offtopic_science

[nimble field]

[nimble field]

https://twitter.com/BocaChicaGal/status/1389354107253805060

Mary (@BocaChicaGal)

I have received an Alert notice for tomorrow and a road closure has been scheduled. I am so ready to watch Starship SN15 fly. May the 4th be with you! 🔥🚀🔥
@NASASpaceflight

Retweets

193

Likes

1443

Twitter · May 3, 2021, 11:00 PM

[frozen jasper]

SN15 landed without fireball

[astral ridge]

https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/

[urban marsh]

@prisma bane

[prisma bane]

@urban marsh

[delicate hornet]

@urban marsh@prisma bane
stop.

[gusty wind]

TIL: it is technically possible to go past the speed of light, but a lot of energy would be bled off as Cherenkov radiation, so you'd need a ludicrous amount of force to go anywhere past the limit of lightspeed.

[somber zenith]

Serious source or tabloid source?

[river saddle]

It's important to note what kind of speed of light you exceed. The speed of light in vacuum cannot be exceeded by any particle associated with a mass.

[brittle minnow]

He is talking about Cherenkov radiation which is a thing when light travels through a medium and thus is slower.

If Einstein was correct with E=mc^2 then there is no way to reach speed of light in a vacuum with anything that has a rest mass

[river saddle]

Einstein's famous equation is just for the energy at rest. There's a more general equation for the energy of a particle at any speed, where you can see that the required energy becomes infinite when approaching the speed of light in vacuum.

[brittle minnow]

Would that be the equation for the dynamic mass?

[river saddle]

That's the one I meant:
https://gyazo.com/5462aea4d7a4434b7dd4e4f9f63dd9a0

[brittle minnow]

Yeah, that's E=mc^2 combined with the equation of dynamic mass

dynamic mass becomes infinite and so does the energy

Thanks 🙂

[stone nacelle]

Yeah any mass is impossible for speed of light in vacuum, definitely possible for in some sort of medium. I believe the radiation emitted from nuclear reactors is traveling faster than the speed of light in the heavy water surrounding the control rods

Another method is the different field solutions for general relativity. Alcubierre drive is the first paper published on being able to create a warp field, problem is it doesnt account for the dynamics related to warp fields and assumes the warp bubble is already moving at a speed above light. It also requires negative energy which requires antimatter. There have been a few new papers on the topic recently which found solutions to general relativity with a positive energy density 1/10th the rest mass of the sun

Depends entirely on the configuration and distribution of energy

Here is the paper for positive energy density, I forgot if there is another one

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2104.06488.pdf

[river saddle]

That's only a tiny bit outside of my knowledge 😅
As a chemist our realm is mostly quantum mechanics and the only time where relativity really plays a role for us is for correcting the energy levels of core electrons of heavy elements.

[stone nacelle]

That sounds awesome @river saddle im currently undergrad physics

[river saddle]

Hi there fellow science student and ArmA enthusiast 😄

[stone nacelle]

👋

[winged ice]

Hello fellow STEM friends, I used to build rockets for a living. Anyone else into rocketry?

[lean sky]

i have been to everything in KSP

does that count?

[winged ice]

I would say yes. I've landed on Mun and the other moon. Can't remember what it's called.

[lean sky]

minmus

[winged ice]

minmus is easy to land on and fun

Im excited for KSP2

[lean sky]

me too but super sad it got postponed but also a little glad

[winged ice]

I don't mind it being postponed. Lately game devs just crank out unfinished and buggy games. I'd rather them QA/QC it and be happy with the launch than a terrible first version

[lean sky]

the last few years tho in ksp i mostly just built over engineered rockets to put things in orbit and make space stations until the kraken takes them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhWBylbhlDs

[winged ice]

I focused on space stations around various planets

[lean sky]

the last cool thing i ever made in the game

[winged ice]

I'll check this out

[lean sky]

way too many parts but works sorta like the real thing 😛

[winged ice]

haha it's all good

Rocket looks nice

Any mods?

[lean sky]

mostly procedural parts

[winged ice]

Sweet

[lean sky]

inderstage decoupler from one of those big rocket mods

not sure where the escape tower came from

there is a soyuz pack out there but dont wanna make a pre modeled one of parts designed for it 😛

could also have used crossfeed and not done all boosters at the same time but

[nimble field]

since you're talking KSP stuff, Everyday Astronaut does a 1 million subscriber KSP fundraiser stream atm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVM-LGGdRlk

[stone nacelle]

Im into spacecraft, thats the top part of the rocket! lol

[winged ice]

He makes some solid content.

[nimble field]

this is mindblowing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyQwgBAaBag

[swift moon]

Nah, windblowing

[somber zenith]

if not to say "hot air"?

[tired egret]

@peak prismwikipedia tells you there's different theories why the reactor exploded (twice)

My impression was the discussion is still far from conclusive

[nimble field]

it was aliens

[peak prism]

Pretty obvious considering the conditions of the reactor

And what they where doing to it

[tired egret]

It was strangely unstable but instability could mean we didn't really know what state it ended up with

And my credentials in nuclear physics are not nearly enough to make a call how credible the different alternatives are

[astral ridge]

I thought the tips of the control rods where the main factor, at the end

[tired egret]

Like it's possible there was a thermonuclear explosion

[peak prism]

The control rods where made out of something cheaper pretty sure

Which caused the reaction to start

[tired egret]

And I guess hydrogen explosion (sort of the same thing as in Fukushima) was maybe one of the options too

Right, the rods were hybrid? For materials. I think I read it 1-2 years ago.

[peak prism]

Graphite rods tipped with something else

Whatever it was, once inserted to stop the reactor it caused a reaction to start

[sand fern]

I wonder when will we start preparing for catastrophic solar storms, known also as "Carrington events"

COVID is a small crisis compared to those

Not many seem to know that a Carrington class solar storm (known as CME, Coronal Mass Ejection") almost hit the Earth in July 2012

If it had hit the Earth, we would be still without electricity, the majority of population would be dead and we would have possibly faced even extinction due to chain reactions because of collapsing societies

A world-class astrophysics professor at University of Helsinki predicted that the most likely period of a catastrophic solar storm hitting the Earth is between 2030 and 2040

So we don't have much time. But the storm could even hit in a couple of days, so we're basically gambling with our lives atm

[brittle minnow]

Same thing basically with asteroids. They have just slowly started to work at defence measures.

