> Two factors to consider:
>
> 1) Accumulation of dust is a statistical process - some hit, some don't.
> Statistics is lousy for generating the totally dust-free state.
I must disagree here. "Chance" is not an active process, but a means to
describe, mathematically, the odds of an event occurring. Accumulation of
dust is NOT a "statistical process", but rather a process with a statistical
outcome. Statistics can "predict" things, but not "cause" them. :-)
> 2) Celestial objects blow up with depressing regularity. That tends to
> resupply the dust ambient.
> (Current cosmological theory has it that most if not all of the
> elements heavier than iron currently present on Earth was created
> in supernova explosions, and travelled here as dust. Go figure...)
Yet the universe is not eternal. There was a finite beginning, despite
speculations by Sagan and "that wheelchair guy" (ref. Homer Simpson), as the
law of entropy would mandate. Eventually, entropy would increase to such a
level that our universe would become inert. Speculations that there would
be a "big crunch" or "gnaB giB" are interesting because they predict a
cyclical universe in which bangs are followed by crunches in an endless
cycle, but this, again, contradicts the law of entropy because, magically,
the "universe cycle" theories have an unfortunate side effect of causing a
reversal of entropy. Shucks, I guess we'll have to take care of this
universe since it's the only one we'll get. :-)
> 3) According to a recent Scientific American article, the Oort cloud
> consists of bodies formed in the inner Solar System and
> ejected by being
> "unlucky" when they passed close to a gas giant. Strange....
> Until a better explanation of the facts of comets comes around, I tend
> to think that it's there.
The Oort cloud or the Kuiper belt? Isn't the Oort cloud much further out
(theoretically)? I would have thought it's origins would not be exactly
related to planetary movements. Hmm... The reason I doubt the Oort clouds
existence is because it's based solely on the premise that since our solar
system is believed to be pretty old, all those planetoids would have crashed
into something by now. The Oort cloud was conceived as a reason why we
still have such planetoids zipping around the solar system even after
billions of years. There is, however, no convincing direct evidence for the
Oort cloud which makes it a purely speculative idea.
> Now this has again passed well beyond prime numbers...I'll shut up now.
True. Maybe we should start a "Mersenne Primes and Celestial bodies"
list....nah.
