Re: a little oil for thought

[Les Schaffer <schaffer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Don't think I have the software necessary for an internet call, but
> then I'm pretty much a novice in these matters...

NetMeeting under windows is all you need. i need to figure out if
conference calls work w/ that software.

> Re the papers: Printed out the one on oil extraction, but I have to
> tell you it is very difficult for me to follow the mathematical
> models constructed from their formulas.

i can help w/ the math, but i want/need to understand the econ
background first.



and speaking of scarcity ........

latest Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) reports that star formation
rates in the universe are now on the decrease, due to diminishng
supplies of star-forming material.

  Star supply dwindling
  Lights will go out on Universe in 10 billion years.
  12 August 2003
  TOM CLARKE


  "The Universe is getting dimmer and dimmer," says Alan Heavens. Star
  numbers, his University of Edinburgh team has found, are falling.

  They calculate that star formation is now around 30 times slower
  than during the Universe's stellar baby boom around 6 billion years
  ago, when our Sun was created. It is so slow that more stars are
  fizzling out than are being born.

  "Within 5 or 10 billion years the Universe will be a pretty dark
  place," says Heavens. "But you probably won't start to notice the
  difference for a billion years."

  The finding won't startle professional astronomers - physics
  predicts such a slowdown. "Every time you make a star, you deplete
  the material left behind to form more," says star researcher Martin
  Barstow of the University of Leicester in England.

  But previous studies underestimated the star slump - they drew on
  bright, easy-to-spot galaxies, and brightness is a sign of star
  formation. The new work is the best measure so far, says Barstow,
  because it includes dim galaxies.

  Heavens' group approximated the total production of stars throughout
  the Universe's history using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
  (SDSS), a coordinated astronomical scan of the night sky. They
  compared wavelengths of light - which hints at the age of a star -
  with the numbers of stars of different ages from each of 40,000
  nearby galaxies.


  http://www.nature.com/nsu/030811/030811-1.html
  http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0211546

still gives intergalactic socialism plenty of time to be achieved.....

les schaffer