The end of science fiction
Gene Ward Smith
book called "The End of Science". I haven't read it, but the reviews
seem to indicate that the thesis is that scientists are weird, geeky
people who don't have all the answers, and that we have about reached
the limit of what organized nerddom can give us by way of answers to
the Big Questions.
Now I wonder, if science is coming to an end, does that explain the
threads on why science fiction is coming to an end? If your basic
premise, that the science and technology of tomorrow might grreatly
differ from that of today, is false--then whither science fiction? We
might end up writing stories where badly educated, extra-weird nerds
named Jubal are needed to propel any advances. But supernerds to the
rescue gets us into the fantasy part of the bookshelf.
Another question--is sheer momentum enough to get us to the
Singularity, even with science coming to the end and all? And isn't the
Eschaton a supernerd par excellance?
James Nicoll
Gene Ward Smith <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>John Horgan, a senior editor for Scientific American, has written a
>book called "The End of Science". I haven't read it, but the reviews
>seem to indicate that the thesis is that scientists are weird, geeky
>people who don't have all the answers, and that we have about reached
>the limit of what organized nerddom can give us by way of answers to
>the Big Questions.
>
>Now I wonder, if science is coming to an end, does that explain the
>threads on why science fiction is coming to an end?
No, because only _American_ SF is in trouble [1] and also because
Horgan's thesis is total bullshit. Biology, for example, is a rich and
rapidly advancing field.
It smells like familiar bullshit, though. Didn't we just have a
round of End of Science a hundred years ago?
James Nicoll
1: And since they can import SF, this isn't necessarily a problem.
Americans should focus on their strengths and not think about the
future at all. The rest of us will take of that for them and they
can rest secure in the faith that their current position is completely
and totally immune to change. The sun will never set on the American
sphere of influence.
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
Mike Schilling
"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:dq3p7i$ak2$1...@reader2.panix.com...
> It smells like familiar bullshit, though. Didn't we just have a
> round of End of Science a hundred years ago?
And the end of history, just 10 years ago. We know that reading is just
about gone too. What *do* kids study in school these days?
Mark Jeffcoat
> John Horgan, a senior editor for Scientific American, has written a
> book called "The End of Science". I haven't read it, but the reviews
> seem to indicate that the thesis is that scientists are weird, geeky
> people who don't have all the answers, and that we have about reached
> the limit of what organized nerddom can give us by way of answers to
> the Big Questions.
I recommend preserving your innocence. I read that book a couple
of years ago, and promptly threw it away, but as I recall, all of
the interviews had pretty much the same format: Horgan would find
someone interesting, and ask a lot of leading questions to try
and get the interviewee to admit that yes, their field of science
was winding down. Generally, the interviewee would have to deny
this at least three times before Horgan would go away. At the end
of each chapter, he'd write a little summary explaining (in blatant
revision of the conversation he's just re-printed) that yet
another distinguished scientist agrees that science is, in fact,
Ending--though sometimes for variety, he'd explain that the Distinguished
Scientist really did agree with him deep down, but was in deep
denial, or was simply afraid to admit it.
A bizarre book.
--
Mark Jeffcoat
Austin, TX
Gene Ward Smith
James Nicoll wrote:
> It smells like familiar bullshit, though. Didn't we just have a
> round of End of Science a hundred years ago?
A little over, I think. A hundred years ago, Einstein introduced
relativity, and a little earlier, Planck proposed his radiation law.
Earlier yet in the fin de siècle, expermentalists discovered X-rays
and radioactivity, and the upshot of it all is that the whole End of
Science thing came to and end. Perhaps not coincidentally, science
fiction began a serious forward advance.
> The sun will never set on the American
> sphere of influence.
Good for Canada, eh? I mean, what with it being in the sphere of
infleunce the sun isn't setting on. But does this mean we have to read
Robert Sawyer novels?
Mitch Wagner
> What *do* kids study in school these days?
AFAIK, video games and where to find porn on the Internet.
Mitch Wagner
Gene Ward Smith
Mitch Wagner wrote:
> AFAIK, video games and where to find porn on the Internet.
Can we discover if the drive to explore is as strong as sex by checking
how much pornography there is on the Internet and comparing that to
numbers of travel inages, or is that a flawed methodology?
James Nicoll
Michael S. Schiffer
news:dq3p7i$ak2$1...@reader2.panix.com:
>...
> 1: And since they can import SF, this isn't necessarily a
> problem. Americans should focus on their strengths and not think
> about the future at all. The rest of us will take of that for
> them and they can rest secure in the faith that their current
> position is completely and totally immune to change. The sun
> will never set on the American sphere of influence.
Hmm... this seems at odds with your previous observation:
***
Americans are often surprisingly pessimistic about the
long term survival of the USA, either as a nation or as a set
of ideals. Part of it is that the US is large enough that there
is always at least one on-going development to view with alarm,
I think but part of it isn't. The idea that it is dooooomed to
autodestruct goes back pretty far. "The Rise and Fall of the
Athenian Repubic" is from 1776, I think.
If the US lasts as long as the Roman Empire, it could make
it to 4000 AD.
***
<http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/194ab960d232
cad9>
While it may be that Americans are predominantly disposed to undue
complacency or to undue pessimism, it strikes me as unlikely that we
could manage both at once.
Though I suppose that it might be that the pessimism could promote
survival by countering the tendency to be complacent. ObSF: has
anyone done a story in which a Flandry-type (someone who knows that
the best he can manage is to delay the inevitable doom) manages to
succeed in spite of himself?
Frodo, maybe. Or perhaps more closely the men of Gondor, who
watched Sauron's inexorable rebuilding and went open-eyed into a war
that was fundamentally unwinnable, only to find it won by
unanticipated means.
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
James Nicoll
Yes, but you are not obligated to like them.
We're negotiating the right to substitute Robert Charles
Wilson novels.
Canada actually has a certain amount of talent at picking the
right moment to jump from one horse to another: France to Britain [1],
Britain to the US and now I can see the first profit-motivated moves
to focus on Asia, with the new pipline to sell Albertan oil to China.
James Nicoll
1: Make that talent and _luck_, since about the only officer who could
have failed to push Wolfe and his boys off the cliff into the St Lawrence
was Montcalm.
James Nicoll
Michael S. Schiffer <msch...@condor.depaul.edu> wrote:
>jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote in
>news:dq3p7i$ak2$1...@reader2.panix.com:
>>...
>> 1: And since they can import SF, this isn't necessarily a
>> problem. Americans should focus on their strengths and not think
>> about the future at all. The rest of us will take of that for
>> them and they can rest secure in the faith that their current
>> position is completely and totally immune to change. The sun
>> will never set on the American sphere of influence.
>
>Hmm... this seems at odds with your previous observation:
>
On an unrelated note, have you noticed how much easier
it is to deal with a much larger opponent if you can convince
them to step in front of a bus first?
James Nicoll
Mitch Wagner
Might be overlap. What if someone posts porn featuring tourists?
Mitch Wagner
Gene Ward Smith
James Nicoll wrote:
> What is Horgan's background?
Journalism, it seems. Here's a an authorized bio:
"My claim is that science is a bounded enterprise, limited by social,
economic, physical and cognitive factors. Science is being threatened,
literally, in some cases, by technophobes like the Unabomber, by
animal-rights activists, by creationists and other religious
fundamentalists, by post-modern philosophers and, most important of
all, by stingy politicians. "
Sean O'Hara
> "James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
> news:dq3p7i$ak2$1...@reader2.panix.com...
>
>>It smells like familiar bullshit, though. Didn't we just have a
>>round of End of Science a hundred years ago?
>
> And the end of history, just 10 years ago.
Yes, Andrew Fukuyama made one of the classic blunders. The most
famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, and slightly
less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death
is on the line. But a smidge more obscure than those is, "Never
predict that everything is going to change when history has shown
that everything is going to be the same, only moreso."
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
The grass is always greener on the other side, unless Chuck Norris
has been there. In that case the grass is most likely soaked in
blood and tears.
dchi...@cablespeed.com
Michael S. Schiffer wrote:
> While it may be that Americans are predominantly disposed to undue
> complacency or to undue pessimism, it strikes me as unlikely that we
> could manage both at once.
>
On a completely unrelated note, sometimes people manage to
hold contradictory stereotypes at the same time of groups
they dislike.
Gene Ward Smith
Sean O'Hara wrote:
> Yes, Andrew Fukuyama made one of the classic blunders. The most
> famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, and slightly
> less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death
> is on the line.
You forgot never invade Russia in the winter.
David Cowie
> On an unrelated note, have you noticed how much easier
> it is to deal with a much larger opponent if you can convince
> them to step in front of a bus first?
I can *imagine* it. I can't say that I had *noticed* it.
--
David Cowie
Containment Failure + 18940:59
Andre Lieven
> jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote in
> news:dq3p7i$ak2$1...@reader2.panix.com:
>>...
>> 1: And since they can import SF, this isn't necessarily a
>> problem. Americans should focus on their strengths and not think
>> about the future at all. The rest of us will take of that for
>> them and they can rest secure in the faith that their current
>> position is completely and totally immune to change. The sun
>> will never set on the American sphere of influence.