[sand fern]

Yeah... AFAIK solar storms are just a much more imminent issue

[ashen garden]

I've tried communicating this to people in my personal life and they just draw up a blank stare like I just uttered an insane conspiracy theory. people have no idea how vulnerable our infrastructure is

[stone nacelle]

I wonder how quickly modern society could learn old techniques to survive if something like that happened

What exactly happens when one of those storms hits? How does it disrupt or destroy electrical systems?

Is it just a bunch of high energy particles that make it to the surface?

[frozen jasper]

cables/circuits receive portions of the energy wirelessly based on their length/shape I think, then try to ground out. Which will melt and burn out a bunch of equipment, similar to a lightning strike

afaik smaller circuits/stuff is actually more resilient because it picks up so much less energy

food storage and logistics breaks down, water pumps and filtration. The manufacturing for replacement parts is down, and their entire logistic chain all the way down to mining the raw resources, globalization means that noone really has all the points firmly in their grasp anyway so all the logistics between those are dead as well.

most people die in the first few months afaik

the population we could sustain without the logistic chains we currently have, and the power requirements.....is significantly lower

since farming, food storage, and transport are so important, and electricity/parts for water filtration and pumps

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-damage-could-be-caused-by-a-massive-solar-storm-25627394/

total failure would be pretty unlikely though, but people die even with somewhat 'minor' power outages

and we do have monitoring of solar events, https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

could rapidly disconnect a lot of stuff to try and mitigate what you need to replace

we are more prepared for that then an asteroid randomly thwacking us

[sand fern]

But still badly prepared in general 😄

[frozen jasper]

we might detect it before it hits, but we have no real capability of doing anything about it unless we see it like 5 years in advance.....or more

[sand fern]

Yeah, and the current warning time is about 10-20 hours

[frozen jasper]

yea, that part always gives me the chills. we are reaaaaally not even close to prepared. all the asteroid strike movies where we have a plan to stop them......super fantasy

[sand fern]

TL;DR: Solar burp annihilates the human population 😅

[frozen jasper]

or something like a supernova wipes us out from a nearby star

[stone nacelle]

Are there any feasible ways to stop or lessen the damage caused by an asteroid impact? I dont think we have any rockets that can be launched with a 20 hour notice, and even if we did what the hell do you put on it. I imagine a kinetic method would be best but even still, youd need something massive to divert a good size asteroid or atleast break it up into smaller ones

[frozen jasper]

mmm, there is a kinetic impact experiment NASA did i think recently?

i dont remember if that finished yet or still ongoing

mmm, the best idea is to make a minor change to the trajectory as far away as possible, because we could transfer very very little energy to an asteroid

so we'd need a lot of lead time

afaik

[stone nacelle]

Yeah i just looked it up, kts called DART

Itll be impacting an asteroid in February of next year

[frozen jasper]

but I think we recently had the realization that asteroids are not solid

[stone nacelle]

October*

Yeah osiris rex saw that it was a bunch of tiny rocks clumped together

[frozen jasper]

some of them at least are just clumps of material, so an impact might have some wild effects

[stone nacelle]

Yeah thatd be interesting if it turned into a big cloud

[frozen jasper]

not really something you can model for without really detailed knowledge

so could make it worse

[stone nacelle]

But if it turned into a more spread out asteroid it could have a higher probability of breaking apart on entry

[frozen jasper]

really it comes down to having years of advanced knowledge to model a realistic counter

[stone nacelle]

Rather then only takinng off a few layers

[frozen jasper]

well, a kinetic impactor could just go right through it without much effect

[stone nacelle]

Ah yeah that too

[frozen jasper]

and with 20 hours.....that isn't enough time to do anything, you'd need at least a month or something. We don't have anything on standby that can get out of earth orbit

and hitting it in earth orbit won't have any effect

we have only a tiny lift capacity relatively speaking to orbit

so realistically I think we'd need to assemble something in space

from many launches

then send that out at something

so it has the fuel to reach it, and enough mass+velocity to be meaningful

and yea, we don't have enough lift vehicles to do that without a LOT of lead time

[stone nacelle]

I bet it would still be worth it to impact it even if it is already near earth

[frozen jasper]

much less designing an actual vehicle to send

decide on the continent it hits?

lol

[stone nacelle]

Haha

Well no but maybe

[frozen jasper]

welp, SA isn't that important right?

lol

[stone nacelle]

If you could divert it to the least populated area on earth, but thatd only work if it was a small enough asteroid

[frozen jasper]

now I want a movie of multiple countries sending impactors to try and redirect at each other

[stone nacelle]

Otherwise it wouldnt matter

That would be nice

[frozen jasper]

kind of amusing to think about

would everyone agree to where they'd want it to hit

i imagine not

[stone nacelle]

No they wouldnt

Definitely not

[frozen jasper]

the ocean == wiping out coastal populations

so hitting land might be best

which means countries getting hit

I can hardly imagine how that'd play out

welp, i mean if starship pans out that would vastly increase our capability of putting up something

[stone nacelle]

It’d be nice if space agencies around the world worked together to come up with a global asteroid plan

[frozen jasper]

given how fast they can make them

and how much payload they have

and reuse

[stone nacelle]

Work out al of the details now

Inb4 spacex says they want mineral rights once the asteroid hits the ground

Lol

[frozen jasper]

there are very slow plans coming about, like DART yea

it'd be nice if people realised how much they should push advancing at least detection capability

so we have a chance to put something together last minute

at least

but, even scarier is still, nearby supernova

big wave of gamma rays hits solar system, sterilizes all life

nothing we could do about it, even with decades of advanced knowledge

expanding to other planets has no effect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_supernova

space == scary

maybe if hollywood produced a bunch of movies about earth ending events and how unprepared we are, more money would go towards that stuff

[stone nacelle]

If you had decades to plan you could build a decent sized shelter that is shielded enough to protect enough people and plants and prob a few animals

[frozen jasper]

that'd be sustainable afterwards?

idk if they'd manage long term sustainability

prob just take longer to die off

[stone nacelle]

Yeah sustainability would take alot of planning

It also depends on how long uou need to remain in the shelter

[frozen jasper]

well, all unshielded life just about would die

soooo

[stone nacelle]

