Re: Octupi and alt-tech

Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> wrote:
> Patrick Dunn wrote:
> > (What would a silicon-based life form breathe?  Methane?
>
> They'd breathe oxygen, just like us, reacting it with silicon-based
> compounds, exhaling silicon dioxide.
Nice! Silicon dioxide is a solid! It has a lot of forms,
but in general it's the main component of sand and quartz,
and the lowest fusion points are around 575 C. Plus SiO2
is not easily dissociated (sp?) or reduced, except using
fluorine.

Some silicon compounds (analogous to hydrocarbonates?) could
be used for some tasks, maybe. But the solidness of silicon
compounds is one of the main reasons why exobiologists do
not hope to find silicon-based lifeforms (another one is
the relative abundance of Si with respect to C).

I *really* think this discussion should move to Conculture.


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/index.html
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/draseleq.html