>
> Hmm... this seems at odds with your previous observation:
>
> ***
> Americans are often surprisingly pessimistic about the
> long term survival of the USA, either as a nation or as a set
> of ideals. Part of it is that the US is large enough that there
> is always at least one on-going development to view with alarm,
> I think but part of it isn't. The idea that it is dooooomed to
> autodestruct goes back pretty far. "The Rise and Fall of the
> Athenian Repubic" is from 1776, I think.
China might have something to say about that... <g>
As for the " pessimism ", well, a case can be made that the current
social trends of victimhood ( See Robert Hughes' " The Culture Of
Complaint " ) allows many in the Anglosphere, led by the US, to
simultaneously wax on the superpowerism of the US, and wane on that
things are " falling apart ".
> If the US lasts as long as the Roman Empire, it could make
> it to 4000 AD.
> ***
> <http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/194ab960d232
> cad9>
>
> While it may be that Americans are predominantly disposed to undue
> complacency or to undue pessimism, it strikes me as unlikely that we
> could manage both at once.
Piffle. As a character in an old Doonsebury once stated, the two
prevailing trends in the USA were eating and *not* eating. At the
same time. Pop trends don't have to be consistant.
Usians are famous for going off in all directions at once. What
other land offers Greenpeace and SUVs ?
[...]
Andre
Garrett Wollman
>complacency or to undue pessimism, it strikes me as unlikely that we
>could manage both at once.
Of course, James didn't say "predominantly"; if we substitute "at high
relative frequency" for "predominantly", the result seems fairly
accurate to me.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every
wol...@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own
Opinions not those | search for greater freedom.
of MIT or CSAIL. | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)
Mike Schilling
"David Cowie" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:pan.2006.01.11....@privacy.net...
> On Wed, 11 Jan 2006 20:59:59 +0000, James Nicoll wrote:
>
>> On an unrelated note, have you noticed how much easier
>> it is to deal with a much larger opponent if you can convince
>> them to step in front of a bus first?
>
> I can *imagine* it. I can't say that I had *noticed* it.
You say that as if you weren't talking to James.
obBilko: The one where he got his large, difficult opponent to take out a
large life insurance policy in favor of Bilko, and *then* explained what
"beneficiary" meant.
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
I foresee a novel in which a talented young man's search
for porn on the internet is actually guiding earth's
battle fleets against an alien enemy.
The title is left as an exercise for the writer.
--
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University
Gene Ward Smith
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu wrote:
> I foresee a novel in which a talented young man's search
> for porn on the internet is actually guiding earth's
> battle fleets against an alien enemy.
>
> The title is left as an exercise for the writer.
Wanker's Game.
In all the world, the name of Wanker is one to conjure with. The
child-god, the miracle worker, with life and death in his hands. Every
petty tyrant-to-be would like to have the boy, to set him in front of
an army and watch the world either flock to join or cower in fear.
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
> "James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
> news:dq3p7i$ak2$1...@reader2.panix.com...
>
> > It smells like familiar bullshit, though. Didn't we just have a
> > round of End of Science a hundred years ago?
>
> And the end of history, just 10 years ago.
I wonder if Cato would have pronounced "the end of history"
after Carthage fell? Had his own history not ended sooner,
that is.
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
> wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu wrote:
>
> > I foresee a novel in which a talented young man's search
> > for porn on the internet is actually guiding earth's
> > battle fleets against an alien enemy.
> >
> > The title is left as an exercise for the writer.
>
> Wanker's Game.
We have a winner. Now write the rest of the book.
>
> In all the world, the name of Wanker is one to conjure with. The
> child-god, the miracle worker, with life and death in his hands. Every
> petty tyrant-to-be would like to have the boy, to set him in front of
> an army and watch the world either flock to join or cower in fear.
Starting with the cover blurb. Good.
Mike Schilling
"Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1137017325....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>
> wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu wrote:
>
>> I foresee a novel in which a talented young man's search
>> for porn on the internet is actually guiding earth's
>> battle fleets against an alien enemy.
>>
>> The title is left as an exercise for the writer.
>
> Wanker's Game.
>
(His real name is Wendell, but his slightly older siblings couldn't
procounce that.)
> In all the world, the name of Wanker is one to conjure with. The
> child-god, the miracle worker, with life and death in his hands. Every
> petty tyrant-to-be would like to have the boy, to set him in front of
> an army and watch the world either flock to join or cower in fear.
What, no "joystick" jokes?
@hotmail.com.invalid Eric D. Berge
Nicoll) wrote:
> It smells like familiar bullshit, though. Didn't we just have a
>round of End of Science a hundred years ago?
It's hard to say, perhaps because History supposedly came to an end
about fifteen years ago.
Mr. Limpet
news:j96r9ktj...@wagmail.com...
Or exotic wimmins
Mr. Limpet
I thought "land war in Asia" pretty much had that covered. Although the
winter thing does make a nice corollary (and emphases how much worse Russia,
China, and the Koreas are for invasion fodder than their Siamese brothers).
Mr. Limpet
news:dq3uhr$fdq$1...@theodyn.ncf.ca...
obSouth Park: something about America being specifically designed to retain
cake post-consumption.
Mark
furor. Because science is what it is, the surface features may look
different tomorrow, but the core remains essentially unchanged
since...well, pick your favorite starting point.
Science fiction, likewise, may change its surface features, but I doubt
it will end any more than the love story, the murder mystery, or the
war novel will come to an end. Since (in my opinion) SF is basically
about how people deal with change, it seems to me that if science were
to vanish, that would be a really big change, and writers would (some
of them) want to deal with that, both plausibly and
speculatively--sounds like SF to me.
Mark
author of:
THE SECANTIS SEQUENCE
REMAINS
www.marktiedemann.com
GSV Three Minds in a Can
wonderful person Eric D. Berge <eric_...@hotmail.com.invalid> said
It doesn't matter anyway, we already have more science than we can
engineer our way through in 100 years (fusion, quantum devices,
biotech). Speaking as an engineer I'd be plumb =delighted= if the
longhairs would quit stirring things up for the foreseeable future.
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Contact recommends the use of Firefox; SC recommends it at gunpoint.
Matt Ruff
>
> And the end of history, just 10 years ago.
Which would explain why they don't publish historical fiction anymore.
-- M. Ruff
Matt Ruff
>
> While it may be that Americans are predominantly disposed to undue
> complacency or to undue pessimism, it strikes me as unlikely that we
> could manage both at once.
Dude, we are large, we contain multitudes.
-- M. Ruff
Craig Richardson
wrote:
It's very difficult to have a land war in Russia that will not, at
some point, involve winter. Just too big.
--Craig
--
Craig Richardson (crichar...@worldnet.att.net)
"Then I heard the whirring of the motorized snowmen, sound[ing] like the
death rattle of very small robot lizards, and I left the seasonal aisle"
-- James Lileks, "The Bleat", 2005/10/10
Craig Richardson
Nicoll) wrote:
> On an unrelated note, have you noticed how much easier
>it is to deal with a much larger opponent if you can convince
>them to step in front of a bus first?
ObSF: Captain Cockroach in "Cerebus". "I taught him how to break a
man's neck with only his bare hands and a crowbar."
Howard Brazee
<crichar...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>I thought "land war in Asia" pretty much had that covered. Although the
>>winter thing does make a nice corollary (and emphases how much worse Russia,
>>China, and the Koreas are for invasion fodder than their Siamese brothers).
>
>It's very difficult to have a land war in Russia that will not, at
>some point, involve winter. Just too big.
Of course the Mongols conquered China, Russia, India, and much of the
Mid-East.
John Bauman
Daniel Silevitch
Perhaps the rule should be "never invade Russia from the west; start
from the east instead".
-dms
Damien Sullivan
>I thought "land war in Asia" pretty much had that covered. Although the
>winter thing does make a nice corollary (and emphases how much worse Russia,
>China, and the Koreas are for invasion fodder than their Siamese brothers).
China? Bah, everyone's conquered China. Chinese, Mongols, Chinese, Manchu,
Japanese, Communists...
-xx- Damien X-)
Gene Ward Smith
> > You forgot never invade Russia in the winter.
>
> I thought "land war in Asia" pretty much had that covered.
When last sighted, Moscow was not actually in Siberia. However, it's
probably buried under snow just now, so who can say?
James Nicoll
<dchi...@cablespeed.com> wrote:
>
>Michael S. Schiffer wrote:
>> While it may be that Americans are predominantly disposed to undue
>> complacency or to undue pessimism, it strikes me as unlikely that we
>> could manage both at once.
>>
>
>hold contradictory stereotypes at the same time of groups
>they dislike.
I hope you don't think I dislike American. I like some of them
so much that I want them to be part of Canada and other I hold in
particular regard that I would give them what they say they want.
Actually, Plan B -- in light of a recent thread, perhaps that
should be the fallback plan -- is to see if we can return to this
splendid state of affairs:
http://www.scotese.com/images/B030_zonef.jpg
The benefits to the Commonwealth are clear and it's not as
bad for the US as it might seem, since many of its cities could
continue to function perfectly well in this climate and cities
are where America creates its wealth. The important thing is,
my heating bill will go down.
Miami may want to invest in some fairly dramatic dikes.
