End of World Has Already Begun, U of WA Scientists Say in Book 'The Life and Death of Planet Earth'

Boston.com via Drudge Report ^ | 1/13/03 | Ascribe Newswire

[NormsRevenge]

SEATTLE, Jan. 13 (AScribe Newswire) -- In its 4.5 billion years, Earth has evolved from its hot, violent birth to the celebrated watery blue planet that stands out in pictures from space. But in a new book, two noted University of Washington astrobiologists say the planet already has begun the long process of devolving into a burned-out cinder, eventually to be swallowed by the sun.

[Old Professer]

''The disappearance of our planet is still 7.5 billion years away, but people really should consider the fate of our world and have a realistic understanding of where we are going,'' said UW astrophysicist Donald Brownlee. ''We live in a fabulous place at a fabulous time. It's a healthy thing for people to realize what a treasure this is in space and time, and fully appreciate and protect their environment as much as possible.''

How can it be considered healthy to people to diminish their very existence while using terms more suited to fatalistic cheap fiction than to studious scientific research?

Further, how does it encourage environmental protection when they state the finality of their premise so smugly?

I think these two have been bitten by the notorious fame bug whose venom knows no antidote; I'll bet they are laughing behind our backs.

[Old Professer]

My dream is - and I can picture it so very clearly: Reach the right hand down and caress that short little lever.

I thought this was a family-friendly site?

[Old Professer]

It was much more likely a process of accretion than condensation.

Like the difference between a hailstone and a raindrop?

[justa-hairyape]

Douglas Adams thought the Dolphins were smarter. The problem is that if you ever spend time 'swimming with the dolphins', you will find out that their mind is on only one thing ! Douglas also thought the mice were real smart. Faking out the lab researchers and all. It is a sobering thought though, the future history of life on this planet from a universal point of view, probably depends on a bunch of apes.

[Harley109]

I don't know about Douglas Adams, but I am a student of John Cunningham Lilly, author of several works on the dolphins he studied for a long time.

John C. Lilly

[justa-hairyape]

Thanks for the link. Will check it out when I have time. I thought you were being a bit humurous. Perhaps if they evolve arms or hands they might become technologically advanced enough to leave the solar system, but I will check out the site. The main problem is that the higher order species (like the dinosaurs) dont have much time considering that we are due for a large asteroid or comet hit soon. It is true though that species living within the ocean may have a beter chance at surviving the next catastrophic event, since the ocean provides a buffer from environmental extremes.

[RIGHT IN SEATTLE]

The author should lay off the Cosmopolitian Martinis at the EMP.

[justaguy]

It is far better to move life to another ball of rock in another solar system. Even if you had to do it on a ship so slow it takes generations of humans to do so.

Yep, We've got all of our eggs in one basket (Terra), something is going to happen to this basket, so let's all move to another basket...

[Harley109]

You would find Lilly's material about dolphin brain sructure very interesting. The biggest barrier to communication, the differences in hearing/speaking range, and the different mediums of sound conduction, water v. air are vanishing with the computer interface languages being developed.

This is a truly huge change in our cultural paradigm, so researchers have gone slo, developing data into proof grade material in a manner that will keep the contriversy over this issue at a managable level.

Suffice it to say, experiments where two bottle nosed dophins with touch screens showing geometric forms in different sizes and shapes in a view divided tank done in recent years are mind blowing.

One dolphin showed a series of these forms orally relayed the right sequence of forms to touch to the dolphin in the other side of the tank.

It takes language to do that.

They also regard painted marks on their bodies painted by researchers in mirrors. This sense of self awareness is a strong indicator of sentience.

I also recommend his work, "Lilly on Dolphins." It is a compilaton of much of his work on odonticeti.

If indeed we wind up welcoming large brained mammals from the oceans into the ranks of intelligent beings on this planet, I would see it as further proof of God's blessings of this planet. I feel that if this occurs this century, our species' ego can withstand a totally literalist view of what it means to be created in God's image.

