At 10:52 PM 9/6/00 +0100, Richard wrote:
>http://www.theonion.com/onion3631/christian_right_lobbies.html
Thanks Richard (for ruining my day, that is :).
My first thought was that this is some sort
of wicked joke. I mean, if I were to set out
to write a satire on the fundamentalist attack
on evolution using some other well established
law, this is just the type thing I would write.
Here's a real keeper:
> "Why can't disorder decrease over time instead of everything
> decaying?" asked Jim Muldoon of Emporia, KS. "Is that too
> much to ask? This is our children's future we're talking about."
I imagine AlGore could hop on this. Hey, you gotta think of the children. :)
Here's the runner up:
>"The only 'heat death' Jesus ever mentioned is the one that sinners will
suffer
> for all eternity in the Lake of Fire," said Indianola (MS) School Board
president
> Bernice McCallum.
The following passage makes me think again that it is all
some joke:
=======begin quote====================
"Were the second law to be repealed, random particles would collect and
organize themselves instead of dissipating, which
could affect such basic processes as combustion, digestion, evaporation,
convection--that sort of thing," Columbia University
superstring theorist Dr. Brian Greene said. "There wouldn't be much
sunlight, either, because all stars, including our sun, would
be collecting photons from surrounding space instead of emitting solar
radiation. Oh, and the universe would begin to contract
rather than expand, which could possibly turn back the flow of time itself,
sending our cosmos spiraling inward toward a
reverse Big Bang, a sort of 'Big Crunch,' if you will."
"In light of all this," Greene continued, "I would sincerely hope that our
nation's legislators think long and hard before
making any decisions to amend or repeal this law."
=========end quote==================
I can't imagine a physicist actually saying that. Perhaps he said it tongue
and cheek and was quoted out of context. Here's Greene's web page:
http://www.phys.columbia.edu/faculty/greene.htm
It contains his phone number, who wants to call him ? :)
Brian Harper
Mechanical Engineering
Ohio State University
"Baby, I was born bawlin' and
I'm gonna bawl the rest of my life."
-- Fats Waller
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Sep 07 2000 - 17:16:53 EDT