If you can start building an oasis after a few years probably not too long

[frozen jasper]

and idk the other effects

[stone nacelle]

Yeah youd have to buiild everything from scratch again

[frozen jasper]

so prob....indefinite duration in the shelter

plant life, ocean life, everything

and the other effects of a heavy dose of gamma rays

whatever that is

we'd be doomed i think, even if we somehow sustain the production of replacement parts to keep the shelter going

we'd prob kill each other off

[stone nacelle]

For life gamma rays will strip through the cells and obliterate DNA, not sure what rhe effects are for things like soil and water. I assume at most they would become ionized

Break molecules apart into their constituents but then the bonds would just reform id imagine

Yeah thats what happened in the show 100, it was about nuclear war and the “last” humans survive on space stations for 100 years. Then they come down and start fighting with human tribes that survived

[frozen jasper]

so I beleive a gamma ray burst would actually effect the atmosphere

[stone nacelle]

I wonder if a supernova would obliterate only rhe side of the earth facing it. I dont know how long the radiation bursts last but if it was short enough only one side of the planrt would be affected

Ohhh yeah atmosphere

[frozen jasper]

mmm, if this source is right, it could split nitrogen and oxygen molecules and that'd form NO2, which besides being toxic would block out light from the sun

destroy ozone layer

so yea, earth would no longer be habitable is what I think, we'd need to be able to terraform lol

so indefinate habitation of shelters

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4198-gamma-rays-may-have-devastated-life-on-earth/

this might be better, https://phys.org/news/2016-10-deadly-nearby-gamma-ray.html

references a paper where they go over ground level ozone that'd follow and its impact

[stone nacelle]

Supernovae bursts last between 2-300 seconds

Better hope your on the dark side of the planet

Well actually it depends but same idea

[brittle minnow]

Luckily, there is no star big enough and close enough to harm us. Guess that's why we are here afterall. Our little solar system is quite special

[nimble field]

we are here because the gods are sadistic bastards 🤣

[brittle minnow]

Well, that's another story 😄

[delicate hornet]

#offtopic_religion

I reaaally wonder why we don't have such channel 😬 😁

[abstract dagger]

Isn't religion just politics with history? #offtopic_politics sorted :)

[delicate hornet]

yeah, let's not delve into that ^_^ please carry on, #offtopic_science

[abstract dagger]

Awww but daaaad

I'll see myself out.

[vast fable]

Our Dad in heaven...

[delicate hornet]

Soon\™ in the skies

[nimble field]

...but you are not lucy, and most likely don't have diamonds...

[delicate hornet]

I'll use jet fuel for that, I admit. Still Science! 😄

[runic wren]

religion was the politics and the law when there were no real working politics and law. this is why most people dont need it anymore

[abstract dagger]

Amen

[somber zenith]

jet fuel cant melt st.... oh wait, thats not science, thats plotilics

[river saddle]

What about political science? 😄

[somber zenith]

verboten

[ashen garden]

https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf

[ashen garden]

from skimming through it, it seems the TL;DR is: there's weird stuff in our airspace and we don't know what it could be, also may be a potential threat

[wispy sundial]

approx 9 pages or so?

[ashen garden]

yes

[somber zenith]

its a nothing burger for the senate. Those who looked at "UAP" in the past already know everything that was said i recon.
I think they are carefully trying to get away the stigma and the "if you think you saw an UFO, you are a crazy person and propably stupid" .
Especially how they put all the cases of "its not a UFO" first, then on the next page put "Other" as title... lol.

also lol at "USG or Industry Developmental Programs: Some UAP observations could be attributable to
developments and classified programs by U.S. entities. We were unable to confirm, however,
that these systems accounted for any of the UAP reports we collected. "
Of course they where unable to confirm these things 😄

[ashen garden]

yeah it's pretty weak sauce, but at least a micro step in the direction of disclosure, though I'm not sure full disclosure will ever come from the gov.

[somber zenith]

i doubt it will ever come. Its too great of an advantage to just disclose.

[wispy sundial]

They can't admit they don't know what it is without appearing incompetent.

[ashen garden]

I think they know at the deepest levels, but the information is highly compartmentalized

[somber zenith]

If they have knowledge, they are better off appearing incompetend than to disclose the secrets they know

Suppose some manufacturer/ secret organization actually has developed UFO technologies we saw in those navy videos.

They could do anything with this, create fake threats "the alien menace" to push certain agendas. They could also cause a lot of damage to adversaries just by creating incidents.

If we think further - if the systems actually worked outside of earth atmosphere, and had such great acceleration capabilities and speeds as we saw... that would give them an extreme edge in anything that is related to exploring and conquering space.
That means if its actually humans who controll it, the power it brings will most likely exploited (because human nature ) until it is either accidentally disclosed, or until the disclosure benefits the one who controlls the technology in a big way

[ashen garden]

Wernher Von Braun allegedly said to his protégé (Carol Rosin) that there would eventually be a staged alien invasion to justify weaponizing space

[somber zenith]

Suppose humans controll the technology - create a little false flag with aliens attacking civilians and/or military to create public panic. Deliver faked evidence of alien/adversary being in control of the attacker to money policy makers. Get near infinite funding to produce a solution to the problem they created...

[sand fern]

I just want the darn aliens (friendly ones though 😜)

[frozen jasper]

mmm, i think resources and competitors is enough of a reason to make up

[somber zenith]

considering the nature of humans (hunger for power) and the simple fact that almost every member of civilisation in a high rank got to this position not because of pure skill or chance, but due to actively pursuing higher positions of power - makes such kind of events seem inevitable imo. power corrupts

[frozen jasper]

gotta be able to tax space bebe

[somber zenith]

having such kind of technology in human hands (without it being disclosed to the public) would be god-like powers almost with no accountability/oversight

[wispy sundial]

Also remember that Von Braun allegedly said that a man named Elon colonised Mars (or something to that effect)

[ashen garden]

that's kinda spooky

[somber zenith]

press F to doubt? 😄

[frozen jasper]

yeaaaa

[somber zenith]

oohhh no, now i see it... Elon is an alien trying to guide us roflmao

[frozen jasper]

he is the producer of earth

he isn't onboard with our current story direction

he wants a few more seasons

[somber zenith]

or he is trying to destroy us by implanting our brains with AI that will make us into slaves 😛

[frozen jasper]

the Goa'uld!

