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Hard SF

Gerry Quinn · 29 Nov 2012, 21:55 · from 2012-November.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:55:32 -0000
Subject: (urth) Hard SF
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LMD.2.00.1211300719210.23968 at orpheus.qimr.edu.au>
References: <SNT123-W51C23DE417511A76E93303CF5D0 at phx.gbl><CAGB0RZ6-Zg0AMVwFt=KEA-H38Xg5aUQJadq32C9oNC3qxDC-Bw at mail.gmail.com><1354122262.68401.YahooMailNeo at web84513.mail.ne1.yahoo.com><50B69648.5090405 at verizon.net><41B2AA23-B918-4FBE-830C-52F357BB7409 at gmail.com><50B6D48B.1050800 at verizon.net><3F06D85E0A9149E89A4A8864DF5CD523@Rover>
	<alpine.LMD.2.00.1211300719210.23968 at orpheus.qimr.edu.au>
Message-ID: <DD7BED0CBD69403A9A9C6EB3D035C015@Rover>



From: David Duffy

> On Fri, 30 Nov 2012, Gerry Quinn wrote:

> > And there?s the kind where the writer takes some dubious physics theory
> > and extrapolates wildly based on that (e.g. Schild?s Ladder by Greg
> > Egan).

> I don't know what's going on with you people.  First someone calls Kim
> Stanley Robinson boring, and now Gerry's making out quantum loop gravity
> is dubious.  Didn't you read Egan's paper?

> http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0208010.pdf

Well, it has fallen out of favour as far as I know!

But by 'dubious' I meant 'unlikely to be correct'.  Even if the vacuum is 
metastable, it's (fortunately) unlikely that we could destabilise it by 
experiment.

- Gerry Quinn




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