Posted on 08/10/2007 11:44:05 AM PDT by snarks_when_bored
Dyson is sui generis.
Of course I wonder if his mapping of Feynman’s model onto Schwinger’s was accurate. Schwinger did not think so.
Been a long time. Nice to hear from you again. You have been missed.
I don’t necessarily disagree with him on the third heresy. I think alot of us here feel the same as him. Not that we think it necessarily WILL happen, but it wouldn’t suprise us. Things always go in cycles.
A field of corn growing in full sunlight in the middle of the day uses up all the carbon dioxide within a meter of the ground in about five minutes.
If the air were not constantly stirred by convection currents and winds, the corn would stop growing.
About a tenth of all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is converted into biomass every summer and given back to the atmosphere every fall. That is why the effects of fossil-fuel burning cannot be separated from the effects of plant growth and decay. --"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Notable common sense from a very uncommon man.
A superb article, and it will probably cause me to buy his book.
“Things always go in cycles” is not an argument.
I mean, do you really think America with its values, creativity and free markets can ever be taken over by an authoritarian/communist cesspool like China?
I agree with you, Paradox, that there is, more or less, something going on in the atmosphere related to human activity. But what FD points out with such spectacular brilliance is that it’s a) unpredictable, b) not necessarily very bad or even all bad, and c) closely tied in with natural cycles that we do not understand at all.
I also agree with you about how interesting is his notion of land management. I’ve thought all along that the secret is in the sea (as in “give me a tanker full of iron and I’ll give you an ice age”). This focus on topsoil is a very interesting perspective.
And what he said about ice ages is absolutely and unarguably true. It’s one of the few things we know with certainty about earth’s long-term climate: that ice ages are cyclical, that warm periods are short, and that we are at the far distant end of the current warm period.
Are we fending off an ice age? In the hoot-mind of the OwlGore, is that a bad thing?
(And of course there’s much more to all this. Mars is undergoing warming? What about THAT? That’s a whole ‘nother issue!)
((I’m definitely buying the book.))
We are being swamped in a way which, if unchecked, will most likely lead to the ship of state foundering. Not now, and not in 10 years. But fifty years from now? When Azatlan breaks away and HillaryCare has paid for a half-billion new border-born babies? How is the idea of a second-rate US so hard to imagine?
Ignorance and Arrogance go mano e mano!
A little warming, we can live with. But a new ice age would really suck. :-)
Oh yes, much as Rome was runover by the savages. And in much the same way, we wont get "beat", but an empire, somewhere along the way, seems to lose its will to do what it needs to do to survive. They start to see themselves as "above" all that riff-raff. In other words, Liberalism kills them. You can see that in Europe, and in America as well. Will this continue? I dont know, I mean, I certainly hope not. As Conservatives, our goal ultimately is to delay the inevitable, or better, to keep at at bay ad infinitum.
I hear the Siberians got no problem with a little Global Warming :)
More important was the cancellation of the Superconducting Supercollider. Our scientists, instead of being at the head of the line in Texas, are at the end of the line in France. That will be seen as the watershed event in the decline.
Oh dear. What will Shell Oil do now, and that one that has the dinosaur mascot? (if oil comes from deep within the earth and is not the result of previous life forms)
America has its problems but it’s in far better shape than all the other countries.
I remember when everyone said that Japan would be #1 during the 80’s. Japan’s future is in even worse shape with its negative replacement birth rate.
Europe doesn’t look like it is in great shape. On the one hand the europeans have lost their moral and cultural identity. On the other hand, they have allowed all these muslims in and they might take over.
second rate US means something else would be first rate. I don’t see where that wonderful country is.
What is more reasonable is to argue that if America declines, everything else will decline with it.
He got banned?
Whatever for?
I am going to have to seriously consider why i still come here if thats the case.
Call me stuned,
knewshound
Freeman Dyson has forgotten more about science than Algore has ever known, times about 10.
I don’t think he was talking about quality of life. I think he meant power, of many kinds. Military, economic, and otherwise. It is possible that the day will come when the US is not #1. And if it does come to pass, the unending border invasion will be the underlying cause.
Dyson: I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.