The impetus for creating this blog comes from Winding the Universal Clock: Speculations on the Transitions Between Chaos and Order. It was written by Carl H. Builder and Gabriele U. Menkea in 1997 for the RAND Corporation.
For me, it seemed an odd work to be found on a RAND Corporation website. While the RAND Corporation often engages in social policy question, this work seemed to go well beyond the usual level of policy analysis and to venture into realms of speculation regarding the origin of life, the fate of the universe, and the future evolution of humanity.
This was a bold effort and the authors declared as much in their dedication on the title page itself: “For all those scientists still willing to speculate broadly not in the certainty that they are correct but in the hope that they will make us think.”
The topics of “Winding” were long familiar to me and ones on which I had read and thought a great deal over the years. The time has come, I believe, for me to gather my own thoughts on such matters and also be willing to speculate broadly. Like those authors, I doubt I will get a lot correct at least in all the details, but if I can get some things correct in broad outline, and can help others to think, I will succeed in my goals.
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Broad Speculations 