🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct9.093542.6958@abo.fi> MANDTBACKA@finabo.abo.fi (Mats Andtbacka Ktf92) writes:
>[Lucid summary of the proper use of CFCs and their problems deleted, along
  with a call for finding a better ozone-destroying catalyst.]
   But why? Think about this. Why do we - well, They, anyhow - want ozone?
To keep out ultraviolet and the like. Destroying ozone is all well and good,
but we could simply try overwhelming the ozone layer. Heat up the sun. Not
only do we start getting skin cancer, but we actually do get global warming,
and there'd be nothing the eco-hobbits could do about it.
   There are <modest cough> technical difficulties, but I'm sure something
could be arranged (drop Neptune or Uranus into the sun? Maybe Jupiter? Seed
the photosphere with muons so we get cold fusion? Is there an astrophysicist
in the house?)
	Cosma Rohilla Shalizi
	In Real Life: lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu
	larval physicist
	VP, Campus Crusade for Cthulhu (Berkeley)
THE STARS ARE RIGHT: CTHULHU IN '92! WHY SETTLE FOR THE LESSER EVIL?
"Don't think of it as a _bomb_, but a flash-bulb brighter than a 1000 suns..."
-- 
"Apart from hydrogen, the most common thing in the universe is stupidity."
-Harlan Ellison, _An Edge in My Voice_

In <1b5bciINN89v@agate.berkeley.edu> lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu writes:

>     But why? Think about this. Why do we - well, They, anyhow - want ozone?
>  To keep out ultraviolet and the like. Destroying ozone is all well and good,
>  but we could simply try overwhelming the ozone layer. Heat up the sun. Not
>  only do we start getting skin cancer, but we actually do get global warming,
>  and there'd be nothing the eco-hobbits could do about it.
>     There are <modest cough> technical difficulties, but I'm sure something
>  could be arranged (drop Neptune or Uranus into the sun? Maybe Jupiter? Seed

      Heat up the *sun* ?!? You don't go for second best, do you...
Dropping planets into the darng thing: Sorry, unless I misremember
Jupiter's only about a one-thousandth the size (and mass) of the sun -
or was that a ten-thousandth? Enough zeroes to make the scheme
pointless, though.

      Global warming: I don't *think* the ozone layer contributes very
much to that, but I'll go along with it being a good idea. The best
greenhouse gas by orders of magnitude is water (well, steam then) - how
about nuking the Pacific Ocean? Details, anyone?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
 The above opinions are *NOT*, except if and when otherwise explicitly stated,
        those of anybody and / or anything with any brains whatsoever.
  Mats Andtbacka is really: MANDTBACKA@finabo.abo.fi (or ABOVAX::MANDTBACKA).

In article <1992Oct14.134041.19380@abo.fi> MANDTBACKA@finabo.abo.fi (Mats Andtbacka Ktf92) writes:
>In <1b5bciINN89v@agate.berkeley.edu> lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu writes:
>      Heat up the *sun* ?!? You don't go for second best, do you...
>Dropping planets into the darng thing: Sorry, unless I misremember
>Jupiter's only about a one-thousandth the size (and mass) of the sun -
>or was that a ten-thousandth? Enough zeroes to make the scheme
>pointless, though.
    I wasn't thinking so much of giving it more fuel, as of putting a 
fairly large mass at the center of the thing to increase the gravitational
pressure and drive up the fusion reaction rate. I haven't gone through the
math, and stopping the thing in the center would be tough. Perhaps we should
compress the target mass to neutronium first? You're probably right about
the mass though. Anyone have an idea of how much the Oort Cloud ways in
toto, and what percentage of it is hydrogen?

>      Global warming: I don't *think* the ozone layer contributes very
>much to that, but I'll go along with it being a good idea. The best
>greenhouse gas by orders of magnitude is water (well, steam then) - how
>about nuking the Pacific Ocean? Details, anyone?
>  Mats Andtbacka is really: MANDTBACKA@finabo.abo.fi (or ABOVAX::MANDTBACKA).
   Heating up the sun wasn't for global warming - though of course that
could be fun too :). What heating up the Sun would do is make it put out more
ultraviolet, so that even if the ozone layer was at full strength more UV
would get through, leading to skin cancer, mutations, et cetera.
   Remember that water vapor has the tendency to form clouds, which have a
high albedo and reflect light back into space, rather than using it to
steam-cook the planet. Temperature went down after the Dinosaur Killer. We
might be able to rig it so that the greenhouse effect outweighs the increased
albedo, but I'd prefer something less chancy.  As to nuking the Pacific: Let
me think about this...
	Cosma Rohilla Shalizi
	In Real Life: lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu
	larval physicist
	VP, Campus Crusade for Cthulhu
"Now is the time to drop the bomb." - Bertrand Russell
-- 
"Apart from hydrogen, the most common thing in the universe is stupidity."
-Harlan Ellison, _An Edge in My Voice_

