Problems Problems
Commenter Lee is convinced that energy is the world's number one problem and he makes a good case here. He recommends lectures by David Goodstein, Nathan Lewis, and Steven Koonin. The main purpose of the present post is to provide those links.
The Goodstein and Lewis lectures were Caltech Watson lectures and can be viewed online at the Caltech Today Streaming Theater. Koonin's Fermilab colloquium is on streaming video here.
Goodstein is Professor of Physics and Vice Provost at Caltech, and has taught Caltech's hallmark Physics 1a course forever (The capacity of the Ph 1a lecture hall determines how many Freshman are admitted each year - about 215). Lewis and Koonin took a major role in debunking cold fusion, though that's probably the least of their accomplishments. Lewis plays a parallel role with Goodstein in teaching Ch 1a, another course every Tech Freshman takes. Koonin was Provost at Caltech till 2004 and is now chief scientist of B.P. International.
Lee's comments are always on the mark, but I want to take slight exception here. The world's biggest problem to me is resource exhaustion and environmental destruction generally, and the underlying cause is overpopulation. Energy, especially oil, is a crucial component of the resource depletion, but not the only one. Humans now consume something like 50% of the world's net biological production, and that net biological production is unlikely to be changed much by anything we do.
We are now marching on a global scale off an enviromental cliff that has been the fate of many a culture. Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed tells the story of many smaller scale cultures and has some lessons for our global society.
Lee makes the further valid point that neither the Republican nor Democratic party has any real plan for dealing with the coming energy problems - or, I would add, for the more general environmental crisis already underway.
The Goodstein and Lewis lectures were Caltech Watson lectures and can be viewed online at the Caltech Today Streaming Theater. Koonin's Fermilab colloquium is on streaming video here.
Goodstein is Professor of Physics and Vice Provost at Caltech, and has taught Caltech's hallmark Physics 1a course forever (The capacity of the Ph 1a lecture hall determines how many Freshman are admitted each year - about 215). Lewis and Koonin took a major role in debunking cold fusion, though that's probably the least of their accomplishments. Lewis plays a parallel role with Goodstein in teaching Ch 1a, another course every Tech Freshman takes. Koonin was Provost at Caltech till 2004 and is now chief scientist of B.P. International.
Lee's comments are always on the mark, but I want to take slight exception here. The world's biggest problem to me is resource exhaustion and environmental destruction generally, and the underlying cause is overpopulation. Energy, especially oil, is a crucial component of the resource depletion, but not the only one. Humans now consume something like 50% of the world's net biological production, and that net biological production is unlikely to be changed much by anything we do.
We are now marching on a global scale off an enviromental cliff that has been the fate of many a culture. Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed tells the story of many smaller scale cultures and has some lessons for our global society.
Lee makes the further valid point that neither the Republican nor Democratic party has any real plan for dealing with the coming energy problems - or, I would add, for the more general environmental crisis already underway.
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