Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!ethan
From: ethan@ut-emx.uucp (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Why bother? (was Re: Terraforming, sun shield)
Summary: a little physics
Message-ID: <44714@ut-emx.uucp>
Date: 26 Feb 91 14:25:26 GMT
References: <5705@optilink.UUCP> <1991Feb22.164032.16901@zoo.toronto.edu> <6956@harrier.ukc.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin; Austin, Texas
Lines: 16

In article <6956@harrier.ukc.ac.uk>, sss3@ukc.ac.uk (S.S.Sturrock) writes:
> Nice idea this terraforming, why can't we make lots of new worlds for people
> to live on, then we don't have to worry about contraception, or the population
> problem, excellent plan guys.

A little thought will convince you that this is not just tangential,
but irrelevant.  No physically conceivable amount of terraforming
will allow for continued exponential population growth, even if
interplanetary travel were to become essentially free (which also
involves imaginary physics).

-- 
 I'm not afraid of dying     Ethan Vishniac, Dept of Astronomy, Univ. of Texas
 I just don't want to be     {charm,ut-sally,emx,noao}!utastro!ethan
 there when it happens.      (arpanet) ethan@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU
    - Woody Allen            (bitnet) ethan%astro.as.utexas.edu@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU