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Longest Running Thread EVER


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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Day after the mid-term in 101, it's the first sunny weekday this spring here in Seattle, and I feel like the old Deep Purple song: "No one came from miles around." Only a dozen out of 44 show up for class. So we went down and sat in the shade in the Quad and I talked about why Venus is different from Earth (and why Earth will look like Venus in time) and told them a question that's certain to appear on the final. Oh, I took attendance too.

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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Heh. I always liked the first nice, warm day at UMF, for that very reason. All the cool teachers would find an excuse to take us outside.

 

"Warm" in Maine, by the way, is mid-60's, with a chilly breeze, and all the snow has finally melted. But it's a nice change.

 

It goes from Effing Cold to Effing Hot pretty quickly, though. That took some adjustment.

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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Day after the mid-term in 101' date=' it's the first sunny weekday this spring here in Seattle, and I feel like the old Deep Purple song: "No one came from miles around." Only a dozen out of 44 show up for class. So we went down and sat in the shade in the Quad and I talked about why Venus is different from Earth (and why Earth will look like Venus in time) and told them a question that's certain to appear on the final. Oh, I took attendance too.[/quote']

 

When you say "look like", what do you mean? I can't ever see the atmospheric density for Earth ever approaching that of Venus, not to mention the acidity level. :think:

 

So what was the question? :sneaky:

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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

When you say "look like", what do you mean? I can't ever see the atmospheric density for Earth ever approaching that of Venus, not to mention the acidity level. :think:

 

So what was the question? :sneaky:

The question was: why does Venus have extra-dimensional intelligence and how humans on Earth will evolve to that level.

 

 

:even more sneaky:

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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

When you say "look like"' date=' what do you mean? I can't ever see the atmospheric density for Earth ever approaching that of Venus, not to mention the acidity level. :think:[/quote']

If (in no particular order) you take the planetary CO2 inventory, turn all the water to vapor and get rid of the "cold trap" at the stratosphere, so that UV can get to it, photodissociate it and have the hydrogen escape so the water is destroyed ... then there's also likely to be large-scale changes in the crustal rocks and massive volcanism. Then you've got ... something a lot like Venus.

 

Thing is, evolution of the Sun, with its inexorably increasing luminosity, is almost certain to this ... albeit in a billion years or so.

 

So what was the question? :sneaky:
How the greenhouse effect works, in something slightly above brain-dead level terms.
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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

If (in no particular order) you take the planetary CO2 inventory, turn all the water to vapor and get rid of the "cold trap" at the stratosphere, so that UV can get to it, photodissociate it and have the hydrogen escape so the water is destroyed ... then there's also likely to be large-scale changes in the crustal rocks and massive volcanism. Then you've got ... something a lot like Venus.

 

Thing is, evolution of the Sun, with its inexorably increasing luminosity, is almost certain to this ... albeit in a billion years or so.

 

So the "Solar Constant"... is not truly constant. ;)

 

And not to mention the pending Red Giant stage our sun will likely go though will roast The Earth like a hamburger on a hibachi (American usage).

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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

So the "Solar Constant"... is not truly constant. ;)
Exactly.

 

And not to mention the pending Red Giant stage our sun will likely go though will roast The Earth like a hamburger on a hibachi (American usage).

 

Whether it'll actually work that way goes back & forth. Earth is right on the hairy edge. The most recent work suggests yes, the Earth will be engulfed and destroyed. The opposite conclusion held for 6-8 years before that. And before that, that was the leading opinion. It depends on several parts of stellar physics that are poorly known and/or very difficult to compute.

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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

. . . Just got back from Norrland's Kendo Open in Luleå. Had a very good time -- the club won four out of five classes, and in the class we lost we got a silver. And I did my best kendo ever! Sempai Erik, he sez; "Wrong? You did nothing wrong!" Next time I will do it even better.

 

Yay us! ^^

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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Exactly.

 

 

 

Whether it'll actually work that way goes back & forth. Earth is right on the hairy edge. The most recent work suggests yes, the Earth will be engulfed and destroyed. The opposite conclusion held for 6-8 years before that. And before that, that was the leading opinion. It depends on several parts of stellar physics that are poorly known and/or very difficult to compute.

Most theories I've heard on the subject say that humans will be long extinct by that point. We're talking millions, maybe billions of years.

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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

I'd say likely, as most other species haven't lasted a fraction of that time. Even if humans do exist, they likely won't be as we know them today.

 

I sometimes like to think what the next evolution of humanity might be like. When I'm in a good mood, anyway; when I'm feeling particularly cynical, it's an exercise in further cynicism.

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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Whether it'll actually work that way goes back & forth. Earth is right on the hairy edge. The most recent work suggests yes' date=' the Earth will be engulfed and destroyed. The opposite conclusion held for 6-8 years before that. And before that, that was the leading opinion. It depends on several parts of stellar physics that are poorly known and/or very difficult to compute.[/quote']

 

Oh, I wasn't talking about actual engulfment. I would think just being within several hundred thousand miles of the photosphere (if not *in* it) would be bad enough.

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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Most theories I've heard on the subject say that humans will be long extinct by that point. We're talking millions' date=' maybe billions of years.[/quote']

 

Well, yeah. It pays to recall in this context that metazoans ... multicelled life of any sort ... have only existed for about 700 million years. The sterilization of Earth via the solar luminosity increase / boil oceans / global volcanism process is about a billion years off. And the engulfing of Earth by the solar photosphere is about 5-6 billion years away.

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