> I believe that the time will come when magnetism, like gravity, is an
> explainable event

Presumably that means that "magnetism will be ..., like gravity will be ...=
"
ie "will be" in both cases :-).
"Mediated by gravitons" does not yet sit quite comfortably.

> that can
> be discussed at the dinner table with the 6-year-old twins, just like
> the weather is now.

Here we find the fine distinction between "can be discussed" and "is
explainable without a much larger super-computer than has yet been
conceived of" :-).
That said, people have been doing a very good job for a very long time
of getting it right often enough when it mattered - one such excellent
example being  J M Stagg*, no doubt aided by an with invisible coterie
of able and unseen helpers in place of the then  non-existent
(super)computer, but clearly very much aware of how the arcane system
worked, more or less. That it was more than less on the occasion that
mattered means that I am writing this in English.

> I also believe that- in time- mankind will finally abandon foolishness
> like nuclear-generated &
> coal- or oil-generated electricity, and capture it from the sun, as God
> intended.

Reminds me of a rocket-ship quote - " Takes off and lands rear end
first, as God and Robert Heinlein intended".

Assuming all the standard models are correct (although the guys at
CERN look liable to destroy that assumption in the not too distant
future as their Higgs window shrinks to zero width) then all our
energy comes from the sun. Some takes longer to get here. We have lots
of Hydro power here, which is relatively short path. PV is a bit too
short path by itself, clouds and night causing it problems. Wind is
reasonably short path, but the path is a bit meandering, unless you
find somewhere unusual. (Altimont Pass, offshore, ...).  Anything
above Iron is Star fabricated (providing standard model ... etc) and
stuff below Iron is part processed raw material on its way to being
iron. Hydrogen is the arguable exception (assuming ex Nihilo processes
do not constitute being a star :-). Radioactives (see above iron),
coal, oil - yep. Trees etc - proto coal. Bio fuels.  Solar energy
drives the lot.
But of course we all know all this.

I suspect we may yet extend the lunacy with Lunar Helium. TBD. it
needs third stage fusion and so far we have been trying for 50 years
to get stage one viable. By the time we can use lunar Helium space
assess will either be trivially easy (beanstalks, ...) or all but
impossible.

> I hope mankind survives long enough.


Amen.


    Russell




* More fun for Jack if I don't give a reference ;-)
--=20
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