Australia should import a significan amount of decent topsoil
but they should so that anyway. I can't believe there's a continent
that never got round to having a good, stimulating glaciation.
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
James Nicoll
Andre Lieven <dg...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote:
>
>
>Usians are famous for going off in all directions at once. What
>other land offers Greenpeace and SUVs ?
Greenpeace was founded in Canada but don't let me
spoil your fun.
Wouldn't it be really difficult to have politics if
there were no issues of policy over which to disagree?
"I'm for policy A!"
"Me too but I am far more passionate about it!"
Actually, I think I had that flamewar.
Frank Scrooby
"Daniel Silevitch" <dms...@uchicago.edu> wrote in message
news:slrndsbhun....@bardeen.local...
>>
>> Of course the Mongols conquered China, Russia, India, and much of the
>> Mid-East.
>
> Perhaps the rule should be "never invade Russia from the west; start
> from the east instead".
The Japanese tried that (twice), first time, technically they bitchslapped a
European power, second time round they didn't do so well (not quite a defeat
but they chose not to pursue further territorial ambitions in the Soviet's
backyard).
Less than four decades between the two wars. Perhaps Communism helped make
Russians (or Siberians - who were the 'Russian' Army grunts in the 1906
war?) better soldiers, or Religious-Fascism makes Japanese poorer soldiers.
>
> -dms
>
Regards
Frank Scrooby
westprog
"Matt Ruff" <storyt...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:M9ixf.456132$zb5....@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
In any case, there is no conflict between complacency and pessimism.
"Everything's going to hell, but there's nothing _I_ can do about it".
J/
Anthony Nance
<wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>Mitch Wagner <mi...@wagmail.com> writes:
>
>> On Wed, 11 Jan 2006 20:24:07 GMT, Mike Schilling wrote:
>>
>> > What *do* kids study in school these days?
>>
>> AFAIK, video games and where to find porn on the Internet.
>
> I foresee a novel in which a talented young man's search
> for porn on the internet is actually guiding earth's
> battle fleets against an alien enemy.
>
> The title is left as an exercise for the writer.
Gamer's End.
- Tony
Joseph Nebus
> Wouldn't it be really difficult to have politics if
>there were no issues of policy over which to disagree?
> "I'm for policy A!"
> "Me too but I am far more passionate about it!"
>
> Actually, I think I had that flamewar.
I had it on an older computer.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
rja.ca...@excite.com
I think Communism - or industrial progress as a goal in itself under
Communism - made Russians better-armed soldiers. And as an ideology,
it probably isn't any much less inspirational than the imperial
feudalism that they had before.
AIUI the Battle of Kursk was won (against the Nazis) because Russia
manufactured lots of little cheap tanks and Germany made big
sophisticated ones but fewer of them?
Mark
manufactured lots of little cheap tanks and Germany made big
sophisticated ones but fewer of them?<
Actually, the Russian tank was the model for one of Germany's better
tanks. I don't have my texts at hand right now, so I can't give you
the designations, but the Russian tanks--cheap maybe, but actually
very, very good. The Russians also built very good fighters. The
problem they had was training qualified pilots, etc.
Daniel Silevitch
>>AIUI the Battle of Kursk was won (against the Nazis) because Russia
> manufactured lots of little cheap tanks and Germany made big
> sophisticated ones but fewer of them?<
>
> Actually, the Russian tank was the model for one of Germany's better
> tanks. I don't have my texts at hand right now, so I can't give you
> the designations, but the Russian tanks--cheap maybe, but actually
> very, very good. The Russians also built very good fighters. The
> problem they had was training qualified pilots, etc.
You're thinking of the T-34, and it was indeed one of the best tanks of
the war. Arguably the best if you account for numbers-built and actual
combat records. The Panther was, to some extent, Germany's attempt to
copy the T-34.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_tank
-dms
Brett Paul Dunbar
<sean...@gmail.com> writes
>In the Year of the Cock, the Great and Powerful Mike Schilling declared:
>> "James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
>>news:dq3p7i$ak2$1...@reader2.panix.com...
>>
>>>It smells like familiar bullshit, though. Didn't we just have a
>>>round of End of Science a hundred years ago?
>
>is never get involved in a land war in Asia,
Ignoring that one usually worked out OK for us.
Bengal war
1st-3rd Anglo-Maratha Wars
1st-4th Anglo-Mysore Wars
1st-2nd Anglo-Sikh Wars
1st-3rd Anglo-Burmese Wars
Burma campaign of 2nd World War
Palestine and 2nd Iraq campaigns of 1st World War
2nd Anglo-Afghan War
Borneo Confrontation
Malay Emergency
Indian Mutiny
&c.
Hmm... Seems to be a pattern here.
Maybe it should be "If you want to fight a land war in Asia don't bring
the Yanks, they're worse than useless."
--
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
Brett Paul Dunbar
To email me, use reply-to address
Brett Paul Dunbar
writes
Actually there have been four Russo-Japanese land wars in Asia. Japan
won the first two and lost the second two.
Russo-Japanese War 1904-05 Japan wins, take Port Arthuer
and Korea
Russian Civil War 1918-1922 Japan occupies part of Russian
Far East
Nomonhan Incident 1939 Japan gets severe kicking
Invasion of Manchuria 1945 USSR overruns Manchuria
[1] Japanese tanks were designed for killing Chinese infantry,
Soviet Tanks were designed for killing Tanks.
Classix
Gene Ward Smith wrote:
> John Horgan, a senior editor for Scientific American, has written a
> book called "The End of Science". I haven't read it, but the reviews
> seem to indicate that the thesis is that scientists are weird, geeky
> people who don't have all the answers, and that we have about reached
> the limit of what organized nerddom can give us by way of answers to
> the Big Questions.
Read the book years ago. He's certainly right about fundemental physics
research - there's only so many particles and only so many forces out
there, and we are nearing the end of what is out there.
Genetics and biology are not near "the end", though, and nanotechnology
will one day transform our lives totally, but I suspect it could be in
hunderds of years time.
> Now I wonder, if science is coming to an end, does that explain the
> threads on why science fiction is coming to an end? If your basic
> premise, that the science and technology of tomorrow might grreatly
> differ from that of today, is false--then whither science fiction? We
> might end up writing stories where badly educated, extra-weird nerds
> named Jubal are needed to propel any advances. But supernerds to the
> rescue gets us into the fantasy part of the bookshelf.
Human travel between the stars may forever be either impossible or
impractical. Certainly FTL travel is probably intrinsically impossible,
and we're then left with either generation ships, or going into stasis.
The latter may be impossible, and the former is deeply impractical. And
who would finance a hugely expensive colonization mission if trade were
totally impossible, and the results of said mission couldn't be known
within the financier's lifetime?
We need to look at what's definately possible. Creating
self-replicating artificial intelligent conscious life is definately
possible.
Program in a strong desire to colonize the galaxy, and they could turn
asteriods into starships, and simply switch themselves off during those
pesky 10,000 year voyages. With frozen eggs and sperm and artifical
wombs, humanity could be carried along by their coat tails.
Hundreds and thousands of isolated colonies of humans evolving in weird
and vastly diverse ways while our robot masters traverse the
galaxy....plenty of scope for future science fiction there.
Mark
Guderian, upon seeing a damaged T-34 ordered it sent immediately back
to Berlin to Porsche. The Panther came out soon after.
James Nicoll
rja.ca...@excite.com <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>
>Frank Scrooby wrote:
>> "Daniel Silevitch" <dms...@uchicago.edu> wrote in message
>> news:slrndsbhun....@bardeen.local...
>> >>
>> >> Of course the Mongols conquered China, Russia, India, and much of the
>> >> Mid-East.
>> >
>> > Perhaps the rule should be "never invade Russia from the west; start
>> > from the east instead".
>>
>> The Japanese tried that (twice), first time, technically they bitchslapped a
>> European power, second time round they didn't do so well (not quite a defeat
>> but they chose not to pursue further territorial ambitions in the Soviet's
>> backyard).
>>
>> Less than four decades between the two wars. Perhaps Communism helped make
>> Russians (or Siberians - who were the 'Russian' Army grunts in the 1906
>> war?) better soldiers, or Religious-Fascism makes Japanese poorer soldiers.
>
>I think Communism - or industrial progress as a goal in itself under
>Communism - made Russians better-armed soldiers. And as an ideology,
>it probably isn't any much less inspirational than the imperial
>feudalism that they had before.
"The Boss will have me fed feet first into a blast furnace if
I blow this," may be motivational (with the downside that it can lead
to stuff like sending out troops when you only have guns for half of
them.
>AIUI the Battle of Kursk was won (against the Nazis) because Russia
>manufactured lots of little cheap tanks and Germany made big
>sophisticated ones but fewer of them?
>
Cheap but _good_ tanks. The Germans prefered expensive, complex
but unreliable equipment, when they could get it. In histories where
the Nazis win and do not collapse into civil war and economic disaster,
this should have an interesting effect on their space program.
James Nicoll
They did ok in the Philippines and later in Japan. China didn't
work out so well in 1949 but that didn't involve mass mobilization by
the US. In 1949, the US was still over half the world's GNP and they
had an unassailable monopoly on Atomic Weapons, at least until August.
