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From: ST401385@BROWNVM.BITNET
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: (1) Fusion  (2) Olber's Paradox
Message-ID: <8603092130.AA25683@s1-b.arpa>
Date: Sun, 9-Mar-86 16:23:55 EST
Article-I.D.: s1-b.8603092130.AA25683
Posted: Sun Mar  9 16:23:55 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 12-Mar-86 06:17:18 EST
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    The impression I've gotten from reading magazines such as
Technology Review is that, although scientific breakeven is probably
achievable in the near future, fusion reactors built on the outgrowth
of any of the current technology paths would be huge, expensive,
unwieldy, have extremely low power densities, become rapidly radioactive
due to stray neutron flux, and produce electricity only at exorbitantly
high cost.
     I'd like to believe in fusion, but it doesn't sound good so far.
(On the other hand, there are plenty of recent advances in photovoltaic
power systems...)

Olber's paradox:
I'm getting tired of Olber's paradox.
I just wrote up a discussion of it, explaining in detail how hierarchical
clustering can solve the problem.   It's a bit long to post.
If anybody's interested, send me a note including your bitnet address,
or, if you aren't on bitnet, your arpanet address.

                   --Geoffrey A. Landis, Brown University
                     Reply to: ST401385%BROWNVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA