Hornblower -> RE: Best Designed Ship of WWII (7/14/2009 3:45:30 AM)
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ORIGINAL: rtrapasso quote:
ORIGINAL: witpqs Disagree - I didn't totally pull numbers out of my hat. I did use really rough round numbers, but you can refine them as you like (search for where people have already done that). The meteorite that hit around the Yucatan peninsula about 60,000,000+ years ago stands a huge chance of wiping out all humans alive if a similar one hit tomorrow. Apparently the frequency of big ones like that is roughly agreed upon by those who study such things. There were other big ones (but somewhat smaller) later than if you wish to include them. Last estimate for world population I heard was 6.7 billion. Don't remember the world average life span estimate so I did guess there. As far as new technologies go, my understanding is that in the near future (dozens of years) we have nothing that could deploy in time to stop a comet (which is what we are talking about) because we would only know about the danger with at most a few months to spare. I am just pointing out that the numbers surrounding rare+big events are hard to relate to for us humans and are usually surprising to us. I am NOT advocating worry, doom, or any such thing and certainly do not advocate making up numbers. What are the chances of nuclear war? Any answer would be a made up number. I never did believe all those doomsayers in the early 80's who were announcing how close we were to nuclear annihilation. That was pure hokum. I only pulled the meteor/comet number in because it is both a rare and big event and could therefore serve as a good illustration - no other reason. [:)] Sorry, i saw this and couldn't resist dusting off this discussion: [:D] [image]local://upfiles/7543/8B6156836D164926979F2014BEC20F01.jpg[/image] Glad you did! Fletchers, Essex, Baltimores and Gato's and for the DE fanboys the Hunts .. Honorable mention goes the Shokaku and Zuikaku. For the BB's i'll go with the Washington or South Dakota's....
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