Get the US to commit to a serious land-war in China the same way they
committed to WWII and it could well be nightmarish^H^H^H interesting,
with Stalin backing the Reds and the US backing and arming the KMT.
I wonder how long it would take before some suggested that the
Japanese could work off their war-guilt by serving as front line troops
against the Red Chinese? Because that could only end well.
Maybe it's just vaguely S-shaped Asian nations the US should
avoid.
Michael Alan Chary
Gamer's End?
--
The All-New, All-Different Howling Curmudgeons!
http://www.whiterose.org/howlingcurmudgeons
James Nicoll
Classix <cwoc...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Gene Ward Smith wrote:
>> John Horgan, a senior editor for Scientific American, has written a
>> book called "The End of Science". I haven't read it, but the reviews
>> seem to indicate that the thesis is that scientists are weird, geeky
>> people who don't have all the answers, and that we have about reached
>> the limit of what organized nerddom can give us by way of answers to
>> the Big Questions.
>
>Read the book years ago. He's certainly right about fundemental physics
>research - there's only so many particles and only so many forces out
>there, and we are nearing the end of what is out there.
>
realm) and relativity (ditto) have yet to be reconciled, and such
a reconciliation could be as sweeping in its implications as the
solution to why Mercury's orbit is impossible to completely
describe using Newtonian physics.
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
>
> http://www.scotese.com/images/B030_zonef.jpg
>
On his site Chris shows his predicted future continental
locations. While reading Swanwick's "Bones of the Earth"
I had the impression that his future earth was based
on Chris' prediction.
http://www.scotese.com/future2.htm
>
> Australia should import a significan amount of decent topsoil
> but they should so that anyway. I can't believe there's a continent
> that never got round to having a good, stimulating glaciation.
I'm pretty sure they did, about 300 million years ago, and
presumably also in the "snowball" era.
--
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University
Erik Trulsson
>
> Gene Ward Smith wrote:
>> John Horgan, a senior editor for Scientific American, has written a
>> book called "The End of Science". I haven't read it, but the reviews
>> seem to indicate that the thesis is that scientists are weird, geeky
>> people who don't have all the answers, and that we have about reached
>> the limit of what organized nerddom can give us by way of answers to
>> the Big Questions.
>
> Read the book years ago. He's certainly right about fundemental physics
> research - there's only so many particles and only so many forces out
> there, and we are nearing the end of what is out there.
In the late 19th century some people were of the opinion that physics was
essentially finished - that all that remained was determining a some constants
to a few more decimal places.
The first few decades of the 20th century saw the introduction of quantum physics
and the theory of relativity, thereby opening up whole new areas of research.
I would not be so certain that we are even close to reaching the end of fundamental
physics research. It may well be that somebody will come up with a breakthrough
that is just as revolutionary as quantum physics was.
>
> Genetics and biology are not near "the end", though, and nanotechnology
> will one day transform our lives totally, but I suspect it could be in
> hunderds of years time.
>
>> Now I wonder, if science is coming to an end, does that explain the
>> threads on why science fiction is coming to an end? If your basic
>> premise, that the science and technology of tomorrow might grreatly
>> differ from that of today, is false--then whither science fiction? We
>> might end up writing stories where badly educated, extra-weird nerds
>> named Jubal are needed to propel any advances. But supernerds to the
>> rescue gets us into the fantasy part of the bookshelf.
>
> Human travel between the stars may forever be either impossible or
> impractical. Certainly FTL travel is probably intrinsically impossible,
> and we're then left with either generation ships, or going into stasis.
>
> The latter may be impossible, and the former is deeply impractical. And
> who would finance a hugely expensive colonization mission if trade were
> totally impossible, and the results of said mission couldn't be known
> within the financier's lifetime?
>
> We need to look at what's definately possible. Creating
> self-replicating artificial intelligent conscious life is definately
> possible.
Is it really? So far nobody has been able to create "true" AI.
It might well be possible, and it is certainly not implausible, but so
far I don't think we have enough evidence to say if it actually is possible
or not.
>
> Program in a strong desire to colonize the galaxy, and they could turn
> asteriods into starships, and simply switch themselves off during those
> pesky 10,000 year voyages. With frozen eggs and sperm and artifical
> wombs, humanity could be carried along by their coat tails.
>
> Hundreds and thousands of isolated colonies of humans evolving in weird
> and vastly diverse ways while our robot masters traverse the
> galaxy....plenty of scope for future science fiction there.
--
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
ertr...@student.uu.se
Karl M. Syring
Classix wrote:
>
> Read the book years ago. He's certainly right about fundemental physics
> research - there's only so many particles and only so many forces out
> there, and we are nearing the end of what is out there.
Sheesh, there is dark matter and dark energy. We have no idea, what
most of the stuff in the universe is.
Karl M. Syring
Wayne Throop
:: Read the book years ago.
Doesn't that require a time machine... no, wait... nevermind.
:: He's certainly right about fundemental physics research - there's
:: only so many particles and only so many forces out there, and we are
:: nearing the end of what is out there.
: jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
: Except that quantum mechanics (which seems to work in its realm) and
: relativity (ditto) have yet to be reconciled, and such a
: reconciliation could be as sweeping in its implications as the
: solution to why Mercury's orbit is impossible to completely describe
: using Newtonian physics.
The analogy is fairly close. Way back when, there were only two forces,
the huge variety of chemical elements had been organized into a few
building-block particles, and physics was reaching the end. There were
just a few details, a few "i"s to dot and "t"s to cross having to do
with why atoms don't radiate energy scooting off to infinite frequency
even though they contain "moving" electrons, the so called "ultraviolet
catastrophe", and a few related issues, and that'd be that.
Now there are only four forces, the huge variety of subatomic particles
has been organized into a few simple building block particles (a more than
last time, but still not all that many). There are just a few details, a
few "i"s to dot and "t"s to cross having to do with how conditions could
(or maybe couldn't) scoot off to infinite density even though matter
should be quantized, the so-called "singularity" problem, maybe boost
accelerator energies a bit and discover the higgs boson or something,
and that'll be that.
Hey, we're scientists. What could happen?
Interestingly, NAICT from the quote of Horgan from crossthread, what could
happen is related to the situation in the Incredibles reference there;
namely not that the subject matter would reach any physical limits, but
social issues would intervene to nearly stop progress dead in its tracks.
Much like Mr Incredible hadn't reached his physical limits, but social
pressures nearly stopped him dead in his tracks.
That is to say, istm he didn't claim physicists will soon explain everything,
he seemed to say physicists will soon run into social roadblocks to keep
them from explaining any more. Or slow them down lots and lots.
Or so it sounded to me. YMMV.
"What's your excuse, you run out of muscle?"
--- Frozone
"You *know* how to spell "justice". It's just ice."
--- Frozone (in the DVD extras)
( Everything I need to know, I learned watching The Incredibles.
You know, family unity, beware of sociopathic fanboys, how to deal
with exploding babies, zero point energy is really cool, and of course
that most important of lessons, "no capes". )
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
rap...@netscape.net
Erik Trulsson wrote:
> Classix <cwoc...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > We need to look at what's definately possible. Creating
> > self-replicating artificial intelligent conscious life is definately
> > possible.
>
> Is it really? So far nobody has been able to create "true" AI.
> It might well be possible, and it is certainly not implausible, but so
> far I don't think we have enough evidence to say if it actually is possible
> or not.
I wonder what the reaction would be if they couldn't even get upload
type AI working. For example, they use MRI or something similar to
record a mouse's brain. They then create a model of a neuron. This
two things are combined with a simulation model of the mouse's body and
his maze.
No matter how perfect they make the models of the neuron and
enviroment, it just doesn't work. The models are improved so they take
into account chemical conditions etc. The mouse doesn't move or react
at all, maybe even things like heart beat nerve impulses aren't sent.
They brain just doesn't work.
If they watch a single neuron or small group of neurons in real time,
they always match the neuron model to the accuracy of the measurement
device, when provided with the same inputs. As far as they can see
their models are near perfect, but the brain simulation taking into
account the whole brain just doesn't work.
They decide that it might be a QM effect, so constantly observing the
neurons is throwing off the result. They only "poll" the neuron state
with the record device every second or so, it still matches the model
when polled. Eventually chaos theory overwhelms their ability to
improve the model, but not before QM has been near ruled out.
In effect, it would be experimental proof of some kind of dualism.
Having said that, experimental proof of dualism arguably refutes
itself.
For the scenario to work the measurement MRI would have to be somehow
limited so that it can't snap shot the entire brain many times a
second, maybe that could "melt the brain". It still would need to be
able to record all the neurons in a brain over a few minutes or so,
possibly having a system to detect where changes are occuring. I am
not sure how quickly a brain rewires itself, so this should still allow
a reasonable connection map.
Classix
Erik Trulsson wrote:
> Classix <cwoc...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > Gene Ward Smith wrote:
> >> John Horgan, a senior editor for Scientific American, has written a
> >> book called "The End of Science". I haven't read it, but the reviews
> >> seem to indicate that the thesis is that scientists are weird, geeky
> >> people who don't have all the answers, and that we have about reached
> >> the limit of what organized nerddom can give us by way of answers to
> >> the Big Questions.
