New Mars Forums

Sounds like they need two out of three voting or something.

I think because of the large vocabulary in English ideas can be expressed more princely in English. Since there is less attempt to control the English vocabulary it is more dynamic and evolves to suite the needs of the time. English of course has it’s problems. Since the English vocabulary is borrowed from many other languages the rules of pronunciation depend upon the origin of the word. Thus it can be difficult to no how a word sounds by how it is spelled.

Another limitation of English as opposed to a language like mandarin is that in mandarin you can understand the meaning of a word that you have never seen. Thus mandarin has types of structure that aren’t present in European languages. I have been trying to learn some Spanish lately and one thing I think is neat about Spanish is how the verbs are conjugated. You start with a base verb and changing the ending depending up if you are refereeing to (I, you, you-all, they, it, we) you change the ending. This allows you to leave off the subject in sentences where it is implied by the verb. I am not sure if it is a good or bad thing. It is just neat.

Perhaps a more usefull why of altering a meaning of a word in Spanish is to change the ending of a noun from and “o” (masculine) to an “a” feminum. Example chico (boy) chica (girl). I think Arabic might take this idea further in the sense of words being built up for a root which is a more general idea to a more specific meaning.

Lojban sounds neet as well. Ideally it would be nice for Martians to have a perfect language but perhaps there is no such thing. Like computer languages perhaps spoken languages will always have strengths and weakness and there does not exist a language that can be constructed that is superior in all areas. Unfortunately unlike computer languages people do not learn as many and they do not choose a spoken language based on what they are trying to communicate.

If we wanted to try and make a new language for Martians it would be a good idea to start with a widely spoken language and modify it to suite the goals the language should aspire to. I am not sure though how good this will work because I am really not sure what those goals should be. Would rather call something a cat or say felinusdomestica. It is much easier to say cat but felinusdomestica has much more structure.

Partly but how quick do you need to get drunk anyway. Besides if you want something hard to get drunk fast bring, scotch, tequila, Jägermeister  or Zambuca. But remember the Zambuca goes down so much smoother if you light it on fire first.

Given a big enough computer you can model anything.

Does anyone know about diamond making methods. I know with one method you create a molten ball of iron and well the ball cools the surface tension of the molten metal compresses the carbon into diamonds. Now on Venus is it cold enough for this to work?

Dust will be important in Martian wars.  The bases of operation must be completely hidden by Martian dust. Perhaps explosives in near by areas will be used to create a dust smoke screen. The bases should be mobile as well.