

The Nemesis hypothesis - Panoramix
http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/nemch1.htm

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tdoggette
This is interesting, but the last sentence implies there's a part 2. No link.

<http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/nemch2.htm> is a 404.

Ah: <http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/Nemesis%20Chapters/>

A brief reminder: write for the web.

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Panoramix
Indeed, there's no link. But I believe it's the first chapter of his book:
[http://www.amazon.com/Nemesis-Death-Star-Richard-
Muller/dp/1...](http://www.amazon.com/Nemesis-Death-Star-Richard-
Muller/dp/1555841732) His website looks rather messy, but as a 65 years old
astronomy professor I guess he has other stuff in his mind...

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ErrantX
That book still remains one of the best books I have ever read. Completely
hooked all the way through.

Nicely paced, "fun" but also well reasoned.

The fact that a theory that has stood such serious intellectual assault over
the years after being invented, essentially, in the spur of an argument has
always impressed me.

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oPerrin
An interesting point from the wikipedia articles: One version of the theory,
that the nemesis star is a brown dwarf, should be testable in the next year or
so. The WISE mission is launching in just over 33 days, and its year long
mission will detect any brown dwarf stars within 2-3 parsecs of us, which is
within the suggested range for nemesis.

<http://wise.ssl.berkeley.edu/>

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jcl
Wikipedia's shorter, less narrative text:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_%28star%29>

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cakesy
Why would you want something shorter, that was a nice piece of writing.

Of course cruel to just leave us hanging there.

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jcl
It's fine writing, but upon visiting the linked article, I had no idea what it
was. No indication of author or intent, or even if it was fiction or non. I
was half-expecting an Asimovian plot twist revealing that the Nemesis would
next appear _later that very day!_

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rms
Ironic that Asimov wrote a book about Nemesis.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(Isaac_Asimov_novel)>

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radu_floricica
By the time I finished it I thought it was the first chapter from Asimov's
Nemesis and was very disappointed. Except I didn't remember it to be so well
written...

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eduardoflores
It's an open directory. You can find more on the story
<http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/Nemesis%20Chapters/> (among other files)

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roundsquare
Wow, very cool that hot headed discussion could turn into what is, apparently,
a well regarded theory.

On the other hand, Alvarez's method was really unbecoming of a scientist. I
mean, he really shouldn't be "holding arguments in his pocket" to make someone
feel foolish and drop an argument. He should take any and all criticism of his
theory and use it as an opportunity to strengthen or drop it. Of course, he's
also human... but still, that seemed more like a trick politicians use than
scientists.

~~~
radu_floricica
Actually, it's a pretty useful thing to do. Had he "laid his cards on the
table", there's a good chance his partner would have never thought about the
star hypothesis. His goal was to get a fresh point of view, which you can't if
you fully describe your position.

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Erwin
Asimov wrote a novel about this:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(Isaac_Asimov_novel)>

Not to be confused with the "Nemesis" by Clarke which is about something
different apparently.

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Mongoose
Asimov's _Nemesis_ doesn't really have anything to do with the topic of this
article.

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slackerIII
Another theory for the periodicity of the extinctions has to do with crossing
the galactic plane: [http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/perturbing-
the-o...](http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/perturbing-the-oort-
cloud)

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Luc
There's a great book called 'Mitigation of Hazardous Comets and Asteroids'
which is worth a read if you can find it. Totally overpriced at $192 on
Amazon, I somehow got it at a quarter of that price.