[river saddle]

#offtopic_conspiracies

[frozen jasper]

Maybe we are seeing some sort of friction reduction systems and momentum conservation devices employed for rapid acceleration in different directions

with otherwise regular thrust, in drone format

[somber zenith]

"rapid acceleration in different directions"
uhm, not sure if i'd want that technology applied to me. I think one direction at a time is preferrable 😄

[frozen jasper]

i mean slowing down/speeding up, or being able to rapidly change directions without large control surfaces

[wispy sundial]

https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/wernher-von-braun-elon-musk-mars-1953-book

As its Fox, feel free to doubt

[ashen garden]

I find it interesting that there's so much activity documented at sea, ocean is a pretty good spot to hide though and it makes me think of the movie The Abyss

[wispy sundial]

An amazing read! What a great book!

[frozen jasper]

or it might just be convenient for secrecy in terms of crash recovery

so, his scifi book

lol

Project Mars: A Technical Tale, which was a science fiction book

published 2006

not Project Mars, a technical book 1952

[somber zenith]

yeah the interaction between "UAP" and water is very commonly made. Even in old UFO incidents, where UFO's dissapeared into the sea etc. Its the safest place to hide from regular observation

[frozen jasper]

the scifi book was written, unpublished, in 1949 apparently

im trying to trace to a source

im feeling slightly skeptical

yeaaa, i'm feeling very skeptical

so the only copy of this, Marsprojekt, from 1949 and translated before '62, shows up published in 2006 firmly after elon is rich and successful?

[somber zenith]

dont question the prophecy, heretic!

[frozen jasper]

lol

i aint trusting that without earlier source of the sci fi book existing

[somber zenith]

whoever published that book wants to make some sweet sweet cash

[frozen jasper]

yea, like how'd they even get ahold of this unpublished story. you'd think there'd have been an interview with someone involved in finding it or something right?

von braun is this incredibly popular person in history

and a canadian publisher....?

idk, it feels fishy to me

[ashen garden]

so I just heard there's a classified part of the Pentagon's UAP raport

I hope someone leaks it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVKBtEHli8A

[somber zenith]

and thats why it wont contain anything surprising or useful 😉

[somber zenith]

https://xkcd.com/2477/
https://xkcd.com/2478/

xkcd: Alien Visitors

Stay right there, we'll be back in a minute. We've just gotta brainstorm some new wonders. Have you all figured out gears yet? Yes? Crap.

xkcd: Alien Visitors 2

"Although fresh juice DOES sound--" "NO! For humanity to survive we must learn from the mistakes of the past."

[ashen garden]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTpWYWIfP7Y

[somber zenith]

yay, space tourism, exactly what the environment needed

[ashen garden]

I don't get why they're making so much fuss about a suborbital flight

[spice drum]

to get people excited obviously

[ashen garden]

I'm not impressed

when I was a kid they told us we were gonna have manned lunar and martian bases by now

lol, that was the most underwhelming thing ever

[spice drum]

we could have both if we didn't spend so much money on war

[ashen garden]

quite sad really

[spice drum]

well the fuss is more of a PR thing really, to show that their CEO has all trust in their technology and they are ready to accept tourists from the public

they had an unfortunate plane crash a few years ago

which was due to a pilot's error

[ashen garden]

funny how they had a live stream of the first lunar landing in '69 and today we can't even do a live stream from a suborbital flight

[keen glacier]

Someone is already paying for that flight so why spend extra money for live streaming that ^^

[somber zenith]

didnt live stream so in case it does a flaming reentry, they can pretend it never happened ^^

[keen glacier]

We'll all just forget that we burned a billionaire to crisp

whoooops

[somber zenith]

"its in the contract...."

it was his stunt clone anyway

[tranquil maple]

star siblings born in same gas cloud https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/nasa-s-tess-discovers-stellar-siblings-host-teenage-exoplanets , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE-NpbAW3lM

[river saddle]

Space never ceases to amaze us 🌞 🌞

[brittle minnow]

Yeah. Can't wait to see the first images of the James-Webb teleskope. Gonna be awesome.

[nimble field]

finally something that can take a full body pic of @modest mica 's mom 🤣

[modest mica]

Be realistic.

[nimble field]

ok... james webb 2.0 with a double size mirror then?

[modest mica]

Not sure, might be possible.

[nimble field]

nice 👍

[modest mica]

Not 100% sure, tho

[delicate hornet]

won't work if she's a vampire due to mirrors and stuff

[modest mica]

nah

[somber zenith]

because she is really really tiny?

[brittle minnow]

That escalated quickly

[stone nacelle]

In the case of Virgin Galactic maybe, the fuel they use is HTPB and NOX so perhaps thats true since HTPB is a polymer. But other rockets like SLS which use oxygen and hydrogen produce water vapor as waste so no pollution (though water vapor can cause some problems in upper atmosphere from a quick google search?) . Also rocketry contributes <<<<<<<< 1% of global emissions so im sure there are better places to worry about pollution for now (though it should be addressed and studied)

I wonder what could be implemented to even reduce rocket pollution. Not like you can stick a catalytic converter on it lol

[nimble field]

Nothing sadly. Current alternatives are simply not powerful enough to replace a combustion engine

[delicate hornet]

it's a rocket @brittle minnow ,that's what they do

[spice drum]

Compared to storable propellants like N2O4, the most commonly used fuel combination, kerosene + oxygen, is not so bad

[brittle minnow]

These jokes😫

[keen glacier]

we do have nuclear propulsion...

but that got scrapped for some reason

[somber zenith]

"1% of global emissions"... cute yes. But how many % of humans going into space does that account for? a millionth? And how many humans would like to go to space at least once, if given the opportunity. probably 80-90%. So if space tourism becomes affordable, it could easily make a significant jump in global emission % . Bringing pollutants directly into the upper atmosphere is even more damaging than "lazily emitting" at ground level.

[keen glacier]

if space tourism means space travel is finally being advanced and not stuck at 1970s level of "we're going to the moon" I'm alright with marginally increased emissions caused by that.

[somber zenith]

its not even "were going to the moon". Its "we are flying you slightly higher than you would get in an airplane"

[keen glacier]

I know and while virgins "rocket plane" is barely space fairing (at least not to what everyone considers "space") it might be a way to easier (and cleaner) human transport into lower orbit.

[somber zenith]

oh, so you mean for the rest of the way humans would just take the space elevator?

[keen glacier]

No, but eventually big rockets wouldn't be ground launched but assembled in space at an altitude similar to ISS'. Getting humans/light cargo there without using ground based rockets would be an improvement.

[stone nacelle]

Its hard to predict or say with certain what could happen. But I think it'd be more cute thinking about affordable space tourism lol. I doubt it'll ever get in the range of < $100,00/ticket for a very long time, if thats considered affordable.

[stone nacelle]

Yeah thats the biggest concern, upper atmosphere damage.

[somber zenith]

100$/ticket? what? I think people pay more to be able to drive a tank for 30min at some places... Or did you miss a 0?

[stone nacelle]

I meant $100,000

missed a 0

[somber zenith]

ah ok... , is decimal separator where i live ^^

[delicate hornet]

oh no… a French / Swiss / w/e

[stone nacelle]

Ahh yeah, I forgot about that

100.000

I wonder how that happened

Like how some people use comma vs period

[somber zenith]

ANTI reason... the others do it this way, lets do it the opposite way!

[stone nacelle]

Lol that sounds pretty accurate

[delicate hornet]

100 000.00
or
100'000.00
or
100.000,00

etc

reminds me of XKCD's "standards" comic

https://xkcd.com/927/ this one

xkcd: Standards

Fortunately, the charging one has been solved now that we've all standardized on mini-USB. Or is it micro-USB? Shit.

[somber zenith]

pretty much

what most annoying is those "bean counter" ERP-software programs, that show every amount of product with a completely unnecessary 3 or 6 decimal places (eventhough there is no way you can get 3.030000 chairs). So every time you look at lists of how much stuff is in stock, you have to rethink if its 1000's or 1's because of decimal symbol etc.

[spice drum]

I'd say, it lifted off

[runic wren]

i know its totally on a imaginary level but im interested in the majoritys opinion.

If timetravel was real do you think you could change your present by changing something in history 🇦
or
do you think all changes have been made yet and your present is the result of all the changes in the past 🇧

[sand fern]

I think that time travel could maybe be possible, but the traveler would just end up in different universe (there would be infinite number of them)

Or maybe it just isn't. I'm not in the position to tell the final truth 😄

[somber zenith]

NDA's are really annoying

[river saddle]

How about I hereby declare no conflict of interests? 😅

[nimble field]

NASA, FBI, CIA, Homeland and Elon Musk are watching

[stone nacelle]

Forward “time travel” is possible :D, no known ways to travel backwards tho

[stone nacelle]

I like this idea, its like the Marvel movies lol. But also i think it has some basis in quantum mechanics where the collapse of the wave function is the branching of timelines and universes

[nova spindle]

Imagine:
The first time machine is invented, switched on and a trillion time refuges come through from the future begging for water while gasping for air.

[runic wren]

nobody really is. but i love those mindgames

[river saddle]

A wave function collapse would imply that only one outcome is realized as stated in the Copenhagen interpretation. What you are looking for is an interpretation like the many world interpretation, where there is no collapse and all outcomes are realized by branching.

[stone nacelle]

Ahhhhhh, thanks for the clarification!

@river saddle

[river saddle]

Loki spoiler
||TVA would have a hell of a lot of pruning to do if many world interpretation holds😅||

[gusty wind]

I think each change leads to a new timeline. Say you do a project where you send a box back in time by five minutes. In timeline zero no box appears, then five minutes later they send a box five minutes back in time. That box is sent to timeline one, where a box appears and five minutes later a box is sent back in time and lands in timeline two.

[astral ridge]

https://thenewamerican.com/french-nobel-prize-winner-warns-vaccines-facilitate-development-of-deadlier-covid-variants-urges-the-public-to-reject-jabs/

[delicate hornet]

hahahaha
"Nobel Prize Winner" in big black bold

the same Nobel Prize Winner that promotes "water memory" thus homeopathy and has now even an antivax position (other than covid)

no thanks, I'll pass on his views 🙂

[astral ridge]

uff

[somber zenith]

there are also scientists that say/claim oil is a naturally repleneshing resource

^without requiring millions of years to convert dead plants into oil

[round temple]

due to the massive size of the Sun and Jupiter, the earth gets tugged between the two bodies, resulting in a slight change (being hundreds of millions of miles) in the position of the earth within the habitable zone. This causes the planet to heat up and cool down; Much like moving your hand closer and away from a lightbulb. This suggests that considering geological records date back as far as 4.5 billion years (the generally accepted age of the planet) and that we only have 500,000 years worth of history sitting in ice cores taken from Antartica (which can be used to measure what was in the atmosphere x amount of time ago), the planet has gotten hotter than it current and there's not much we can do about it. While humans have drastically sped up the global warming process due to industrialization roughly 200 years ago, we really shouldn't be panicking. Everyone in this discord will be dead before the planet heats up to unsustainable levels, or by some other global climate disaster, or geopolitical tensions reaching a head or simply hubris and we're all taken out by a solar flare or giant asteroid. We should focus on green energy alternatives, but that still won't save us we're all gonna die before the changes we make any sort of impact.

[sand fern]

The effects of climate change will be evident in our lifetime too. Agree with the solar flare though. But asteroid hitting the Earth is order of multiple magnitudes rarer event

[delicate hornet]

saying "it has changed before" does not mean everything is going to be alright for us; nor does it mean indeed that it's ok and it's "natural" therefore healthy. The planet will survive, as well as it survived a "dinosaur's" asteroid impact.
Now,do we want that within our lifetime or even for the next generation, I believe we can easily say "no".

Have a check to see how not natural the change is:
https://xkcd.com/1732/

xkcd: Earth Temperature Timeline

[After setting your car on fire] Listen, your car's temperature has changed before.

[keen glacier]

There's a lot of uncomfortable before we hit unsustainable levels of global warming.

[delicate hornet]

the planet will be alright indeed, yes.

[keen glacier]

Yup, we're not saving the planet (unless you count animal diversity).
We're trying to make it a bit more comfortable for us.