> >
> > Read the book years ago. He's certainly right about fundemental physics
> > research - there's only so many particles and only so many forces out
> > there, and we are nearing the end of what is out there.
>
> In the late 19th century some people were of the opinion that physics was
> essentially finished - that all that remained was determining a some constants
> to a few more decimal places.
Very few. Back then they knew that there was no adaquate model of
atoms, the photoelectric effect, the energy source that powered the sun
and other stars, and no way to account for the lack of the ultra-violet
catastrophe etc....
> The first few decades of the 20th century saw the introduction of quantum physics
> and the theory of relativity, thereby opening up whole new areas of research.
>
> I would not be so certain that we are even close to reaching the end of fundamental
> physics research. It may well be that somebody will come up with a breakthrough
> that is just as revolutionary as quantum physics was.
Look at the progress made in the first half of the 20th century: the
towering triumphs of quantum mechanics and relativity.
Compare this with the second half.
Sure there are some question left in fundemental physics research, like
how to unify relativity and QM. The finest mathematical minds have been
grappling with the leading contender (string theory), for decades, but
still there is no sight of an experimentally verifiable prediction.
We've passed the point of diminishing returns.
>
> >
> > Genetics and biology are not near "the end", though, and nanotechnology
> > will one day transform our lives totally, but I suspect it could be in
> > hunderds of years time.
> >
> >> Now I wonder, if science is coming to an end, does that explain the
> >> threads on why science fiction is coming to an end? If your basic
> >> premise, that the science and technology of tomorrow might grreatly
> >> differ from that of today, is false--then whither science fiction? We
> >> might end up writing stories where badly educated, extra-weird nerds
> >> named Jubal are needed to propel any advances. But supernerds to the
> >> rescue gets us into the fantasy part of the bookshelf.
> >
> > Human travel between the stars may forever be either impossible or
> > impractical. Certainly FTL travel is probably intrinsically impossible,
> > and we're then left with either generation ships, or going into stasis.
> >
> > The latter may be impossible, and the former is deeply impractical. And
> > who would finance a hugely expensive colonization mission if trade were
> > totally impossible, and the results of said mission couldn't be known
> > within the financier's lifetime?
>
>
> >
> > We need to look at what's definately possible. Creating
> > self-replicating artificial intelligent conscious life is definately
> > possible.
>
> Is it really? So far nobody has been able to create "true" AI.
> It might well be possible, and it is certainly not implausible, but so
> far I don't think we have enough evidence to say if it actually is possible
> or not.
Sure it's possible - consider the human brain. This is why I'm
optimistic regarding nanotechnology - bacteria are tiny
self-replicating machines. If nature can do it, so can we. It's just a
question of time-scale.
James Nicoll
25 square kilometres, in the vicinity of Mt Kosciuszko."
Taki Kogoma
allegedly declared to rec.arts.sf.written...
>: jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
>: Except that quantum mechanics (which seems to work in its realm) and
>: relativity (ditto) have yet to be reconciled, and such a
>: reconciliation could be as sweeping in its implications as the
>: solution to why Mercury's orbit is impossible to completely describe
>: using Newtonian physics.
>
>The analogy is fairly close. Way back when, there were only two forces,
>the huge variety of chemical elements had been organized into a few
>building-block particles, and physics was reaching the end. There were
>just a few details, a few "i"s to dot and "t"s to cross having to do
>with why atoms don't radiate energy scooting off to infinite frequency
>even though they contain "moving" electrons, the so called "ultraviolet
>catastrophe", and a few related issues, and that'd be that.
>
>Now there are only four forces, the huge variety of subatomic particles
>has been organized into a few simple building block particles (a more than
>last time, but still not all that many).
Actually, we're down to 3 (weak nuclear and electromagnetism were
congealed into electro-weak about a decade back) or even 2 (if the
predictions about color and electro-weak pan out) Fundamental forces.
As for the particle zoo, I think the number they're looking at is 30
or so fundamentals: 12 quarks, 12 leptons, and assorted force
carriers.
(That's 6 flavors of quark plus their antimatter counterparts, 3 flavors
each of electron and neutrino and their antiparticles, gluon, photon,
W+/-, Z-null, and graviton.)
> There are just a few details, a
>few "i"s to dot and "t"s to cross having to do with how conditions could
>(or maybe couldn't) scoot off to infinite density even though matter
>should be quantized, the so-called "singularity" problem, maybe boost
>accelerator energies a bit and discover the higgs boson or something,
>and that'll be that.
Finding the Higgs Boson was part of the electro-weak merger in the
previous millenium, IIRC. String Theory is the Big Idea that's the
current candidate for resolving the Quantum/Reletivity split.
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk -- quirk @ swcp.com | /"\ ASCII RIBBON
(Known to some as Taki Kogoma) | \ / CAMPAIGN
I'll get a life when somone shows that | X AGAINST HTML MAIL
it'd be superior to what I have now. | / \ AND POSTINGS
Wayne Throop
: Look at the progress made in the first half of the 20th century: the
: towering triumphs of quantum mechanics and relativity.
: Compare this with the second half.
Look at the towering triumph of Newton.
Compare with the progress for the next two centuries
or so, just working out consequences of that.
Were we at a point of diminishing returns then?
Mind you, the still-unknown things now are often cosmological, rather
than visible locally in laboratories. So called "dark matter" and
"dark energy", and quantization of spacetime at very high energies.
Nevertheless, dark matter is thought to permeate the galaxy, maybe some
zipping through our labs right now, and spacetime itself is all around
us, right in our labs, and we don't fully understand it. Yet we reach
higher and higher energies all the time. So a "stall" for 50 years
(even if we can be said to have stalled that long) isn't "proof" of
nearing a point of permanently diminishing returns.
Enter at your own peril, past the vaulted door
Where impossible thing may happen that the world has never seen before!
In Dexter's Laboratory, there lives the smartest boy you've ever seen
But DeeDee blows his experiments to smithereens.
There is doom, and gloom, while things go boom...
In Dexter's Lab!
--- Dexter's Lab theme song
Gene Ward Smith
Classix wrote:
> Read the book years ago. He's certainly right about fundemental physics
> research - there's only so many particles and only so many forces out
> there, and we are nearing the end of what is out there.
Sure, we've just about unified all the forces, have dark matter and
dark energy all figured out, and are ready to go to the stars using the
Heim theory.
Not. There are whole galaxies out there of cold dark matter, and we
don't even know what the hell it is.
> We need to look at what's definately possible. Creating
> self-replicating artificial intelligent conscious life is definately
> possible.
Yes, it's called biotechnology. Oh, you mean robots? No, that is *not*
"definately possible." We don't know squat about how to do that, or
even if it can be done. You can hazard a guess, based on biology, that
some unknown gizmo ought to work, but it's still guesswork. On the
other hand, why in hell do they need to be conscious, if they are
self-replicating and sufficiently intelligent?
Classix
Wayne Throop wrote:
> :: Classix <cwoc...@yahoo.co.uk>
> :: Read the book years ago.
>
> Doesn't that require a time machine... no, wait... nevermind.
>
> :: He's certainly right about fundemental physics research - there's
> :: only so many particles and only so many forces out there, and we are
> :: nearing the end of what is out there.
>
> : jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
> : Except that quantum mechanics (which seems to work in its realm) and
> : relativity (ditto) have yet to be reconciled, and such a
> : reconciliation could be as sweeping in its implications as the
> : solution to why Mercury's orbit is impossible to completely describe
> : using Newtonian physics.
>
> The analogy is fairly close. Way back when, there were only two forces,
> the huge variety of chemical elements had been organized into a few
> building-block particles, and physics was reaching the end. There were
> just a few details, a few "i"s to dot and "t"s to cross having to do
> with why atoms don't radiate energy scooting off to infinite frequency
> even though they contain "moving" electrons, the so called "ultraviolet
> catastrophe", and a few related issues, and that'd be that.
Back then they had very, very little idea about what an atom actual
was. The electron was only discovered 3 years before the end of the
19th century. The proton and neutron were unheard of. And not only
that, but they *knew* there was a whole lot they didn't know about
atoms, the basic building blocks of everything.
> Now there are only four forces, the huge variety of subatomic particles
> has been organized into a few simple building block particles (a more than
> last time, but still not all that many). There are just a few details, a
> few "i"s to dot and "t"s to cross having to do with how conditions could
> (or maybe couldn't) scoot off to infinite density even though matter
> should be quantized, the so-called "singularity" problem, maybe boost
> accelerator energies a bit and discover the higgs boson or something,
> and that'll be that.
Yeah, and if we built an accelerator the size of the milky way we could
find out if string theory is valid.
I remember reading that back in the 70s some people thought oil was
about to soon run out. They were wrong. This doesn't mean that there's
an infinite supply of oil out there.
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
"Ice sheet? You Call that an ice sheet? This is an ice sheet!".
A line from the failed movie project about a Canadian from
Yellowknife who visits the big cities of Australia.
Gene Ward Smith
Classix wrote:
> Sure there are some question left in fundemental physics research, like
> how to unify relativity and QM. The finest mathematical minds have been
> grappling with the leading contender (string theory), for decades, but
> still there is no sight of an experimentally verifiable prediction.
