about 4 years. Have a look at his chart:

Even though Grimes' equation should signal the death nell of hundreds of conspiracy theories, we know it won't. After all, Dr. Grimes is one of the accused: a scientist. I can't wait to hear the conspiracy theories that arise next...from the good doctor's own equations!

See you next week,
Bobby