Evolution History                             
                                           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 imposable* 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 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 = 0.00006 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 kuiper belt and the oort cloud, or radiation due to
    coronal mass ejections of the stars at each end of the trip, or 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 is 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 an 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 6.5 BILLION people and DOUBLING
every 47 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.

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 double every 50 years then:
P2 = P1 x 2^(# of years/50) =

Year        Pop (BILLIONS)
2000        6
2100        24
2200        96
2300        384
2400        1,536
2500        6,144
2600        24,576
2700        98,304
2800        393,216
2900        1,572,864
3000        6,291,456  ie 6.3 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, 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?