On the other hand it's been great for pure math.
> We've passed the point of diminishing returns.
You're supposed to say that only after the TOE has been discovered and
some major implications worked out.
Wayne Throop
: Finding the Higgs Boson was part of the electro-weak merger in the
: previous millenium, IIRC. String Theory is the Big Idea that's the
: current candidate for resolving the Quantum/Reletivity split.
I don't think that's quite the full story, is it?
The Higgs Boson is, indeed, a prediction of the standard model, but it's
not restricted to being about the electro-weak merger, it's about mass.
What is the source of the "mass" in a particle? Answer: the Higgs Boson
(or rather, the higgs field, but still...). And since mass and general
relativity are married at the hip, this starts to become central to the
very *hardest* of the unifications, namely, gravity with everything else.
Sadly, it's never been detected, though I think some of the consequences
it has for symmetry breaking have been.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson
westprog
The T-34 was less sophisticated than the corresponding German or American
tanks in terms of control systems etc, but in terms of the main numbers -
armour, weapon, speed, range - it stood out. It beat the Sherman which was a
much newer design - though the Sherman had far more bells and whistles.
Some Russian tanks came with reins that the commander used to direct the
driver.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_tank
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_tank
J/
Wayne Throop
: Back then they had very, very little idea about what an atom actual was.
Whereas today, we know exactly what strings and membranes and dark
matter are, and no new significant discoveries, oh, say, like that a
particle we thought massless turned out to have mass after all, have
occured since world war II.
: I remember reading that back in the 70s some people thought oil was
: about to soon run out. They were wrong. This doesn't mean that
: there's an infinite supply of oil out there.
Right. But even if there's a finite supply of physics out there
doesn't mean we're about to run out.
Par
> Cheap but _good_ tanks. The Germans prefered expensive, complex
> but unreliable equipment, when they could get it. In histories where
> the Nazis win and do not collapse into civil war and economic disaster,
> this should have an interesting effect on their space program.
That explains the Space shuttle.
/Par
--
Par use...@hunter-gatherer.org
Cooking without animal products is like doing sysadmin work without vi.
-- rone
John Schilling
rja.ca...@excite.com says...
>Frank Scrooby wrote:
>> "Daniel Silevitch" <dms...@uchicago.edu> wrote in message
>> news:slrndsbhun....@bardeen.local...
>> >> Of course the Mongols conquered China, Russia, India, and much of the
>> >> Mid-East.
>> > Perhaps the rule should be "never invade Russia from the west; start
>> > from the east instead".
>> The Japanese tried that (twice), first time, technically they bitchslapped a
>> European power, second time round they didn't do so well (not quite a defeat
>> but they chose not to pursue further territorial ambitions in the Soviet's
>> backyard).
>> Less than four decades between the two wars. Perhaps Communism helped make
>> Russians (or Siberians - who were the 'Russian' Army grunts in the 1906
>> war?) better soldiers, or Religious-Fascism makes Japanese poorer soldiers.
>I think Communism - or industrial progress as a goal in itself under
>Communism - made Russians better-armed soldiers. And as an ideology,
>it probably isn't any much less inspirational than the imperial
>feudalism that they had before.
>AIUI the Battle of Kursk was won (against the Nazis) because Russia
>manufactured lots of little cheap tanks and Germany made big
>sophisticated ones but fewer of them?
Actually, the T-34 was a fairly large cheap tank for the time. Not a
heavyweight, but towards the high end of the medium tank range. And
fifty thousand cheap T-34s were responsible for about every Russian
victory on the Eastern front from 1942 on.
But then fifty thousand cheap, middleweight M-4 Shermans were responsible
for the Allied victories on the Western front, same period, so it's not
exactly clear that Communism was the winning strategy.
Especially since it was the Yankee Capitalist Running Dogs who made pretty
much all of the half-million supply trucks without which the tanks would
have been fancy lawn ornaments. The quarter million supply trucks that
kept the fifty thousand Shermans in operation, *and* the quarter million
supply trucks that kept the fifty thousand T-34s in operation, were made
in Detroit. Yay Us.
But credit where credit is due. The Communists were able to pack up and
move what industrial capacity they had, from one continent to another,
on a few months' notice, without much lost time or productivity. I don't
think Detroit could have pulled that off.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Alexey Romanov
rja.ca...@excite.com wrote:
> Frank Scrooby wrote:
> > "Daniel Silevitch" <dms...@uchicago.edu> wrote in message
> > news:slrndsbhun....@bardeen.local...
> > >>
> > >> Of course the Mongols conquered China, Russia, India, and much of the
> > >> Mid-East.
> > >
> > > Perhaps the rule should be "never invade Russia from the west; start
> > > from the east instead".
> >
> > The Japanese tried that (twice), first time, technically they bitchslapped a
> > European power, second time round they didn't do so well (not quite a defeat
> > but they chose not to pursue further territorial ambitions in the Soviet's
> > backyard).
> >
> > Less than four decades between the two wars. Perhaps Communism helped make
> > Russians (or Siberians - who were the 'Russian' Army grunts in the 1906
> > war?) better soldiers, or Religious-Fascism makes Japanese poorer soldiers.
>
> I think Communism - or industrial progress as a goal in itself under
> Communism - made Russians better-armed soldiers. And as an ideology,
> it probably isn't any much less inspirational than the imperial
> feudalism that they had before.
I think you underestimate inspirational qualities of Communism. More
importantly, Communism has also made the Soviets much better _led_
soldiers. Russian generals of the early 20th century are, at least,
contenders for the title of "most inept military leadership ever".
> AIUI the Battle of Kursk was won (against the Nazis) because Russia
> manufactured lots of little cheap tanks and Germany made big
> sophisticated ones but fewer of them?
This has already been answered.
James Nicoll
Par <use...@hunter-gatherer.org> wrote:
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com>:
>> Cheap but _good_ tanks. The Germans prefered expensive, complex
>> but unreliable equipment, when they could get it. In histories where
>> the Nazis win and do not collapse into civil war and economic disaster,
>> this should have an interesting effect on their space program.
>
>That explains the Space shuttle.
Nah, the shuttle is a bog standard Plan B. The Nazi space
vehicle would have been worse.
James Nicoll
James Nicoll
John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>
T-34s OK
>But then fifty thousand cheap, middleweight M-4 Shermans were responsible
>for the Allied victories on the Western front, same period, so it's not
>exactly clear that Communism was the winning strategy.
But it is clear what the losing strategy was.
>Especially since it was the Yankee Capitalist Running Dogs who made pretty
>much all of the half-million supply trucks without which the tanks would
>have been fancy lawn ornaments. The quarter million supply trucks that
>kept the fifty thousand Shermans in operation, *and* the quarter million
>supply trucks that kept the fifty thousand T-34s in operation, were made
>in Detroit. Yay Us.
The Russians and the Americans avoided Germany's most crucial
error, which was getting the majority of the Earth's productive capacity
lined up on the other side against them. Even before the US brought its
50% of the Planetary Product on line against the Axis, the ratio between
Axis vs Allies wasn't wonderful, particularly after Barbarosa.
Germany's other big mistake was not using what they did have
efficiently.
Come to think of it, alienating possible allies in the invaded
regions was pretty bad, too.
Invading Russia in the winter wasn't such a good idea, either.
Declaring war on the US should be mentioned as one of Hitler's
major errors. Yes, the US was almost certain to come in formally on
the Allied side but that cinched it.
Actually, the German war effort seems to have been a large
aggregation of unfortunate decisions coupled to unrealistic ambitions
and an inability to see the obvious. Nice uniforms, though.
>But credit where credit is due. The Communists were able to pack up and
>move what industrial capacity they had, from one continent to another,
>on a few months' notice, without much lost time or productivity. I don't
>think Detroit could have pulled that off.
The Soviets have the slightest advantage in that they have a
second continent near by.
Unfortunately, while Turtledove gave us a North American
Stalingrad (sort of), there's no real equivilent to the relocation
of Soviet industry, probably because the geography is wrong.
Actually, there _is_ a natural east-west defensive line: the
Great Lakes plus the St. Lawrence. They could move everything into
Ontario.
Bruce Scott TOK
>Yes, Andrew Fukuyama made one of the classic blunders. The most
>famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, and slightly
>less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death
>is on the line. But a smidge more obscure than those is, "Never
>predict that everything is going to change when history has shown
>that everything is going to be the same, only moreso."
Francis Fukuyama.
Even then, ``the end of history'' was declared at the beginning of the
transition to the Chinese Century. Not to mention the oil crash and the
climate shift, both of which will produce larger changes than anything
in civilisation's past (the ice ages were before).
--
ciao,
Bruce
drift wave turbulence: http://www.rzg.mpg.de/~bds/
David Cowie
> Invading Russia in the winter wasn't such a good idea, either.
Nitpick: the Germans invaded Russia in the summer.
--
David Cowie
Containment Failure + 18963:34
John Schilling
>
>In article <slrndsd7ra....@hunter-gatherer.org>,
>Par <use...@hunter-gatherer.org> wrote:
>>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com>:
>>> Cheap but _good_ tanks. The Germans prefered expensive, complex
>>> but unreliable equipment, when they could get it. In histories where
>>> the Nazis win and do not collapse into civil war and economic disaster,
>>> this should have an interesting effect on their space program.
