Static thinking
Gregory Alan Bolcer (gbolcer@gambetta.ICS.uci.edu)
Wed, 30 Sep 1998 07:46:42 -0700
Good Morning America (no I don't watch that
show, but had the tv on making coffee) reported
this morning that there was a gamma burst
that hit the Earth's atmosphere and was
absorbed that contained enough energy to
power the whole planet for a billion-billion years.
That might answer the fork-faq question of 'Could
the earth survived on solar power alone?' but
raises others. For instance, when they predict 'enough'
do they take into account the escalation of energy needs
from increased usage and the de-escalation from
advancing technnology? Show me the model.
Also, is a billion billion more than a googolplex?
I tried to ask Altavista and believe it or not, it
returned the following useful answer:
'Spell check: did you mean googolplex?'
Let's see, 10 to the 10 to the hundred versus
a billion billion. I guess that answers that.
Greg