🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <77125@ut-emx.uucp> johncobb@ut-emx.cc.utexas.edu (John W. Cobb) writes:

> Of course, while we are all grinding our personal axes, let me throw in my
> favorite. If you want to understand the universe then you should study
> only plasma physics. Since over 99% of the universe is in the plasma state
> studying anything else is simply irrelevant.

Nah.  Only an infinitesimal fraction of the universe is composed of
plasma; most of it is empty space!  If you want to understand the
universe, you should just study classical general relativity.

(Actually, a slightly more interesting response is that, if you
believe in dark matter, then it is almost certain that most of the
matter in the universe is *not* plasma.  We can argue about just how
much of it there is, and about whether it's ordinary baryonic matter
or something fun and exotic, but it's hard to see any way that it
could be plasma.)
--
Matthew Austern              I dreamt I was being followed by a roving band of
(510) 644-2618               of young Republicans, all wearing the same suit,
matt@physics.berkeley.edu    taunting me and shouting, "Politically correct
austern@theorm.lbl.gov       multiculturist scum!"... They were going to make
austern@lbl.bitnet	     me kiss Jesse Helms's picture when I woke up.