From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Sat Jul 10 1999 - 05:01:03 MDT
In a message dated 99-07-10 01:09:43 EDT, spike66@ibm.net (Spike Jones) wrote:
> Given enough raw material, it seems that a really out-there nanotech
> civilization could make a sphere and keep its surface at 3 kelvin, so
> that it would be undetectable by us less advanced (and therefore more
> dangerous) intelligences. Do we have any thermodynamics experts
> out there who can confirm that such a scheme does not violate the
> third law? Seems to me it doesnt.
Based on the conversations we had at Foresight in May, I think one of the
more intriguing proposals for empirically verifying his ideas that Robert
Bradbury will make in his upcoming presentation on bioastronomy is based on
the thermodynamic radiation of waste heat by SIs. As I recall, it's based on
the idea that completely masking waste heat is something that even the most
advanced SI can't do and that a systematic search for the signature of that
heat is something within our current technological capabilities..
Just a personal comment: The discussion Robert and I had at Foresight about
this subject was one of the most stimulating I can remember for years. I
really don't think Robert meant any disrespect to the SETI crowd with his
initial post in this thread, but rather, as he tried to explain, he was using
a little turbocharged rhetoric to get some well-deserved attention for the
truly impressive amount of work he's done on this subject. After listening
to him explain his ideas at the white board and then field questions from
some of the certifiably smartest people on the planet, I can assure you that
although he might be wrong, his ideas are extremely well thought-out. I
remember thinking that the scene at Los Alamos when Von Neuman proposed the
idea of galactic exploration with self-replicating probes must have been
something like that . . .
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
"Civilization is protest against nature;
progress requires us to take control of evolution."
-- Thomas Huxley
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:04:26 MST