One common trait among many of our civilization’s great thinkers is their humility. Perhaps this started with Socrates and the line for which he’s so well known: “I know that I know nothing,” meaning that true wisdom is knowing you don’t know anything.
About 2000 years later, in the 1660s, we have this quote at left from Isaac Newton.
Of course, not all great minds through the ages were so modest. Take, for example, the physicists of the late 19th Century who were convinced that everything of any real importance in their field has already been discovered. A few later we Einstein, followed by quantum mechanics. Oops! That belief didn’t age well.
All this raises a series of unanswerable questions. Is there an end to physics, i.e. a point at which we honestly do have our arms wrapped cosmology and all our puzzles have been solved: wormholes, time travel, dark energy and matter, string theory, unified field theory, parallel universes, another universe before the big bang? If there is such an end, how close are we to it?
As we’ve noted in the past, the idea of capturing CO2 from the atmosphere is completely unfeasible, since 99.96% of the air around is something other than CO2 (mostly nitrogen). However, there are environments that change this equation radically, cement plants being one of them, where the concentration of CO2 emissions is as high as 30% (versus .04%).
Now, this brings the subject of synthetic fuels into the realm of possibility. Sure, if you want to make gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, you’ll need two other things: hydrogen (which can come from electrolyzing water), and a considerable amount of energy, as these processes are heavily endothermic, meaning that energy must be supplied from external sources.
The good news is that we have enormous amounts of off-peak wind and nuclear that are wasted every day. Please see: Doty WindFuels.
With each passing day, there are fewer and fewer American voters who believe the bullshit at left.
Is Trump working hard to stay out of prison? Enrich himself and his family? Of course.
Could be possibly care less about anything else? Obviously not.
What’s the thought process of people in the rest of the developed world when it comes to visiting the U.S.?
Conversely, would you or I want to visit some country with a deeply corrupt regime that is systematically committing atrocities all around the globe, and whose leader is lining his pockets?
I’m glad I don’t own a resort in New England that counts on a flow of visitors from Canada. If I were a Canadian, I’d be thinking I’d rather visit hell.
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