And getting rid of the driving space heaters we call combustion engines won't hurt either way.

[delicate hornet]

I always think of this webcomics when talking about this topic.

[river saddle]

Actually, we may not even need to completely get rid of combustion engines. E-fuels could provide a CO2-neutral fuel source, for instance.

[keen glacier]

True, doesn't change their shit efficiency.

[river saddle]

Speaking of shitty efficiency. Solar panels could really use a boost 😅

[keen glacier]

Well true but they don't consume energy and spit out heat, CO2 and plenty of other healthy stuff

[river saddle]

At least some portion gets already decomposed thanks to catalytic converters.

[keen glacier]

Yup, still doesn't change the efficiency ^^

[river saddle]

Indeed, but the fuels allow us to store a lot more energy compared to batteries.

[river saddle]

There is a lot of intriguing technologies in research. Curious which ones will solve our problems and/or create new ones 😅

[river saddle]

It's sad to see noble laureates fall from grace, but they are also just humans

[delicate hornet]

true
I am "ok" with that happening, and sad that he "keeps going"; but everyone in the game knows he is not a scientist anymore, yet newspapers will use this title of "Nobel prize scientist" to scare people away

"oh my god, what a whistleblower!"
and by the time you debunked this one, two more have been added

[keen glacier]

It's a lot easier to make up stuff than to disprove said stuff...

[round temple]

Let's just build ships in high earth orbit. We can test various FTL methods without risk to the environment as well as build big ships without the pesky factor of gravity and atmosphere #bringbackprojectorion

[river saddle]

We can test various FTL methods
And what might those be?

[tranquil maple]

water vapour on Ganymede https://esahubble.org/news/heic2107/

[round temple]

Something to do with nuclear physics I presume. Project Orion studied the idea of using small, controlled nuclear explosions to propel a craft through space. It was scrapped because they realized how terrible of an idea setting off multiple nuclear detonations in atmosphere was

But move it to space, no real environmental concerns

[river saddle]

That's a possible means of accelerating, but not FTL technology.

[round temple]

It's an exponential rate of acceleration, at some point, you'd get close to the speed of light. You'd almost certainly gain a stroke well beforehand

But we can also mess with wormhole technology (which may be the most feasible all things considered) without the fear of destroying reality. It still might happen, but if we did it in space...

[river saddle]

Only if they were in fact feasible, which we don't know yet. Not sure what you mean with fear of destroying reality though 😅

[keen glacier]

Is it that time of the year again where NASAs budget gets decided? :D

[keen glacier]

You don't get anywhere close to c with that, there's that real annoying mass gain.

[round temple]

Pfft mass. What a loser

[river saddle]

Dynamic mass is a misleading concept. Don't think about it as a mass gain. However, what he meant is that the required energy becomes infinite, hence your atomic bombs become inefficient at increase the velocity further at some point.

[deft nexus]

I guess this classifies into science

Hello, I am a student currently working on a research paper for a school project focusing on the social implications of loot box systems within video games.

In order to assist with my research I have decided to conduct a survey on various diverse groups of individuals who enjoy gaming. The survey itself is quite short consists of easy to answer questions. I would sincerely appreciate it if you took a couple minutes to read through and answer the questions.

In order to limit each individual to one response, the form requires you sign in via your Google Account. However, I can assure you that no personal data is being collected. I have used Google Forms to create and publish the survey which is a Google operated, secure service.

As a first-hand witness of the loot box epidemic spreading within our favorite games, I give great value to your opinions and look forward to the results of the survey. Your time and efforts are greatly appreciated.

You may access the form through the link below.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeLRkjIM1UrN_ebQZpeZHa0zkxZ2jts5dIPpA-QjnJ0fTPciA/viewform?usp=sf_link

[delicate hornet]

As a first-hand witness of the loot box epidemic spreading within our favorite games, I give great value to your opinions
but you don't give rewards in the form of lootboxes? disappointed

[nimble field]

stacking in progress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B2_dfvRZ4M

[tranquil maple]

and starship stacked on top of booster !

and the fans celebrating it https://twitter.com/Erdayastronaut/status/1423630041984999425

Everyday Astronaut (@Erdayastronaut)

History has been made. The world’s tallest rocket… ever 😱 https://t.co/FZKNbWewZg

Twitter · Aug 6, 2021, 1:00 PM

[keen glacier]

it is pretty nuts

[nimble field]

If this thing had nuts, we'd have a second space penis 😉

[sand fern]

Here we go... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01097-4.epdf?sharing_token=obWdFolrcMhBO1JpeouiWtRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0ODQw4Na6S4LwvIIwjZ_S3NdBoG6pi8c5NBfIwoUKp1VK_OHHszXMnB3OMoyz8L8emOhG-hoDsJyn1YMubz_IampYbIRg_8P9vjnfIPPzRQwm6m9BfwEGfoLu0JsB4E2trSfyu4r947mOz1oZQlyxQxq5VrqGOee6Am3tjTPirQ_fNnvSvBkjmYRhNMt_gZcvw%3D&tracking_referrer=www.washingtonpost.com

Shortly put, RIP Europe (and the whole world)

[delicate hornet]

(this shorter link adds blur to next pages)

[sand fern]

Yeah just noticed, fixing it

[river saddle]

At least if the North Atlantic Current dies, our skiing resorts will get more snow again 😅

[delicate hornet]

let's contact AC/DC… to try and find an alternative continuous current

[somber zenith]

like that?

[somber zenith]

idk, but personally i would never like to be a climate scientist... it would be too frustrating with the amount of uncertainty there is due to the complexity of it.

[river saddle]

There are a lot of fields in science that have that problem. You'll get used to it and celebrate every so small victory where your predictions finally were correct.

[somber zenith]

i guess... on the other hand, if they where not correct, it might lead to a bit of an existential crisis xD

[delicate hornet]

at least physicists and mathematicians don't have to explain daily that, yes, their profession exists and is required

[somber zenith]

yeah, and you dont have to argue with nutters all the time you mention your profession. Though i guess the physicists have to deal with flat earthers and banana earthers ... but that is easy to disprove, in comparison to climate models

[delicate hornet]

that is easy to prove*
* see terms and conditions. acceptance of logical arguments is required

[river saddle]

As a Chemist you are the devil despite the fact that you wouldn't want to imagine a world without that field 😅

[somber zenith]

Dont worry everbody forgot about Chemists now, Virologists have taken the top devil place.

