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You can create growth without needing a single additional atom. Sometimes growth can in fact reduce resource demands. Growth just means that we learn to do th

You can create growth without needing a single additional atom. Sometimes growth can in fact reduce resource demands. Growth just means that we learn to do things better.

ben_w 3y ago
> You can create growth without needing a single additional atom Prove it. Every breath you take is 10^24 or so atoms. > Growth just means that we learn to do things better. Up to 100%, and no more.
- konschubert 3y ago
  > Prove it. Computers today are better and take fewer atoms to make than 40 years ago.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Those chips use atoms. Still, I should've phrased it better. Prove that growth can continue when the transistor are made from single atoms as standard. And just in case you suggest fission, hydrogen atoms.
  - panarchy 3y ago
    And yet even though each one of those computers uses fewer atoms there is now more computers using up more atoms in total than there were 40 years ago thanks to continued growth...
- konschubert 3y ago
  > Every breath you take is 10^24 or so atoms. They aren't consumed, they are being recycled.
- konschubert 3y ago
  > Up to 100%, and no more. Okay, once we found the cure to all illness; and once Physics and Math are fully understood, I agree we will be done.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    My best bet is that "all illnesses" get solved within a century. Maths has the problem that it's apparently possible to prove that for any system there must be statements which are both true and unprovable. (I don't understand how that works). Physics will always have the question of if anything else might be hiding at a deeper level; however, we get to the point of "we can no longer make stuff from atoms" well before that point. On the topic of fancy new physics: some time back, when the Alcubierre drive was piquing my interest, I wondered how hard it would be to engineer a Casimir cavity with negative mass. The answer was that (with the photon-only approximation I have to use given I'm a hobbyist not a proper physicist) you can't with any standard particles, as even neutron lasagne can't get close enough to exclude more than the mass of the sheets themselves.

You can create growth without needing a single additional atom. Sometimes growth can in fact reduce resource demands. Growth just means that we learn to do things better.

ben_w 3y ago

> You can create growth without needing a single additional atom Prove it. Every breath you take is 10^24 or so atoms. > Growth just means that we learn to do things better. Up to 100%, and no more.

konschubert 3y ago
> Prove it. Computers today are better and take fewer atoms to make than 40 years ago.
- ben_w 3y ago
  Those chips use atoms. Still, I should've phrased it better. Prove that growth can continue when the transistor are made from single atoms as standard. And just in case you suggest fission, hydrogen atoms.
- panarchy 3y ago
  And yet even though each one of those computers uses fewer atoms there is now more computers using up more atoms in total than there were 40 years ago thanks to continued growth...
konschubert 3y ago
> Every breath you take is 10^24 or so atoms. They aren't consumed, they are being recycled.
konschubert 3y ago
> Up to 100%, and no more. Okay, once we found the cure to all illness; and once Physics and Math are fully understood, I agree we will be done.
- ben_w 3y ago
  My best bet is that "all illnesses" get solved within a century. Maths has the problem that it's apparently possible to prove that for any system there must be statements which are both true and unprovable. (I don't understand how that works). Physics will always have the question of if anything else might be hiding at a deeper level; however, we get to the point of "we can no longer make stuff from atoms" well before that point. On the topic of fancy new physics: some time back, when the Alcubierre drive was piquing my interest, I wondered how hard it would be to engineer a Casimir cavity with negative mass. The answer was that (with the photon-only approximation I have to use given I'm a hobbyist not a proper physicist) you can't with any standard particles, as even neutron lasagne can't get close enough to exclude more than the mass of the sheets themselves.