npts2020

Ok. So at what CO2 value (all other factors held constant) will we be unable to cope with the changes? Are you claiming CO2 concentration is irrelevant?

I am not so sure science and philosophy can be neatly separated. IMO philosphy is merely speculation on unproven scientific matters. Once science substantially "proves" something it moves out of the realm of philosophy and into the realm of science. Nearly all (i would say all but someone would probably come up with an exception) of modern science has its beginnings in philosophy and as such the only difference is that one is proven the other is not.

Also direct observation has limits. No matter how you go about observing at some point you are left to infer things from what is observed, even if what you observe is an illusion (ie the earth is flat and at center of the universe).

Well if the Earth and/or moon were getting smaller or larger but staying in the same orbits (relative to the center of the earth and center of the moon), the distance from surface to surface would change.

Maybe a stupid question in all of this scholarly debate, but if marriage was originally intended as between one man and one woman, how did the Mormons and others ever get away with polygamous marriages?

ajb; I have seen people do the same thing by spending money on alcohol, gambling, cars they couldn't afford, etc. (pick your favorite boogeyman). While this behavior probably does not contribute to an orderly society, I don't see why the government has any interest one way or another as long as those individuals do not become the responsibility of the government. Pangloss; How many people do you think would start smoking pot (or do any other drug) if it was suddenly legalized? I think we all agree that an individual should be accountable for their actions but I know so few people who never use drugs of any kind that I can count them on one hand. In a free society what is the difference if a doctor prescribes them or you do it yourself? If drugs were legal, at least the government would have a chance of being able to track people doing the worst of them, plus it could be the means of funding treatment.

I was dragged kicking and screaming to do math, probably because of bad instruction early on. After 10th grade geometry class, I had hoped that I was done having to learn math but in 12th grade the astronomy class I took required fairly advanced algebra and basic calculus. I muddled my way through and managed to get a "B" but was obviously handicapped by not knowing enough math. The same thing was happening when training to be an engineer but I managed to pick up enough to at least understand more than not. So I guess you can put me in the "necessary evil for learning physics" category.

There are a lot of galaxies, but relative to the amount of space they are extremely sparse. Unfortunately, I can't tell you definitively if anyone has done or not what you suggest, it seems like it would certainly be worthwhile to do.

You are absolutely correct, I should have said if the cosmological constant changes. I will try to find where I was reading about it possibly changing over time but it was not recently.

Why then do we not notice the distance between the earth and moon or any other celestial object increasing as they become smaller?

I would tend to agree but it is becoming a budget issue and may come up in that context. Any serious discussion of balancing the budget IMO has to include talk about the cost vs benefit of continuing to conduct a "war on drugs". In addition to all of the money spent and lives wasted, the government loses billions of dollars in possible tax revenue. It certainly won't come up in the context of attempting to increase individual freedom though. BTW can you step over in the corner and pee in this cup?

That "Smudge" video is pretty funny. Do you think it is a coincidence the coal spokesman looks like Jerry Falwell?

I am not sure what you are asking. You have described the standard cosmological view so far as I can tell.

For those short on time the following will be pretty long-winded. I have seen many ideas about what is happening to the economy (particularly the American) and only a few have made any real sense to my non-economist mind. Even fewer of the proposed "solutions" have made any sense to me. The following is a description of how I see the economic problem and view the the solution. I don't expect anyone to agree with the analysis or conclusions but any respectful feedback will be greatly appreciated. Premises of discussion 1)We are on the brink of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930's and maybe ever. 2)Random spending of vast quantities of money will not solve the problems. 3)The problems are mostly structural (or lack of) related to an unsustainable economy. 4)There are solutions for avoiding the worst effects of our situation. 1) To say the economy is in a funk is not a statement any sane person would disagree with, but to say that it may become the worst ever is something that requires further explanation. The signs of slower economic activity are fairly indisputable; higher unemployment, lower stock market, fewer imports and exports, slowed or negative GNP growth, etc. These are just the some of the ones that are frequently on the front page. In addition, there are some markets that are almost completely unregulated (I have ranted elsewhere about derivatives---supposedly $500 trillion worth of investment) that have exceeded their natural limit. What happens if a significant number of those entities (corporate or individuals) are not able to meet their financial obligations? IMO if this does happen things willbe worse than ever, hence the frantic shovelling of money from Washington, D.C. into the black hole of wishful thinking..... 2)Already a boatload of money (we can quibble about the amount) has passed from the U.S. Treasury to corporate America in the past year with little visible effect. IMO it is simply because it was given no direction. This is so profound that even Congress is beginning to wonder why. They need to look in the mirror to find the cause. What do you think happens when you hand out money with so few strings, that a plan for being able to pay it back is not even needed (isn't that kinda what happened with the sub-prime mortgages:doh:)? Very little, if any, of the money the government has handed out has had any specifications for its use, and therefore gets used to keep doing what is already being done. If what is being done is the reason you are in trouble to begin with, how is it logical to expect continuing to do it will reverse your fortune? The answer, of course is..... 3)What has gotten us here has worked in the past. The problem is that there are a few things happening now that have not happened in the past. In my mind the most prominent is the sheer size of the human population, not necessarily in America or even in the world as a whole but in the numbers that aspire to use resources at the rate of Americans. Even though there would be someone glad to sell the means for everyone to do this, it is highly unlikely our biosphere would not suffer major changes doing this for everyone in the world, the way we go about things at present. The major obstacle at present is energy, not in lack of it but rather how it is produced. This affects every user from automobiles, to chemical manufacturing plants, to street lights. If energy prices vary widely, economic planning becomes more difficult because of a less certain future. Once there are sufficient wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, or other relatively carbon-free sources in place this problem should be largely solved. Some other unsustainable aspects of the economy; the national debt, chronic trade deficit, negative savings rate, unrestricted corporate bailouts, rate of increase of health care cost, no-interest Fed loans. In order to keep this post at a readable length I will not expound on any of these further now except to say they are a bad combination to have at any time but even more so under the current economic stress. 4)From what I can gather, economists almost universally say that it will take some kind of massive government expenditure to avoid the worst effects of this recession. This is all well and good, but if you are going to drive the national debt up to the point where it could take more than a generation to pay it back, shouldn't we get something that lasts for a generation or more for it? IMO the best place government can spend money is on infrastructure used by all. My personal preference is for automating our highway system but also includes electric grids, communication grids, schools (buildings and equipment), sewage and waste disposal, clean water and others I can't think of off the top of my head. The point being that, so far the government has been giving out money to be "invested" instead of just doing the investment itself. Why are the billions of dollars better invested by going through a "middleman" rather than spending it on things you know need to be invested in? The only solution I can see is government spending, but that has to be carefully directed with enough strings attached to figure out where it went, especially when handed over to a third party. Even if all of that happens, there is no guarantee it will work but at least we will have some first rate schools, more reliable grids, and/or an automated transit system.