In article <1992Oct14.134041.19380@abo.fi> MANDTBACKA@finabo.abo.fi (Mats Andtbacka Ktf92) writes:
>      Heat up the *sun* ?!? You don't go for second best, do you...
>Dropping planets into the darng thing: Sorry, unless I misremember
>Jupiter's only about a one-thousandth the size (and mass) of the sun -
>or was that a ten-thousandth? Enough zeroes to make the scheme
>pointless, though.

Maybe.  Look, the sun fluctuates in a pretty complicated way.
If this complication is `chaotic' it involves
sensitive dependence on initial unknowns
(sometimes called the butterfly effect),
so that small inputs can have very large effects.
This underlies some of the new work about the
surprising controllability of some chaotic systems.

So, if the sun's range of possible behaviour includes
a spell with the solar constant a few percentage points up,
it is probably possible to tweak it into that range
with a carefully controlled _small_ input,
over quite a lot of time; rather like the Tesla
scheme on the Earth, except that gets thrown off
by its own early effects.  Tweaking the Sun
with a fluctuating meson beam, say, from way outside
Mars orbit, you wouldn't have the same problem.

(I rather doubt if the behaviour currently reachable
includes enough heat to vaporize the Earth,
rather than just bake life off the surface.
Have to wait a few billion years.
Unless a nova is just barely possible?)

Of course, this would involve a much better model
of solar dynamics than we have right now:
can't even agree at present if the number of neutrinos
coming out of there says the inner fusion reaction's going out.

Support your local solar dynamicist!


Tim Poston

_____________________________________________________________________
    "Take no thought therefore for wars,
     and rumours of wars.
     The end of the world is within you."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In article <1992Oct14.134041.19380@abo.fi>, MANDTBACKA@finabo.abo.fi (Mats Andtbacka Ktf92) writes:
> In <1b5bciINN89v@agate.berkeley.edu> lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu writes:
> 
>>     But why? Think about this. Why do we - well, They, anyhow - want ozone?
>>  To keep out ultraviolet and the like. Destroying ozone is all well and good,
>>  but we could simply try overwhelming the ozone layer. Heat up the sun. Not
>>  only do we start getting skin cancer, but we actually do get global warming,
>>  and there'd be nothing the eco-hobbits could do about it.
>>     There are <modest cough> technical difficulties, but I'm sure something
>>  could be arranged (drop Neptune or Uranus into the sun? Maybe Jupiter? Seed
> 
>       Heat up the *sun* ?!? You don't go for second best, do you...
> Dropping planets into the darng thing: Sorry, unless I misremember
> Jupiter's only about a one-thousandth the size (and mass) of the sun -
> or was that a ten-thousandth? Enough zeroes to make the scheme
> pointless, though.
> 
>       Global warming: I don't *think* the ozone layer contributes very
> much to that, but I'll go along with it being a good idea. The best
> greenhouse gas by orders of magnitude is water (well, steam then) - how
> about nuking the Pacific Ocean? Details, anyone?

 I MUST interject here...on the subject of energy expenditure here, the idea 
 stated above is patently silly...it won't work with current technology. As
 you likely already know, the Pacific Ocean is rather large - VERY LARGE, in
 fact, and the water contained therein is of a very large quantity as well.
 Also, you neglect to recall that the Pacific is NOT a single ocean - the way
 that our continental landmasses are laid out has caused all of our oceans here
 on Earth to be effectively a single body of water, so when vapourising the      
 Pacific is being discussed, one must also think about the Atlantic, Indian,
 Arctic and Antarctic oceans as well...in consideration of vapourising the 
 latter two oceans listed above, the consideration of water temperature also 
 becomes germane to the discussion, as much of the Earth's water is locked up
 in the polar icecaps, which in Antarctica get to be several KILOMETERS thick,
 so melting a LOT of ice would be in order too...the energy it would take to do
this kind of thing isn't produced by the world in a year, and for the best
possible effect, all of the Earth's water would need to be vapourised into the
atmosphere, as much, if not most of it, would come back to Earth in the form of
precipitation, since the ambient atmospheric temperature is too low for it to
stay in the air in any form in that quantity for long...to keep it in the air
long enough to do any damage would require a global temperature much much
higher than current numbers, so we'd better keep working with carbon dioxide
and other atmospheric warming agents for the next 100 years or so, at which the
ambient temperature and technology would be available to make the vapourisation
of the Earth's oceans more feasible...I just thought I should straighten things
out a bit on this subject...

