Newly Measured Particle Seems Heavy Enough to Break Known Physics

Re:Newly Measured Particle Seems Heavy Enough to Break Known... by NateEag on Friday April 08, 2022 @08:34AM (#30956082)

Keep in mind that all the easily-mined coal, oil, and gas deposits have been used.

We might be kinda screwed if something takes out civilization (e.g., the nukes fly).

I guess we can hope that nuclear winter is exaggerated or non-existent and the southern hemisphere pulls through with intact infrastructure after the exchange.

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Re:Newly Measured Particle Seems Heavy Enough to Break Known... by ben_w on Friday April 08, 2022 @09:19AM (#30956458)

Sure, everything would suck for a while[0]. But we had wind and hydro for a long time before electricity and steam, so those that survive could rebuild, analogously as to how we are presently weaning ourselves off fossil fuels without such destruction.

[0] I realise given the context of global thermonuclear war this may seem like understatement. Well, I’m British and I have a stereotype to uphold.

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Re:Newly Measured Particle Seems Heavy Enough to Break Known... by NateEag on Friday April 08, 2022 @12:52PM (#30959539)

It might not be as easy as you'd hope to rebuild.

This essay does a good job of explaining why it's probably possible in principle and why in practice it might be quite difficult:

https://aeon.co/essays/could-we-reboot-a-modern-civilisation...

(Incidentally, I highly recommend that author's book _ The Knowledge_, which is a more extended meditation on industrial civilisation and what it would take to reinvent it if we lost it.)

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