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Originally posted by Trancer-X Those things will neither be confronted, nor remedied. There's just no profit in helping the less fortunate. We all know that's what it's about, the bottom line. I just know that our Universe has been around for billions of years before we were ever even in the making, and that besides the simple elementary particles that constitute our relatively frail human bodies, there has to be something in regards to a soul - which transcends this material existence. I'll just say now that I'm not about to let a life expectancy of less than a hundred year's time corrupt whatever it is in me that persuades me to believe that there is more to it than this miserable, wretched, physical existence. Yeah, it sure makes life so much easier, but I'm still not about to sell out. Sorry, but I couldn't hold that back. /liberal-hippy spiritually-enlightened speech

It's a shame that with the frailty of humanity it is diminished with the need of material wealth. The wealth that runs the world has no parlance to helping others but themselves. And in that sense tax the poor and unrepresented. Without sounding communistic and socialistic, this country and all others can take care of themeselves but rather give in to the deeds of others who say they are for the interests of the common man. Rather than be a charitable race; humans are, for lack of a better word, stupid.

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Originally posted by Orko whats the diff between warm and cold fusion?

I'm no expert on cold fusion (or warm for that matter), but AFAIK the difference is that warm fusion is fusion taking place at insane temperatures (as in a star) whereas cold fusion is fusion taking place "at room temperature".
Now, the problem with warm fusion, is that the material that is to be fused is so hot that no known material can hold it without burning up. The reason why it works anyway, is that a magnetic field can be set up to keep the fusing plasma suspended in mid-air, thus avoiding any direct contact between the plasma and other materials. Extracting the heat/energy from the plasma is done by surrounding the airbourne plasma in a donut of heat channeling material, which is then connected to a tank of water which when heated runs a standard turbine.
Of course, this precise channeling of heat means that you can get pretty close (like 50 meters or so) to the entire system of plasma and heat channeling material without burning up, so in some way the fusion *is* taking place "at" room temperature, in the sense that you can have the machinery setup and working in a normal room.
I guess that cold fusion means that the actual fused material in itself never exceeds room temperature - although (to me) that leaves the question of how energy would be extracted from it. I guess someone with a better grip on modern physics can elaborate/correct me?

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Originally posted by trancaholic Hopefully oil, nuclear fusion, and renewable energy sources will be able to sustain us until then. And hopefully the money needed for basic research in physics will be allotted.

Yes, even if we run out of oil we still have nuclear fission to sustain energy demands for about 300 years. Combined with renewable sources, it'd probably last for at least 500 years or more if we discover more efficient ways to utilize renewable energy.

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Originally posted by occrider My opinion from a year ago remains unchanged: http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...t=&pagenumber=2 What has changed is that my nifty supply and demand graph that I used for my explanation has since gone the way of the dodo .

Hmm, well, that theory is good for infinite systems. This planet, however, has finite resources which makes the mathematical model inprecise at very low supplies. There have been situations where regions have ran out of resources without finding alternatives, and the most obvious example would be Easter islands. By the theory you mentioned, wood would become very expensive and people would come up with new ways of erecting statues and building boats. Reality shows that it wasn't the case, the whole society shriveled to prehistoric levels and stayed there until the arrival of European expeditions because of the loss of their primary resource. The current market will of course adapt because oil isn't the only available energy resource we have, but the whole situation may result in pretty big shocks and negative trends on the stock exchange.

PS. The proposed fusion reactor is not cold fusion reactor, cold fusion is still hypothetical.

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