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Old September 8th 08, 06:00 PM posted to sci.space.policy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.chem
Martha Adams
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Posts: 371
Default United States Falling Behind EVERYONE In Physics, Science, Rockets, EVERYTHING.

"Androcles" wrote in message
...

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...


jonathan wrote:
Super Collider? The ultimate in reductionist goals. This type of
science
defines the most useless, most irrelevant and least meaningful kind
of science possible....ie...it defines 'pure' science.


I'm still keen to see CERN crank it up...about the time that Stephen
Hawking thinks: "Did I make a slip there? Was that a plus where a
minus should have gone in that formula around thirty years ago?"
Then, in around a matter of a hour or so, the entire solar system
collapses into the black hole where Earth used to be.
Many would be appalled to conceive of such a possibility.
I'd find that to be absolutely hilariously funny. :-D

Pat


Don't worry, Brian (the brain) Cox is ready to step into Hawking's
shoes
when nothing happens -- or should I say his wheelchair?
In watching BBC's "Horizon" the optimistic glow on the fresh young
face of that nutter restored my undying faith in the absolute (not
even
relative) stupidity of theoretical physicists.
http://www.apolloschildren.com:16080/brian/


It's interesting to conjecture what would happen if we *did*
get a black-hole object. My guess is our planet would be a
few years falling into it, since energy released from the
falling would create a pressure field around it, thus slowing
the infall. *That means* we'd have time for an intense and
very fast space settlement program before increasingly
frequent earthquakes made large structures impossible to
build and use.

I'd propose for this a settlement on Luna farside as the
best compromise between maximum distance and minimum time to
build the settlement. The work would be to ship out as much
material as possible before further work becomes impossible,
and provide the 30-60 settlers with frozen human eggs and
sperm to maintain the necessary genetic diversity. It's an
interesting topic.

Actually, I can't agree with the idea the Super Collider and
theoretical physics and cosmology generally, are useless.
Back in the late 1800's, state of the art in
theoretical physics was how does light get created; how do
electric and magnetic fields work to move energies, and etc,
leading to things we take for granted today such as radio and
radar, transformers, computers etc etc. Of course there were
people like Jonathan then, convinced their kerosene lanterns,
gas lighting, and telegraph systems were completely all
anyone could need.

Having known some theoretical physicists personally, I can
speak from my own experience to say, they are some of the
quickest and brightest people around. When he says they
are doing

"...the most useless, most irrelevant and least meaningful
kind of science possible...."

Jonathan signals not knowing anything of the people or of
the work.

Titeotwawki -- mha [sci.space.policy 2008 Sep 08]