Evolution History

The History of the Evolution of the World and Man

Foreword

In p.s. #3 to the Kluznickian Calendar page, I mentioned that people should be more aware of
the changes that the earth undergoes. Of course I was referring to the cyclical changing of
the seasons but the same admonishment applies to all of the changes of the earth – both man
made and the ongoing evolution of the earth. It’s a bit of a stretch to go from seasons to
evolution, but I just happen to have the material on hand and I believe mankind will benefit
from a better understanding or at least a better awareness of what Mother Nature is all
about. Changes to earth affect life on earth. We should be aware of the changing nature of
earth. We should learn how to not cause any undesirable changes. And we should learn
how to prepare for the expected changes. (For a further discussion of past climate changes
see: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/pastcc.html )

But we don’t have to worry too much about screwing up this world because we will someday
be able to escape to some other world, right? Wrong. Space travel to other worlds is
presently impossible* and will probably remain so for all of eternity. The world we have today
is most likely the only world we will ever have, so we better learn how to take care of it.
Even if we could discover a way to make space travel possible (such as SciFi's worm holes or
warp drives that would enable us to exceed the speed of light), just imagine how much it
would cost us, both in money and resources, to do the research, design, development,
construction and testing of a series of machines to achieve that goal, and then a HUGE fleet
of space ships to transport the people. Suppose we succeed, what percentage of the 6.5
billion person world population do you think we could manage to send to a new world? Who
gets to choose who escapes and who is left behind? What happens to those of us who stay
behind? Guess what happens to the relatively small elite group of pioneers that do go on this
one-way suicide trip - they all die in transit after spending a lifetime incarcerated in a cramped
and smelly space bus.

Using Voyager 2 technology (speed = 1.8 E4 m/sec, at Neptune, after 12 years of

travel,

i.e. 0.006 % of the speed of light = 0.000

06 x c), it would take about 67,000

years

to reach the

nearest

star system, Alpha Centuri

at a distance of 4.2 light years.

(How

much do you want to bet that there are no habitable planets there?)

Using an ion

cruising engine would shorten that time by some amount (it depends on the

size of the

solar panels and the size of the Xenon fuel tank). Even if the ion engine

reduced the

transit time by a factor of 100 we are still talking about 670 years!

(Think of

the number

of sandwiches you would have to pack.)

And

relativistic effects

[Dt' = Dt/(1 –

v^2/c^2)

^1/2] are of no help at these low speeds

(~0.006

x c). And we have

not even

mentioned

space rocks

in the asteroid belt, the

uiper belt and the

ort cloud,

radiation due to

coronal

mass

ejections of the stars

at each end of the trip,

cosmic

radiation,

or the

effects of atrophy. So, once

you

leave

our solar system,

you are not

coming back. Not

only that, you are not going

to be

alive

when you get to

your

destination.

Not a very

good escape plan. In fact it i

not an

escape plan at all. At

best

it is a colonization plan

and that doesn't make sense

to do

unless

we are on a

mission

from God to extend the

human species to another planet. I

don't

think

omnipotent

God needs our help to do

that.

For a slightly more optimistic viewpoint, see this NASA report:

http://aerospacescholars.jsc.nasa.gov/has/Students/finalGall.cfm?id=709

Instead of spending a giant sum of money on manned planetary exploration (robots can do
the job a lot cheaper), or space travel R&D so a few people can escape earth, we should
spend it on learning how to sustain life here on earth for now and the indefinite future. Big,
big problems await solution – over population (now 6.8 BILLION people and increasing at the
rate of 1.2% per year, ie doubling every 58 years), pollution, over fishing, deforestation, loss
of animal habitat, species extinctions, loss of farm land, depletion of natural resources,
excessive greenhouse gas, ozone shield depletion, … These are all man made problems, but
Mother Nature is also doing her thing – ticking off the time for the next ice age to begin,
among other things (volcanoes, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, tidal waves, earthquakes,
global warming, water shortages, encroaching deserts, rising sea levels, solar system rocks,
galactic rocks (due to galactic oscillation), outer space rocks, magnetic field reversal (and
temporary loss of our magnetic shield?), and more). Some scientists say that the next ice age
is due now. What are we going to do to prepare for it? Send a man to the moon??? Think
about 6.5 billion people all headed for the tropics. How are they all going to survive once they
get there? Think housing, infrastructure, farming, industry... A smaller population would have
a better chance of surviving and sustaining their numbers.

So anyhow, the message is this, we should: 1) be aware of the changing nature of the world,
2) stop screwing up the world, 3) learn how to live indefinitely (as much as the next 5 billion
years) on this changing planet, 4) be prepared for the next natural disaster, 5) put an end to
the manned planetary exploration and the space travel R&D nonsense and divert that funding
to solving down-to-earth problems, and 6) get a president who does not have two way
conversations with God and who does have two way conversations with scientists. (We
should also get a president that has a 3 digit IQ.)

Back to evolution - the material that follows is not perfect. Not all scientists agree on
everything; different authors say different things. Sometimes they reevaluate and change
their minds. Investigation is ongoing and sometimes they find some new evidence. Etc., etc.,
,,, Also, I used some mathematical notation and abbreviations that some of you may not be
familiar with. I will include some definitions below. And finally, I made these compendiums of
evolutionary history for my own edification, a long time ago. So they are terse, incomplete,
and unrefined, but I like them anyhow and I hope you will too.

@ = at, about, concerning, regarding, with respect to, at the rate of, …
~ = approximately
2.9E6 LY = 2.9 million light years = 2.9 Mega light years
AU = astronomical unit
B = billion
BYA = billions of years ago = GYA = Gigayears ago
c = the speed of light
cc = cubic centimeter
CCW = counter clockwise
k = kilo = thousand
km/s = kilometers per second
LY = light years
m = meters
M = million
nm = nanometers = E-9 meters
E-9 = ten to the minus nine
E9 = billions, or Giga in metric.

-----------

If the population were to continue to increase at the rate of 1.2% per year then:
P(n) = P(1) x 1.012^n =

Year        Pop (BILLIONS)
2000        6
2100        20
2200        65
2300        215
2400        708
2500        2,336
2600        7,699
2700        25,381
2800        83,668
2900        275,812
3000        909,209 ie ~1 million billion people!

So who says we don't have a population problem?

I'm guessing that a more sustainable world population would be a maximum of 1 billion people, as existed in
1850. Thats a reduction of 5.5 billion people from the present population! (Or how about a maximum of 250
million as existed in year 1000. Or how about...) As a point of reference, WW2 caused only 70 million
casualties, so it would take 79 WW2's to reduce the population to just under 1 billion people. That's a bit much
to ask for, but the very least we should do is stop the continued growth of the world population. A moderate
negative growth rate would be much much better...

Stephen Hawking asked: "How can the human race survive the next hundred years?"    That is a very good
question. Do you know what needs to be done?

Last Amended:
2009-10-18

Velocity as a % of c	Velocity as a factor of c	Years to go 4 ly **
100	1	4
10	0.1	40
1	0.01	400
0.1	0.001	4,000
0.01	0.000,1	40,000
0.001	0.000,01	400,000

<--- We are here now.

<--- Impossible to achieve.

** Ignoring relativity.

<--- Practically impossible.