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On 2002-01-12 19:01, Chuck wrote:
Isn't the solar wind blowing us away from the sun? Wouldn't that offset its drag?
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It would take a lot of wind to make any noticable change in Earth's orbit, and I suspect that any wind that powerful would have other effects that wouldn't be too nice.
For sure, though, it wouldn't make our orbit bigger. I'm no expert in orbital mechanics, but I do know that to attain a larger orbit you have to increase the satellite's orbital speed... that is, give it a push forward along its orbit. I don't see any way the solar wind could do that. On the contrary, it would slow the Earth's orbit frictionally.
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I'm not so sure that technology will change us into something inhuman. Science is advancing faster now than in past centuries, but will it advance even faster in the future or will it level off as we reach the limits of our engineering ability or the limits of our understanding?
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An intriguing question indeed! My initial response is that we probably haven't approached either limit yet, but I can't say there are no such limits. After all, we know you can't teach a flatworm to do calculus, no matter how hard you try or how much time you devote to the attempt. By analogy, at least, there must be concepts too advanced for our brains to encompass.
However, humans have short-circuited a number of natural limits by using tools. Maybe there's a meta-calculus we can't grasp, but perhaps we can build machines that can. Now, do the results those machines produce count as human achievements? Are we still
homo sapiens if we depend on our tools for any further advancements?
In any case, I still argue that any trace of mankind that survives to AD 5,700,000,000 (or even AD 7700) will not be
people.