(no subject)

[vyvyanx]

This is interesting, but perhaps rather alarming:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4171591.stm

In other news, my life is full of study atm, which is nice. My maths course has reached an exciting algebra section; I am working on setting assignment questions for the OU linguistics course I teach; I am reading materials on Hallidayan grammar and corpus linguistics for the new course on English grammar which I'll be teaching this year as well; and for lighter entertainment I am reading Gödel, Escher, Bach and Ancient Mathematics, which were Christmas presents. (Hofstadter is very pleased with his own cleverness, isn't he?)

Comments

[sparrowsion]

What I want to know is why is all this concern about climate change becoming high-profile now when I was reading about this stuff (both the warming effect of CO₂ and the cooling effect of particulates) in junior school text-books 25 years ago. Did the aversion of global nuclear war and the postponement of the fossil fuels crisis suddenly wipe everyone's brains of the possibility of planetary catastrophe?

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

These particular measurements of the dimming effect (compared with the 50s) seem to be recent, even if the theory has been around for decades. But I guess you could argue that people ought to have tried to measure it sooner, if they knew it was a possibility!

[dmh.livejournal.com]

A worrying theory indeed, it almost sounds like we're in a no-win situation.

[aldabra]

Hofstadter gets more self-satisfied on flimsier grounds:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0747533504/qid=1105646253/sr=1-8/ref=sr_1_11_8/026-5462994-5454061
but is still worth reading.