[roadcat]

"Or we'll strap engines on the Earth and move it to a younger vibrant sun somewhere else. That would simply not work. We may figure out how to learn how to move through space-time in a fashion simular to how a warp engine in Star Trek does it. But a gravity well as large as Earth would not be moved cheaply or easily. Not to mention how badly damaged and frozen it would b for eons before it could reach another system."

Haven't you watched Star-Trek? Of course it would work! Remember the episode where the trekkers are transported to a world where some people are going nuts because they say they touched the sky? The ancients had encapsulated the world in a shell while the planet was transported to a new solar system. Technology kept the natives comfortable for the journey. Similarly, our blue planet is but a ship in the void.

And it may be far simpler to move a single ship than to build ships to move billions of people, and even worse all their luggage and posessions (yeh, like the Smithsonian and Vatican City). Ion propulsion systems can move large masses given enough time (we do have billions of years, remember). The gravity well you speak of (Earth) is but a tiny speck in the cosmos. It only seems big to us because we're too primitive and have not yet ventured far from this island.

[Doctor Stochastic]

The sun has its own fuel. It just has to switch to the reserver tank.

[eccentric]

Invest your penny now and make your reservations.....

[aruanan]

Like the difference between a hailstone and a raindrop?

No, accretion from interstellar dust and planetoids versus condensation from incandescent gases.

[LiteKeeper]

YEC doubtful read later

[Harley109]

I have looked at the conventional physical aspects of how much energy, time and the mass of fuel needed for such an undertaking.

I don't know if it is so good to be hug up on this mudball if there are adaptable planets elsewhere considering the hurtles to jump to move Earth.

Now the Pearson Puppeteers in Larry Niven's Ringworld novels did move their worlds away from a pending shock wave of an explosion of the center of our galaxy, and he came up with ingenious ways to defet gravity in 'Neutron Star.' But if we survive as a corporial species through the eons, my money is on a fleeing of refugee live from Earth; not it being drug along like the cargo on an over burdened dung beetle's back to another star.

[dfwgator]

...and I feel fine.

[justa-hairyape]

Good points. I dont doubt that other higher ordered organisms, besides apes, can communicate with some type of language. Communication in itself however does not automatically lead to wisdom or technological advancement. For example, listen to the birds chirping at each other out your window and examine their great technological creation. The birds nest. Wisdom and technological advancement are acquired skills that we have developed over the millenium using the hands, fingers and unique mental abilities we were given (by evolution or god depending on your point of view). We were obviously given this unique ability for a reason.

[RightWhale]

It would be like moving spotted-owl eggs with a front-end loader. Easy . . . easy . . . easy . . . oops.

[Risa]

>>It would be like moving spotted-owl eggs with a front-end loader. Easy . . . easy . . . easy . . . oops. <<

Oh, my, a great analogy!

[Old Professer]

Here's the problem I have:

We've got all of this material blasted outward in a single burst accelerated into a void wherein there is no matter or mass to impede the free travel of the effluvia; the temperature is unimaginably high and the "space" in which it finds itself is what? - absolute zero?

Now, the gaseous matter must cool and then condense to form the dust of which you speak; but, in order for it to accrete, would it not need a locus of matter about which to gather?

If, at the very moment of "explosion" the greater masses were accelerated at a slower rate than the rest would there then be lines (arcs?) of separation among them?

Currently, the greatest masses are composed of the lightest element - hydrogen fusing to energy, called suns, right?

How did all the hydrogen come together to form suns and did it then, having bodies of great mass "recall" the rest of the now condensed matter about it to form planets and smaller solid non-incandescent bodies?

Or, in the "Big Bang," did all the heavy mass suddenly get thrown clear of the hydrogen leaving it to dart here and there and come to "rest" violently fusing as it slowed?

Or, is this just above my puny mind?