[river saddle]

RIP rep Wuhan Institute of Virology 🙈

[tranquil maple]

Squirrels are way more clever https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6555/697

[somber zenith]

😄 I'm getting monty python vibes. "An unladen Squirrel..."

[river saddle]

African or European? 😆

[somber zenith]

Edward Teller on nuclear powered locomotives in 1957
"a most ingenious solution of the question how to combine minimum utility with maximum danger" 😄

[round temple]

do you want to live in the Wasteland like Fallout? Because thats how you end up living in the Wasteland like Fallout...

"yeah lets just use nuclear powered cars. nothing could go wrong with that! Especially when geopolitical tensions are at an all time high and everyone has a friggen nuke"

[sand fern]

Happy rest of our lives! 🔥 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/09/ipcc-report-transforming-society-avert-catastrophe-net-zero

[keen glacier]

kinda a given now

[river saddle]

Well, it might at least knock some sense to some deniers

[delicate hornet]

hah

[somber zenith]

climate deniers are like covid deniers... when their basement was flooded, their roof taken away by a freak tornado and their elderly died of a heatwave - then they will recognize there is a problem. Not earlier.

[nimble field]

Not even then...
Basement flooded: "I don't believe in floods because my bedroom on the 1st floor is dry..."

[river saddle]

I meant like those currently leaning towards denial. Don't expect extremists to be swayed that easily 😆

[nimble field]

Fighting the climate change costs money and has an economical impact. This alone is fact enough to know that nobody with the required power is going to do something as long as he has to pay for it

[keen glacier]

negative external effects

or whatever its called in English, Production costs that aren't tracked by normal economics.

as long as using up natural resources doesn't cost anything no one will care.

[sand fern]

It's externalities AFAIK (had to check from vocabulary 😄 )

And yeah, they indeed are a main issue

[round temple]

it doesn't really matter anyway. The Earth kinda floats in the goldilocks zone (it is not locked in its orbit around the sun) and over hundreds of thousands of years will gradually drift closer and away from the sun. We could be a zero emission society tomorrow and we'll still burn up at some point.

One just needs to look at Antarctic ice cores and do a little math: The oldest sample we have is maybe 500,000 years. The earth is 4.5 billion years old. Humans have only existed for 100,000 years and only have been industrialized for 250 years at most. Climate change is real. Yes humans have had a substantial impact on this change. No, reducing carbon emissions won't prevent a global climate change disaster. Mother Earth just kinda does whatever the fuck she wants

[delicate hornet]

hm-hm.
https://xkcd.com/1732/

xkcd: Earth Temperature Timeline

[After setting your car on fire] Listen, your car's temperature has changed before.

[round temple]

http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/vostok_T_CO2.png

so maybe someone can explain why CO2 levels are similar 100,000 years ago

[delicate hornet]

it happened before, sure
human has a big impact on that, we agree
the only thing I disagree with your statement is this

No, reducing carbon emissions won't prevent a global climate change disaster.
it may prevent one we might be creating ourselves in a oh-too-soon future, rather than a millenia or two more

[round temple]

i guess what i meant was: We're still gonna have something bad happen like a massive flood or some shit. It'll happen in 500 years instead of 100

i mean that's an arbitrary number

[delicate hornet]

or in 10k years, too
doesn't mean one has to be pessimistic and go "f- it we're screwed anyway so let's accelerate towards the wall"
if we can buy ourselves some years to think about it, instead of sawing the branch on which we are sitting, in the next 20 years vs 5000 years… yeah I'll take that
also the transition will be less harsh and society itself may have time to adapt and survive (win, not so much)

[round temple]

i think we should just focus on interstellar travel. The chances of finding a valuable resource that transforms society for the better is much greater than convincing 7+ Billion people to go green

and heck, maybe that valuable resource ends up solving our pollution problem

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[delicate hornet]

well go interstellar in 20-50 years, while people try to educate themselves and others and understand what they are doing 😄

I mean, have you looked at the drastic curve here

"I want educated people, for I don't want to live surrounded with idiots" :p or something

[round temple]

20-50 years? thats optimistic. Geopolitical tensions will prevent humanity from unifying towards such a goal. we'll nuke ourselves before we land on another earth

not trying to get into details, but i think it's a fair statement to say "nobody on earth seems to get along"

[delicate hornet]

that's what I meant indeed! there are more chances of a political/global action than an interstellar discovery

[round temple]

Aliens ^^O.O^^ / /

[delicate hornet]

https://tenor.com/view/aliens-ancient-gif-15448727

[round temple]

and even IF we pull our heads outta our asses, the ability to go offworld will only be available to those who can afford it

i mean Bronsons space tickets are what, $450,000?

Which would you rather live, Blade Runner or Altered Carbon?

[delicate hornet]

haven't seen AC so I can't answer, sorry 😁

[round temple]

fair enough

anyway i was trying to look for a youtube video that explained how Humanity is basically at an apex of Political, social and economic timelines and it lay's how out each of these things are happening and in it, it explained how climate change is gonna happen whether we like it or not and delves into Polar Ice Cores as evidence

its like "yeah i basically expect to get 2021 and 2022 to get even worse than 2020"

ugh i could go on

imma play some F1

[sand fern]

It's not about the change itself – because yes, change is inevitable, it's about the speed of change. And it's extreme right now. When change happens in natural way, the nature has a chance to adapt. And humans would have the chance, too.

Currently it looks like we don't have enough time to survive from our Great Wall. If we don't act now, we won't have enough time to adapt and figure out a way out of the natural crises. So it's about buying time.

(Technically speaking, nature would survive quite extreme changes in the end, it would just be the sixth mass extinction. It's that us humans wouldn't survive.)

There's a tragicomical comics about the misconception: https://i.imgur.com/OPBTkhA.jpeg

[round temple]

Still though. I think we are more likely to nuke ourselves before we choke out, burn up and drown

[sand fern]

I kind of think the same too. But I also think that nuking ourselves will happen as a consequence from escalating tensions due to worsening environmental crises.

