This was my first beef with the book. It seems to me that 1) the forces involved in smashing the big chunks into smaller pieces make the inelastic-ness of this

This was my first beef with the book. It seems to me that 1) the forces involved in smashing the big chunks into smaller pieces make the inelastic-ness of this significant, and because of this 2) there would not be the accelerating self-destruction that eventually turns into the white rain. Physics aside, the idea that multiple non-communicating groups, separated for 5000 years, would be able to communicate, is unrealistic. Two friends who are linguistic professors tell me that the idea is preposterous.