	Jason S. Quick			JSQ002@acad.drake.edu
					Des Moines, Iowa USA

In article <1bkti7INNj19@agate.berkeley.edu>, lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu (Cosma R. Shalizi) writes:
> In article <1992Oct14.134041.19380@abo.fi> MANDTBACKA@finabo.abo.fi (Mats Andtbacka Ktf92) writes:
>>In <1b5bciINN89v@agate.berkeley.edu> lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu writes:
>>      Heat up the *sun* ?!? You don't go for second best, do you...
>>Dropping planets into the darng thing: Sorry, unless I misremember
>>Jupiter's only about a one-thousandth the size (and mass) of the sun -
>>or was that a ten-thousandth? Enough zeroes to make the scheme
>>pointless, though.
>     I wasn't thinking so much of giving it more fuel, as of putting a 
> fairly large mass at the center of the thing to increase the gravitational
> pressure and drive up the fusion reaction rate. I haven't gone through the
> math, and stopping the thing in the center would be tough. Perhaps we should
> compress the target mass to neutronium first? You're probably right about
> the mass though. Anyone have an idea of how much the Oort Cloud ways in
> toto, and what percentage of it is hydrogen?
>
 Ok, more stuff here...i THINK that the total mass of the Oort Cloud isn't much
 more than that of the asteroid belt - i.e. just about enough to make up an 
 Earth-sized planet.  In the area of composition, think about what most comets
 are composed of - water ice, miscellaneous rocks, and a carbonaceous sludge
 similar in consistency and composition to crude oil...to sum up there isn't
 too much mass there and it is composed somewhat of hydrogen, but not enough to
 make any sort of difference in what the Sun's energy output is...also, getting
 ANYTHING to the center of the Sun would be extraordinarily
difficult - nearly anything that you get near the Sun would be vapourised in an
 instant and expelled back out into space by the solar wind...to increase the
 gravitational pressure of the Sun and thus its rate of fusion would require
 more mass than is contained in the solar system outside of the Sun...
 
>>      Global warming: I don't *think* the ozone layer contributes very
>>much to that, but I'll go along with it being a good idea. The best
>>greenhouse gas by orders of magnitude is water (well, steam then) - how
>>about nuking the Pacific Ocean? Details, anyone?
>>  Mats Andtbacka is really: MANDTBACKA@finabo.abo.fi (or ABOVAX::MANDTBACKA).
>    Heating up the sun wasn't for global warming - though of course that
> could be fun too :). What heating up the Sun would do is make it put out more
> ultraviolet, so that even if the ozone layer was at full strength more UV
> would get through, leading to skin cancer, mutations, et cetera.
>    Remember that water vapor has the tendency to form clouds, which have a
> high albedo and reflect light back into space, rather than using it to
> steam-cook the planet. Temperature went down after the Dinosaur Killer. We
> might be able to rig it so that the greenhouse effect outweighs the increased
> albedo, but I'd prefer something less chancy.  As to nuking the Pacific: Let
> me think about this...
> 	Cosma Rohilla Shalizi
> 	In Real Life: lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu
> 	larval physicist
> 	VP, Campus Crusade for Cthulhu
> "Now is the time to drop the bomb." - Bertrand Russell
> -- 
> "Apart from hydrogen, the most common thing in the universe is stupidity."
> -Harlan Ellison, _An Edge in My Voice_
 On the subject of the comment on clouding engendering a cooling effect,
remember that the 'Dinosaur Killer,' as you put it, threw DUST up into the 
atmosphere, which DOES have a cooling effect on the Earth.  However, clouds
when at low levels tend to have a heat retaining effect, whereas higher-level
clouds tend to have the cooling effect Ms. Shalizi fears in her missive above.
Water vapour in the quantities that have been proposed (that is, the contents
of all Earth's oceans and icecaps) would be quite sufficient to achieve the
desired warming effect; however, as I said in my first note, the technology 
does not exist to even BEGIN to vapourise all the water in the oceans, as this
would likely involve _boiling_ the water as it would not evapourate on its own.
To expand a bit on the comment I made about much of the water precipitating 
back out of the air, please recall that the Earth's atmosphere is quite heavily
laden with particulate emissions, which are necessary and proper for the form-
ation of clouds.  The more particulates in the air, the more clouds form; the
more clouds form the more rain...you get it.  Unless the global temperature
were rather higher, say 4-6 degrees F warmer on an average, the water would not
stay in a gaseous state long enough to achieve any real heating effect.

