One bead = one year. Size of colored beads is proportional to number of terrorist-caused deaths. Black beads = no terrorist deaths. The largest bead is 2001. Also see Loren Madsen's earlier piece Tops (2001) featuring the same dataset, our entry 1995 – Loren Madsen’s Early Data Sculptures, and our interview with the artist. Sources: Loren Madsen

 Worry Beads, one for every year from 1945 (closest in the pic), are scaled at one cc per human life. The volume of each is set by the number of terrorist-caused deaths for that year globally. The whole thing is about 40' long, the largest bead (2014) is 19" dia. There’s other material which hopefully makes clear that the #1 American fear, terrorist attack, is ridiculous. There’s another string of beads, 50" long, which shows terrorist deaths in the US. You’re more likely to be killed by a human toddler. The real horror: From 1945 thru 2017, globally, 413,000 people died via terrorism; in the same period in the US 992,000 people were murdered (and I’m missing data from 1946-1960) Also see our entry 2004 - Worry (Prayer) Beads for an earlier version by the same artist. Source: Loren Madsen (2018) Facebook post and personal communication.