(urth) This week in Google Alerts

[James Wynn]

>> Craig Brewer<cnbrewer at yahoo.com>  wrote:
>> But the question it does beg to me seems to be that of why the Sun is dying.
>> In 20,000 years, it wouldn't burn out naturally, right? And if it was
>> artificial, then who/why? That seems to be the real issue of the time lag,
>> and I think it's been hashed out here before.
> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> We know that the Sun is not dying naturally, that a black hole has
> been planted in it. But I believe that a few thousand years would be
> too short a time for _that_ to make the described difference...though
> Typhon says that it's happening faster than predicted, so current
> theory is of relatively little value here.
>

Wolfe has said many times that tBotNS is about what would happen if 
humanity remained until it's the planet's resources have been depleted. 
He likened it to a family with a fabulously wealthy ancestor that now 
lives in the same house but desperately poor because they have run 
through all the money.

It feels to me that this would take longer than 20,000 years. Still, 
maybe not. Some people think we'll run though our inheritance of 
petroleum formed from 500 million years of sea life within the next 
century.  So, it is what it is. 20,000 is by far plenty of time for our 
age to become myth many times over. No one reads cuneiform today.  In 
northern Iraq, there is a 12,000 year old temple, employing intricate 
relief art , yet we know nothing of significance about civilization 
older than 5,000 years.

J.