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To: FaultLine who wrote (359)	1/16/2003 11:27:56 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 603

We're supposed to take that metaphorically aren't we? That study is really a deep and insightful comment on society isn't it?

To: FaultLine who wrote (359)	1/16/2003 5:10:42 PM
From: cosmicforce	Respond to of 603

If I remember my thermodynamics correctly, Gibbs free energy is a function of volume. Things get compacted by filling the voids and entering a less energetic state. Entropy increases. I remember in a sediment analysis lab back in college that piles of rocks had less void space than smaller rocks and the most porous soils were pea gravels. Actual sandy ones were not all that porous and then suddenly, the porosity increased again with clays. The problem with clay is that the van der Wahl forces dominate and they don't allow stuff to move freely through them, despite their porosity. I'm wondering if surface effects are affecting the smaller grains disproportionately, causing the effects of density to be overwhelmed by surface effects. Not sure if this can be applied to people and politics. Do the little guys stick together and overwhelm the heavyweights? I hope so. Yup, here it is... uwsp.edu