Letters to the Editor
mattwa33186
Published Letters: 394 Editor's Choice: 41
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It depends, mnike
[Read the article: Hip, hip, CAFE!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]on if Toyota got that horsepower by allowing the engine to burn more fuel or by using more of the available energy in the same amount of fuel. Yes, modern engines may have larger valves and are typically larger in displacement than the engines they have replaced. But the biggest difference in the last 15 years has been computerized engine management systems that hold the combustion process right on the edge of premature detonation at all times and constantly optimizing the air/fuel ratio, extracting more BTU from the fuel and making the engine much more efficient.
One of the biggest roadblocks to fuel efficiency is constantly tightening emissions regulations. Modern cars are incredibly clean - you'd run out of gas before successfully asphyxiating yourself with your new Camry. The point of diminishing returns has long since past as far as making new cars cleaner is concerned, and modern cars actually remove some pollutants from the atmosphere. But the goverment is still focusing on private car emmisions almost exclusively when the low hanging fruit is factories, powerplants, and large trucks and busses.
Alowing industry to clean up those areas (at greatly reduced cost) would allow for the use of lighter weight materials without sacrificing safety, which would have a huge impact on fuel efficiency. The 1984 Volkswagen GTI I used to own weighed 1600 pounds. A new GTI weighs roughly twice that. So now the same gallon of gas has to move what amounts to 2 cars instead of 1 - not very efficient, but the fuel efficiency hasn't changed proportionally because of inreased combustion efficiency. A brand new GTI that weighed only 2500 pounds would likely get over 35MPG city, if VW was allowed to build it.
Last, the most effective and efficient method for reducing greenhouse gasses and increasing fleet fuel economy would be to simply offer every American $10,000 for any car built before 1997, and then recycle those cars to build new ones. More cost effective than anything we are doing now or have planned for the future, more effective in terms of overall results, great for our struggling car industry and its workers and our economy.
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You're right, it would change their business utterly
[Read the article: Hip, hip, CAFE!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Instead of far flung operations with massive and expensive distibution systems and complicated refineries, and the added complication of dealing with 100's of millions of uneducated and unhappy customers, the oil companies would be able to radically streamline their operations, realize enormous economies of scale, and deal with only about 100 customers who know their business.
Or did you forget that there is no such thing as an electric car, only cars that run on oil, coal, or nuclear power? And before you bring up solar, remember that there is not enough real estate on the planet to support enough solar panels to meet our needs.
Every solution to the problem of energy used in transportation is still in the future. Lots of people love nuclear power, but nobody wants a fission reactor within 50 miles of them and fusion is years away. Solar could actually work, but not until we rebuild our space program, convert the energy into electricity outside the atmosphere, and figure out how to get it down here. Hydrogen is expensive and possibly dangerous. We need to start now, needed to start in the early 70's, but please don't think the solutions are at our fingertips.
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Terraforming Mars
[Read the article: We are meant to be here]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I saw a proposal for exactly that once. Take our entire nuclear arsenal, light off half over each Martian pole (being careful not disrupt the orbit while doing so, or at least know how it will be disrupted so the change would be beneficial to life) and wait 1,000 years or so. Nuclear winter would create an environment much like ours, in theory. Now, whether life would eveolve there on its own is another question.
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Monty
[Read the article: We are meant to be here]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]People who believed the world was flat were either illiterates who lived far inland or morons. We've known the world is round for thousands of years. American public schools fill kids' minds with bullshit about how Columbus was afraid he would sail off the edge of the Earth when the real fear was that there wouldn't be enough supplies onboard to sail the required distance (there wouldn't have been).
Just as an aside :)
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Brightstar and Occam's Razor
[Read the article: We are meant to be here]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Occam's razor is not a broken crutch, although it is a badly misused principle.
What Occam said was that explanations should make as few assumptions as possible, and that any assumption that doesn't impact observable prediction should be discarded. In scientific terms, the simplest solution is the one that makes the fewest assumptions and posits the fewest hypotheses, not the one with the fewest moving parts.
Davies' hypothesis (can't call it a theory) makes many wild assumptions about how and why we got here. The letters I've seen here arguing Occam's Razor correctly point out that given the existence of infinite universes (which Davies posits) then relying on the inevitability of carbon based, DNA based life that derives from that infiniteness :) removes several large (and batshit crazy) assumptions from his hypothesis and renders it unoriginal, pointless tripe.
Occam's Razor may be abused, and at times inconvenient, but it isn't broken.