Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id SAA01773 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 25 Apr 2001 18:13:38 +0100 Message-ID: <20010425170950.53648.qmail@web10107.mail.yahoo.com> Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 10:09:50 -0700 (PDT) From: Trupeljak Ozren <ozren_trupeljak@yahoo.com> Subject: RE: The Status of Memetics as a Science To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk In-Reply-To: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745DE8@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
--- Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> wrote:
> Making the Earth move out of orbit?
>
> You've been watching either 'The Day the Earth Caught Fire' or 'When
> Worlds
> Collide'. Or maybe even Flash Gordon re-runs.
>
> Vincent
>
Erm, just try to calculate exactly how much energy is needed to move
earth out of its orbit, and then look how much can be released by the
nuclear arsenals of big powers. Last time I did that, a few years ago
and with incomplete knowledge of exactly how big these arsenal were
(they are much bigger then I thought then!), the order of magnitude was
there. Interestingly enough, by the same calculation we did *not* have
enough power to stop the Erath from rotating.
And just a small fraction of that power is needed to burn our
atmosphere down, in effect sterilizing the planet (it is dubious
whether that would kill off all of the marine life, but there is strong
evidence that it might; few hundred million years ago a catastrophe of
far smaller proportions then burning down the atmosphere would be,
destroyed about 95% of all the life in the seas).
I haven't seen any of the above mentioned movies, though...are they any
good :)
=====
There are very few man - and they are exceptions - who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment.
Carl von Clausewitz
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