>>That explains the Space shuttle.
> Nah, the shuttle is a bog standard Plan B. The Nazi space
>vehicle would have been worse.
In just about every utilitarian sense, yes. But it would have been
Really Cool. One of the things the Nazis were really good at was
Useless Aeronautical Coolness.
Hence, the flying-wing-oid-thingy from _Raiders of the Lost Ark_.
Complete fantasy at every level. But put a Swastika on it, and it
fits perfectly.
James Nicoll
John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>In article <dq6b3f$cte$1...@reader2.panix.com>, James Nicoll says...
>>
>>In article <slrndsd7ra....@hunter-gatherer.org>,
>>Par <use...@hunter-gatherer.org> wrote:
>>>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com>:
>>>> Cheap but _good_ tanks. The Germans prefered expensive, complex
>>>> but unreliable equipment, when they could get it. In histories where
>>>> the Nazis win and do not collapse into civil war and economic disaster,
>>>> this should have an interesting effect on their space program.
>
>>>That explains the Space shuttle.
>
>> Nah, the shuttle is a bog standard Plan B. The Nazi space
>>vehicle would have been worse.
>
>In just about every utilitarian sense, yes. But it would have been
>Really Cool. One of the things the Nazis were really good at was
>Useless Aeronautical Coolness.
>
Plan A: The R 100, built by private enterprise. Not perfect
but something that could have led somewhere, had the airship not been
doomed.
Plan B: The R 101, built by the government. Overweight
and larded down with dubious innovations, it crashed during its
final trial flight.
Plan B (Nazi-style): For added safety, the Hindenberg was
sealed with a rubbery compund chemically similar to solid rocket fuel.
John Schilling
>In article <dq695...@drn.newsguy.com>,
>John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote:
>>But then fifty thousand cheap, middleweight M-4 Shermans were responsible
>>for the Allied victories on the Western front, same period, so it's not
>>exactly clear that Communism was the winning strategy.
> But it is clear what the losing strategy was.
Hey, we've got *three* losing strategies to choose from there. Two of
them are variations on fascism, yes, but it may be worth looking at the
implementational details.
>>Especially since it was the Yankee Capitalist Running Dogs who made pretty
>>much all of the half-million supply trucks without which the tanks would
>>have been fancy lawn ornaments. The quarter million supply trucks that
>>kept the fifty thousand Shermans in operation, *and* the quarter million
>>supply trucks that kept the fifty thousand T-34s in operation, were made
>>in Detroit. Yay Us.
>
> The Russians and the Americans avoided Germany's most crucial
>error, which was getting the majority of the Earth's productive capacity
>lined up on the other side against them. Even before the US brought its
>50% of the Planetary Product on line against the Axis, the ratio between
>Axis vs Allies wasn't wonderful, particularly after Barbarosa.
That wasn't the most crucial error. Germany had the productive capacity
to take Europe, and Europe had the productive capacity to hold Europe
against all comers. Defender's advantage, plus natural barriers. Not
quite as clear-cut as, say, North America vs. Everyone, but good enough.
The crucial error was not realizing that it *was* Germany vs. All Europe,
followed by Germanified Europe vs. The World. If the Germans had geared
up for total war in 1939, that would have been a huge difference. But
why annoy people with rationing and stoppage of consumer-goods production,
when the rest of the world is going to ratify your conquests and come to
peace by 1942 at the latest?
This goes to strategy and diplomacy as well as economics and logistics.
First person to realize that the name of the game is Total War, wins.
> Germany's other big mistake was not using what they did have
>efficiently.
Particularly the projects that were pursued just far enough to sink a
lot of resources, but not far enough to start getting decent returns.
> Come to think of it, alienating possible allies in the invaded
>regions was pretty bad, too.
And for that matter, alienating possible allies in regions you didn't
have to invade in the first place. I mean, what gives with Norway?
Yugoslavia? Even the Netherlands, for that matter. Not that it cost
the Germans a whole lot to take those places, but it was a wholly
unnecessary cost given that their "neutrality" geopolitically defaulted
to pro-German status. Treat them like Sweden or Switzerland, unless
they are damn fool enough to openly join the Allies.
> Invading Russia in the winter wasn't such a good idea, either.
Be fair; they invaded Russia in spring, and if you're going to invade
Russia, spring 1941 was the least bad time to do it.
> Declaring war on the US should be mentioned as one of Hitler's
>major errors. Yes, the US was almost certain to come in formally on
>the Allied side but that cinched it.
I don't think it plausibly matters enough to be really mentionable.
> Actually, the German war effort seems to have been a large
>aggregation of unfortunate decisions coupled to unrealistic ambitions
>and an inability to see the obvious.
Starting with, "Hey, this is *World War Two*."
>Nice uniforms, though.
Yep.
>>But credit where credit is due. The Communists were able to pack up and
>>move what industrial capacity they had, from one continent to another,
>>on a few months' notice, without much lost time or productivity. I don't
>>think Detroit could have pulled that off.
> The Soviets have the slightest advantage in that they have a
>second continent near by.
> Unfortunately, while Turtledove gave us a North American
>Stalingrad (sort of), there's no real equivilent to the relocation
>of Soviet industry, probably because the geography is wrong.
> Actually, there _is_ a natural east-west defensive line: the
>Great Lakes plus the St. Lawrence. They could move everything into
>Ontario.
In Turtledove's scenario, the Rockies also work. I don't think the
uberConfederates can seriously operate west of the divide, and note
that the alternate Manhattan Project is being run in Washington state.
This does require that the US pack up and move *soon*, before the
Naz^H^H^HConfederate advance reaches the Great Lakes. Even then,
though, there is as you note Canada. Depending on how bad he has
partisan activity there, Quebec might be better than Ontario.
Michael S. Schiffer
news:dq6f1...@drn.newsguy.com:
>...
> been Really Cool. One of the things the Nazis were really good
> at was Useless Aeronautical Coolness.
> Hence, the flying-wing-oid-thingy from _Raiders of the Lost
> Ark_. Complete fantasy at every level. But put a Swastika on
> it, and it fits perfectly.
This may also explain their attempt to steal the rocket pack in "The
Rocketeer"-- from Howard Hughes, who likewise wasn't wholly immune to
Useless Aeronautical Coolness. (Exhibit A being the Spruce Goose.)
Man that was a fun movie-- made more fun since I started seeing some
of the movies ("Only Angels Have Wings", Hughes own baby "Hell's
Angels", etc.) that it refers back to.
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
Konrad Gaertner
@reader2.panix.com:
> Wouldn't it be really difficult to have politics if
> there were no issues of policy over which to disagree?
>
> "I'm for policy A!"
>
> "Me too but I am far more passionate about it!"
>
> Actually, I think I had that flamewar.
In the last congressional election, the Democrats spent lots of money
claiming they were more supportive of Bush than their opponents. Keep in
mind that it's been 20 years since a Democrat was last elected to a county
office. And the two main challengers for governer are both running as
Independent (one left the Republican party for this campaign, the other is
a guy named Kinky).
--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - - - email: gae...@aol.com
http://www.livejournal.com/users/kgbooklog/
"I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."
-- James Nicoll
Glenn Dowdy
"John Schilling" <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote in message
news:dq6f1...@drn.newsguy.com...
>
> In just about every utilitarian sense, yes. But it would have been
> Really Cool. One of the things the Nazis were really good at was
> Useless Aeronautical Coolness.
>
> Hence, the flying-wing-oid-thingy from _Raiders of the Lost Ark_.
> Complete fantasy at every level. But put a Swastika on it, and it
> fits perfectly.
>
Check out the links on the right side. The flying-wing-oid-thingy is in
there somewhere, I'm sure.
Glenn D.
Jordan
> John Horgan, a senior editor for Scientific American, has written a
> book called "The End of Science". I haven't read it, but the reviews
> seem to indicate that the thesis is that scientists are weird, geeky
> people who don't have all the answers, and that we have about reached
> the limit of what organized nerddom can give us by way of answers to
> the Big Questions.
If this book was published a few years ago, I read it. The premise,
never adequately supported by logical arguments or any form of
statistical evidence, was that while the science of (say) 100 or 200
years ago led to socially significant technological progress, for some
reason the science of (say) 50 years ago to the present day wouldn't.
The thing is, I don't see why anyone with any knowledge of the history
of science would actually _believe_ this argument.
So the questions you based on it are kind of irrelevant, save to
writing AH (WI scientific progress had come to an end in 1950?)
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
Jordan
> No, because only _American_ SF is in trouble <
Sorry -- why do you believe that American SF is "in trouble?" I've
been a fan for something like 35 years now, and as far as I can see
more science fiction than ever, both book and video, is being published
and sold than was the case when I first became interested in the field.
Now, it may be that we're producing less SF _that you like_. But
"failure to please James Nicoll" is hardly the same as being "in
trouble."
I predict that you won't have any rational response to this.
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
Keith Morrison
wrote:
>>> Australia should import a significan amount of decent topsoil
>>> but they should so that anyway. I can't believe there's a continent
>>> that never got round to having a good, stimulating glaciation.