Isn't that what Mahatma Ghandi did?

I wonder how the citizens of Tuvalu or many other Micronesian countries feel about melting enough ice to put their entire country below sea level?

Few people I know who are serious students of cosmology would much disagree with this other than perhaps contesting the notion of Big Bang vs. Big Bounce or quibbling about the exact age. Nobody (that I am aware of) has ever shown conclusively that either idea is correct or not.

The cosmological constant only changes relative to our present time. Relative to the cosmos it is constant, it is the cosmos that changes.

Trouble is, I seriously doubt more than a few members of Congress ever read the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (as with most legislation) and would bet even fewer had/have any clue of its implications. The fact that it even passed is as strong proof as I have ever seen that America is run by a single "Business Party" with any differences about being Democrat or Republican being mostly cosmetic. Why would any "traditional" Democrat be in favor of giving money to the richest corporations in the world? Yet the Congressional puppet jumped when the executive from the "other" party pulled the strings.

Unfortunately The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 Places almost no conditions on the recipients of the money or the Treasury Secretary, who hands the money out. The only "concessions" made between the bill that was turned down and the one that passed, was more spending not more regulation or oversight. Currently the only oversight is we can complain, if we can figure out exactly where all of the money went. I don't think anyone can be prosecuted for this seemingly legal looting of the U.S. Traesury, our elected representitives have gone for it hook, line, and sinker.

Is that how long it's going to take to get the LHC fired up to do the job? And here I was being told next year.

IMHO The only way humans will ever fly with their own wings is if somebody figures out a way of grafting a nerve and muscle system onto a carbon fiber infratructure, this *might* make you light enough to fly. It would still require a tremendous amount of energy for even a short flight (how many of us can run as far as 100 meters without pretty severe shortness of breath by the end?). Of course this is after figuring out how to graft your vitals into the infrastructure. I think I will be not attempting any of this ever.

I have nothing to back this up but I would think the strongest field would either be at the edge of where the core becomes molten or halfway from there to the center, not in the exact center. Where is the strongest field in a bar magnet? If the core is what causes our magnetosphere could it not be modelled like a spherical bar magnet?

snp; You should definitely put forward any ideas you have. There are people here who can either show you where your ideas are in error or help refine them into coherence. I have found the review process to be typically fair, if sometimes harsh. Be prepared for a lively discussion if you are proposing anything novel to current understanding. Good luck to you, sir. IMO advancement of knowledge is a worthwhile pursuit for anyone not struggling with basic survival.

I don't see why anyone would be surprised by this, after all it was the same profligate greed and disregard for consequences that got us here to begin with. IMO most of the current consternation is a result of the derivative market more than just real estate troubles, although the two are very interrelated, especially since credit default options (CDO's) make up a significant part of the derivative market. Essentially, a derivative allows you (usually a large corporation) to borrow money against assets, frequently being leveraged to 90% or more. Now you have asset values, especially real estate, being depressed, making the degree of leveraging even greater. Everything is still ok as long as the vast majority of derivatives are not being cashed in. The kicker comes when the companies backing the derivatives go into default themselves. A typical derivative is backed by anywhere from about 30 to 100 companies but if a certain number of those companies (as few as 12 on many) go into default the derivative is considered to be in default. Only a little over 100 companies underwrite virtually all of the derivatives worldwide. Some of the ones already in default, WaMu, Lehman Bros., Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae. Additionally, there are up to 35 more of those companies in financial trouble enough to be considering bankruptcy, mergers, downsizing or other drastic restructuring. A few of these companies are GMAC, Ford Credit, AIG, Citicorp, Goldman Sachs. If as few as about 20 of these companies end up defaulting for any reason, as much as $500 trillion in wealth could be basically flushed down the drain. One could say that that wealth never really existed to begin with but the fact of the matter is that it will have to be accounted for in some manner IMO deflation and devaluing of the dollar being the ultimate accountant. Now, if you want a concrete definition or "too big to fail", check out what companies are underwriting this market and are in trouble, those are the ones too much in debt to be able to afford to let fail. BTW the derivative market is one of the least regulated financial markets in the world......hmmm.