"Samantha Atkins" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> We need to maximize our population and other things we can (supposedly)
> control for human happiness and well-being. However, for practical
> purposes I believe there is much to be said for viewing the universe as an
> open system which opposes relatively few absolute limits on what humanity
> may accomplish.
A back of the envelope calculation using some numbers off the Internet.
World population is growing at a seemingly modest 1.5 percent per year.
You would think that with access to an entire Universe's worth of
resources, we would be able to grow at that rate for a long long time.
Well, there are about 10^77 atoms in the universe. Let's ignore that
over 90% of these are Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium atoms---we'll fuse
more carbon, uranium, etc as we need it.
A human weighs about 70kg, or 70000 grams. Lets assume this is all
Water (H2O). A water molecule has an atomic mass of 18, so a gram of
them contains 6.02x10^23 molecules, and the human body contains about
7x10^4*6.02x10^23 molecules. Ignoring the constants, This leaves room
in the Universe for about 10^77/10^27 or about 10^50 humans, all living
on faith, standing on air.
Can we agree that this is an upper limit?
At our modest growth rate of 1.5 percent per year, we will reach this
limit it 1.015^n = 10^50, or n = (50 ln 10)/ln 1.015 $\approx$ 7733 years.
There are always limits.
Mike
--
Michael D. Sofka [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CIS Sr. Systems Programmer AFS/DFS, email, usenet, TeX, epistemology.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. http://www.rpi.edu/~sofkam/
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the
Web and he won't bother you for weeks.