	Jason S. Quick			JSQ002@acad.drake.edu
					Des Moines, Iowa USA

In <1bkti7INNj19@agate.berkeley.edu> lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu writes:

>      I wasn't thinking so much of giving it more fuel, as of putting a 
>  fairly large mass at the center of the thing to increase the gravitational
>  pressure and drive up the fusion reaction rate.

      Oh... Didn't think of that idea. Still, as you say, we'd need a
*lot* of mass; compressing it to neutronium (or further) would probably
be a good idea, I think it would start a chain reaction by increasing
fusion rate locally first, and then eating outwards. One problem: how do
you *keep* it compressed (assuming the total mass isn't too great) while
you move it into the sun?

>  What heating up the Sun would do is make it put out more
>  ultraviolet, so that even if the ozone layer was at full strength more UV
>  would get through, leading to skin cancer, mutations, et cetera.

      Good point, but I still think destroying the ozone layer would do
the same thing with less effort.

>     Remember that water vapor has the tendency to form clouds, which have a
>  high albedo and reflect light back into space, rather than using it to
>  steam-cook the planet. Temperature went down after the Dinosaur Killer. We

      Again oh... Mustv'e had my brains on standby when I wrote that
post. But a global winter might work too, if we could make it last long
enough... Clouds probably wouldn't do the trick, I must agree.

      What I was *really* thinking of was to start a heating chain
reaction, resulting in something more or less like Venutian climate.
This would hinge on the amount of CO2 bound in the oceans, though: I
don't know if there's enough of it to keep the reaction going, or if the
whole thing'll just level off when the oceans run out of the stuff.


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
 The above opinions are *NOT*, except if and when otherwise explicitly stated,
        those of anybody and / or anything with any brains whatsoever.
  Mats Andtbacka is really: MANDTBACKA@finabo.abo.fi (or ABOVAX::MANDTBACKA).

In article <1992Oct16.053432.1@acad.drake.edu>, jsq002@acad.drake.edu writes:
|> In article <1bkti7INNj19@agate.berkeley.edu>, lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu (Cosma R. Shalizi) writes:
|> > In article <1992Oct14.134041.19380@abo.fi> MANDTBACKA@finabo.abo.fi (Mats Andtbacka Ktf92) writes:
|> >>In <1b5bciINN89v@agate.berkeley.edu> lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu writes:
|> >     I wasn't thinking so much of giving it more fuel, as of putting a 
|> > fairly large mass at the center of the thing to increase the gravitational
|> > pressure and drive up the fusion reaction rate. I haven't gone through the
|> > math, and stopping the thing in the center would be tough. Perhaps we should
|> > compress the target mass to neutronium first? You're probably right about
|> > the mass though. Anyone have an idea of how much the Oort Cloud ways in
|> > toto, and what percentage of it is hydrogen?
|> >
|>  Ok, more stuff here...i THINK that the total mass of the Oort Cloud isn't much
|>  more than that of the asteroid belt - i.e. just about enough to make up an 
|>  Earth-sized planet.  In the area of composition, think about what most comets
|>  are composed of - water ice, miscellaneous rocks, and a carbonaceous sludge
|>  similar in consistency and composition to crude oil...to sum up there isn't
|>  too much mass there and it is composed somewhat of hydrogen, but not enough to
|>  make any sort of difference in what the Sun's energy output is...also, getting
|>  ANYTHING to the center of the Sun would be extraordinarily
|> difficult - nearly anything that you get near the Sun would be vapourised in an
|>  instant and expelled back out into space by the solar wind...to increase the
|>  gravitational pressure of the Sun and thus its rate of fusion would require
|>  more mass than is contained in the solar system outside of the Sun...

	Okay, deal is this:
	Even if it's not hydrogen, that's okay.  A lot of the sun isn't hydrogen
nowadays either.  (Well, okay, it's *mostly* hydrogen, but there's a lot of it
that ain't.	
	But that's not my point.
	For an emitted photon (the fastest, smallest thing In The Universe) to 
escape from the center of the sun to the surface thereof takes on the order of 
thousands of years.  I don't know it precisely, but can find the number if you 
want.   Therefore the idea of dropping something into the 'heart' of the sun 
isn't feasible at all, as it'd take still longer, and any object you care to toss
in there'd be destroyed by photodisintegration as well, long before you got past
the outermost shell.

	Jim Kiley, Astronomer Wannabe
	jkiley@andy.bgsu.edu