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Interesting, but it IS a joke, which usually requires taking some liberties with the truth.

For example, an issue I have with it is that it's not actually possible for the Sun to explode. It is incapable of going nova. This is an old sci-fi trope, of a civilization that dies because its Sun goes nova, but this isn't a thing that actually happens. There are very specific circumstances where a nova can occur, and it is typically a recurring thing. More so, it requires the presence of a white dwarf star, which must come into existence only after a star has gone into a red giant phase. None of these things are conducive to life developing on nearby planets, they aren't even conducive to the continued existence of nearby planets. Regardless, our star is not a white dwarf, nor does it have a companion and therefore will never produce a nova. More so, it is about 1/8th too small to go supernova.



I learned something today. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_flash is what I thought was the process that leads to novas, it is not.

That said, from our point of view a helium flash is pretty scary. Of course the Sun is not expected to do this for another 5 billion years.

But according to http://www.whillyard.com/science-pages/our-solar-system/sun-... the Earth is likely to be uninhabitable in about a billion years anyways.


That's the point. The Bayesian incorporates this information into the prior. ;)




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