>>
>> I'm pretty sure they did, about 300 million years ago, and
>> presumably also in the "snowball" era.
>>
> Also in the Tertiary but that apparently only involved "about
>25 square kilometres, in the vicinity of Mt Kosciuszko."
That barely qualifies as an iceberg.
Malcolm
"Jordan" <JSBass...@yahoo.com> wrote
However science is probably in more trouble than we care to admit. When the
church patronised the science, she was interested in the truth of the
scientists' propositions. that role was gradually taken over by governement,
which was interested in glorifying the nation, either by results or by the
military application of science. Government is now ceding the role of patron
to business, which is interested in using science to generate money.
Businessmen are terrible patrons. Though science is the most productive
economic activity known, the timescales and distribution of benefits don't
fit the joint stock company economic model.
(Can you spot the philosopher whose idea are allued to in the above
transition, from intellectual to ambitious to financial motives?)
Michael Ikeda
> In article <dq6c21$29j$1...@reader2.panix.com>, James Nicoll
> says...
(snipped)
>> Invading Russia in the winter wasn't such a good idea,
>> either.
>
> Be fair; they invaded Russia in spring, and if you're going to
> invade Russia, spring 1941 was the least bad time to do it.
>
They had PLANNED to invade Russia in the spring. However, they got
preoccupied for a few months with certain events in the Balkans.
(snipped)
--
Michael Ikeda mmi...@erols.com
"Telling a statistician not to use sampling is like telling an
astronomer they can't say there is a moon and stars"
Lynne Billard, past president American Statistical Association
Damien Sullivan
>James Nicoll said:
>Sorry -- why do you believe that American SF is "in trouble?" I've
>been a fan for something like 35 years now, and as far as I can see
>more science fiction than ever, both book and video, is being published
>and sold than was the case when I first became interested in the field.
Discounting fantasy and media tie-ins (most of which are more fantasy than not
anyway whatever the label)?
-xx- Damien X-)
Damien Sullivan
>In article <dq6c21$29j$1...@reader2.panix.com>, James Nicoll says...
>> The Russians and the Americans avoided Germany's most crucial
>>error, which was getting the majority of the Earth's productive capacity
>>lined up on the other side against them. Even before the US brought its
>>50% of the Planetary Product on line against the Axis, the ratio between
>>Axis vs Allies wasn't wonderful, particularly after Barbarosa.
>
>That wasn't the most crucial error. Germany had the productive capacity
>to take Europe, and Europe had the productive capacity to hold Europe
>against all comers. Defender's advantage, plus natural barriers. Not
>quite as clear-cut as, say, North America vs. Everyone, but good enough.
If Europe includes Britain, perhaps... going by Keegan's numbers (about all I
have to go by), US with 20% unemployment plus its forward base of the UK had
56% of industrial [production or capacity, yes that could be a big
difference]. Leaving out the effect of employing the other 20% that's still
an edge for the Allies, with the UK perhaps nullifying the natural barrier
thing.
Pissing off the USSR of course failed to improve things, now you're looking at
being outindustried 2:1 and no barriers.
A Reich which could capture or ally with Britain and Russia would be something
for the US to worry about, Civilization vs. Boskone, Alliance vs. Draka,
though I'd hope not depending on slave labor and insane leaders would give the
US an edge. Though the lack of insane leaders might be what caused a
continued alliance with USSR.
Seems like the best odds for Nazis Conquer the World includes sympathizers
(Joe Kennedy, Old Man Bush?) winning elections in the US.
-xx- Damien X-)
Damien Sullivan
>:: Classix <cwoc...@yahoo.co.uk>
>:: Read the book years ago.
>
>Doesn't that require a time machine... no, wait... nevermind.
>
>:: He's certainly right about fundemental physics research - there's
>:: only so many particles and only so many forces out there, and we are
>:: nearing the end of what is out there.
>
>: Except that quantum mechanics (which seems to work in its realm) and
>: relativity (ditto) have yet to be reconciled, and such a
>: reconciliation could be as sweeping in its implications as the
>The analogy is fairly close. Way back when, there were only two forces,
>the huge variety of chemical elements had been organized into a few
>building-block particles, and physics was reaching the end. There were
>just a few details, a few "i"s to dot and "t"s to cross having to do
>with why atoms don't radiate energy scooting off to infinite frequency
>even though they contain "moving" electrons, the so called "ultraviolet
>catastrophe", and a few related issues, and that'd be that.
Issues including "why is matter solid?" I'm not sure how many physicists
believed they were really near the end, as opposed to someone who provided a
nice quote.
Nowadays it seems like we can explain nearly everything we can see, far better
than we have any right to expect.
OTOH, 96% of the universe is apparently stuff we can't see, and even the stuff
we can see and explain has those little flaws which might end up rewriting the
basic assumptions of what Reality Is Like. Certainly that QM and GR have
different such assumptions seems like a warning sign.
Of course, the relevance of such rewrites, not to mention the feasibility this
millennium of the relevant experiments, is unobvious.
Grant proposals for Kardashev Type II civ: expeditions to black holes and
neutron stars so as to actually test some shit.
>namely not that the subject matter would reach any physical limits, but
>social issues would intervene to nearly stop progress dead in its tracks.
>That is to say, istm he didn't claim physicists will soon explain everything,
>he seemed to say physicists will soon run into social roadblocks to keep
Cost being one roadblock. "For my next experiment I need to compress a star."
>( Everything I need to know, I learned watching The Incredibles.
What, nothing from Kim Possible?
-xx- Damien X-)
John Schilling
says...
>
>John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote in
>news:dq6f1...@drn.newsguy.com:
>>...
>> In just about every utilitarian sense, yes. But it would have
>> been Really Cool. One of the things the Nazis were really good
>> at was Useless Aeronautical Coolness.
>> Hence, the flying-wing-oid-thingy from _Raiders of the Lost
>> Ark_. Complete fantasy at every level. But put a Swastika on
>> it, and it fits perfectly.
>This may also explain their attempt to steal the rocket pack in "The
>Rocketeer"-- from Howard Hughes, who likewise wasn't wholly immune to
>Useless Aeronautical Coolness. (Exhibit A being the Spruce Goose.)
Hmm. Hughes spent WWII developing bits of Aeronautic Coolness, in the
process consuming various war-effort resources, none of which were ever
used operationally. Howard Hughes, Secret Nazi Luftwaffe Agent in America?
Naaah...
>Man that was a fun movie--
And it had a Giant Zeppelin, the epitome of Useless Aeronautical Coolness.
John Schilling
>John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu> wrote in
>news:dq6g7...@drn.newsguy.com:
>> In article <dq6c21$29j$1...@reader2.panix.com>, James Nicoll
>> says...
>(snipped)
>>> Invading Russia in the winter wasn't such a good idea,
>>> either.
>> Be fair; they invaded Russia in spring, and if you're going to
>> invade Russia, spring 1941 was the least bad time to do it.
>They had PLANNED to invade Russia in the spring. However, they got
>preoccupied for a few months with certain events in the Balkans.
Which led to them invading later in spring then they had planned.
Arguably the first day of summer, depending on who's counting, but
"first day of summer" is still very different from "winter".
rja.ca...@excite.com
John Schilling wrote:
> One of the things the Nazis were really good at was
> Useless Aeronautical Coolness.
>
> Hence, the flying-wing-oid-thingy from _Raiders of the Lost Ark_.
> Complete fantasy at every level. But put a Swastika on it, and it
> fits perfectly.
Flying wings have their niche. Nazi flying wings... cool, but you
don't really want it overhead.
Now did I really see on TV a flying-wing prototype that is kind of an
oval shape in plan, with one end further forward than the other while
flying? That is, if you rotate a number 0 by maybe 45 degrees and
fly it /that/ way.
Mark_R...@hotmail.com
> But credit where credit is due. The Communists were able to pack up and
> move what industrial capacity they had, from one continent to another,
> on a few months' notice, without much lost time or productivity. I don't
> think Detroit could have pulled that off.
Given how long it took Ford to get the Willow Run plant up to speed,
no. Talk about a industrial plant as locomotive metaphor.
Daniel Silevitch
ISTR an airplane which had one wing swing forward and one backwards when
going into high-speed-low-drag mode. Advantage is that the wing can be
mechanically simpler than most swing-wing designs; you "just" need a
single pivot point where the wing connects to the fuselage.
<Google Google Google>
Ah, it was a NASA technology demonstrator from 1979, the AD-1
http://www.nasa.gov/lb/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-019-DFRC.html
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Movie/AD-1/
"It was designed as a low-cost/low-speed research aircraft to test a
pivot wing design. The AD-1 took off with its wing positioned at a right
angle with the fuselage. Once in the air, the wing would rotate on its
pivot point on the fuselage until it formed a 60 degree angle. The goal
was to design a high-speed transport with low drag. The AD-1 made a
total of 79 flights, but adverse handling at sharp sweep angles made the
approach less attractive."
-dms
Peter Meilinger
James Nicoll wrote:
> Miami may want to invest in some fairly dramatic dikes.
Could somebody do something with this straight line, please?
Apparently I'm just not up to the task tonight. I feel shame.
Pete