From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Wed Aug 20 2003 - 10:11:35 MDT
Robert J. Bradbury
>I am simply suggesting that one not *break* existing memesets by
>suggesting that "immortality" is possible to people who are unlikely
>to believe it -- because in its technical sense "immortality" is
>very very difficult to achieve and probably cannot be "proven" using
>our current understanding of physics and the hazard function of the
>universe, galaxies, solar systems, etc.
>Far better to leave people "part of the way there", e.g. a healthy
>life for a few hundred years or a few thousand years (depending on
>how much their minds may stretch). Because who knows what we may
>know at the end of such periods? People are much more comfortable
>extending trends that their parents and grandparents saw (e.g.
>"gradual lifespan extension is accelerating") rather than replacing
>them with a very different meme (e.g. "we can become immortal").
following those lines of thought, here's something that looks
worthwhile to support: (this is a fun paper too)
=====================================================
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0308325
Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0308325
From: Deborah Freedman <dfreedman@cfa.harvard.edu>
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 14:21:54 GMT (18kb)
A Black Hole Life Preserver
Authors: J. Richard Gott (Princeton University), Deborah L. Freedman
(Harvard University)
Comments: 6 pages, 1 postscript figure; submitted for publication to Phys.
Rev. D
Since no one lives forever, all a life preserver can really do is
prolong life for longer than would have otherwise been the case.
With this rather limited definition in mind we explore in this
paper whether in principle you can take a life preserver with you
to protect you (for a while at least) against the tidal forces
encountered on a trip inside a black hole.
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-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "Time is defined so that motion looks simple." -- J. A. Wheeler
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