(Given that a solar storm won't fry the Western civilization before that lol)

[round temple]

i think its ambitious to suggest climate change is the source of geopolitical tensions. The countries around the Red Sea have hated each other for thousands of years, i see no reason to believe the introduction of climate science changes that

[sand fern]

I see no reason why wouldn't it be. Red Sea area is not the whole planet. Many of the world's most populated areas – some of which happen to contain nations with nukes – will literally be destroyed and become unhabitable for humans during our lifetimes. Just because there is an existing risk doesn't mean that it couldn't become hugely more likely regardless of whether it'd be caused by internal or external factors.

[round temple]

well yeah. i just picked that region because it was the first one i could think of. Those nations too have nukes just waiting for a reason. Their immediate concern is whether their neighbor is gonna wipe them from the face of the earth, not convincing their citizens to use green energy. I'm not saying it not an important issue for some of these countries, but they have other more immediate concerns

or even more practically: Whats the point of a brand new wind and solar farm in locations that not only get greater abundances of these resources but they lie in unstable countries. Some countries have some seriously dangerous NIMBY laws. If you want to call them "laws"

[sand fern]

Everything is intertwined. A huge, messy blob of crises that compete of which one of them will kill us first 🙂

[round temple]

i'm quite content with just sitting back and watching the world burn.

[delicate hornet]

I can understand, I just ask people to not "get in the way" of people trying (and to not actively destroy what remains of course 😄)

[keen glacier]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/All_palaeotemps.png

thats a pretty interesting graph

[round temple]

Pfft you're not my mom! Smokes cigarette, farts, drives unnecessarily

[somber zenith]

the solution to people caring about the environment - invent immortality (or 500 year life)... Although people will probably not care for the first 100 years, and only when weather gets bat shit crazy do they say "someone should do something".

[somber zenith]

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/10/elon-musk-spacex-could-make-new-astronaut-spacesuits-for-nasa.html
lets hope those suits dont have the same problem with clearance and gaps that the early Tesla models had 😄

[somber zenith]

good news - if you travel in time you can do whatever you want, "the timeline will fix itself" says a math boffin
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-physicist-has-come-up-with-the-maths-to-make-time-travel-plausible
i ... have some doubts on practicality there 😄

[round temple]

well think about it. the past you travelled to is now the present and the future you travelled from is now your past.

the future is still the future

Speaking of, what do you do when you've written yourself into a corner when you're writing a tv series or movie franchise?

why time travel

[tranquil maple]

ye it means you can go into past but it will not change the future you know (but in theory can change anything past your former present-time before you did the transit)

[round temple]

we'll now we're back onto the grandpa theory where if you go back and kill your grandfather do you cease to exist?

[sand fern]

In philosophical terms, I think that time is an illusion. Like Einstein put it:

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.”

“Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.”

“The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

[round temple]

the universe is a computer simulation confirmed?

[sand fern]

Maybe, who knows

[round temple]

my argument is that everything you've ever done comes down to a yes or no decision. the only other thing i know that solely speaks this way is computers

[somber zenith]

"The only reason for time is" what kind of argument is that? Thats postulating that everything exists for a reason

[sand fern]

I think Einstein was speaking from humans' perspective

[somber zenith]

unless Einstein knows the answer AND the question about life, the universe and everything, he cant know

[round temple]

easy, 42

[sand fern]

I don't interpret it like that at all

[somber zenith]

but you dont know the question...

[round temple]

but i know a computer that does

just his brain...

or: The question is "What is life the universe and everything"

[sand fern]

I think that Einstein meant that time is an illusion (just like anything in being a living creature) and is something that's caused purely by the laws of cause and effect

[round temple]

time is a manmade concept

[somber zenith]

so gravity presumably exists so we dont float off into infinity, and your morning coffee stays where you put it. The human perspective is pointless. Time exists without humans. Unless you want to argue that the entire universe was created by an omnipotent creator, then that human perspective is useless

[sand fern]

Well, I don't think that human perspective is pointless as everything is, uhm, relative 😄

[round temple]

there's a natural clock based on the earths rotation (circadian rhythm) but associating waking up with 6a was done by humans. and even still humans would needed to have been aware of the correlation of sunrise and sunset with waking up and going to bed

[somber zenith]

there is no free will in celestial bodies. And there is no free will on an atomic scale (as far as we know...). So yes, time could be meaning less for them, as processes might happen the same way over again if you go back in time and "replay" the event. But free will exists in humans, and if you can time travel AND keep a memory of the time before you travelled, then outcomes of the same events can't be the same.

[round temple]

free will is a whole different beast there buddy.

[sand fern]

I've played with the idea of "tragedy of consciousness", where there would be times without consciousness and when time wouldn't necessarily exist – only the laws of cause and effect – and then something something (here referred to as one due to clarity) would become conscious due to something that happened in the vastness as an effect of some random cause, until the consciousness ended for yet again another reason, at which point the cycle would start from the beginning

[round temple]

consciousness is still one of the great mysteries of life (such as the mathematical formula for gravity). We can observe consciousness and measure it but we can't really explain where it comes from or how it works and can only theorize these things. the sun the sky the stars the moons and the heavens have no idea they're floating through space and time they just do, since there no other real reasoning for it

and personally i feel you can't talk about consciousness without getting into a little bit of a spiritual discussion.

[sand fern]

I don't believe in free will in humans tbh. I like to call it an illusion caused by lack of disturbing factors

But it all depends on the definition of free will

[round temple]

i guess. It's more like limited free will. You're able to change the outcome of your future in little bits based on your choices but ultimately things are gonna happen the way they happen. Deja vu, as i've come to understand it, is the universe telling you you're exactly where you need to be

or its a moment in the multiverse where your other self's are in sync

is the cat in the box alive or dead?

[somber zenith]

it doesnt matter eitherway as far as time travel is concerned i just realized.

IF you time travel back in time, and get to keep your knowledge of what happened in the "now future" you enter that time with different information or "energy state" or <insert fancy term here> . Ergo the result MUST be different.

Its the same as if an asteroid was pulled by gravity towards a planet. If that asteroid is now transported back in time but keeps the speed it had at the instant of travel, the outcome will be guaranteed to be vastly different (as there is no free will).
A human might not choose to use his information he has, limiting the changes to his own brain. But even so, the result is different, objectively.

[spice drum]

if you think of it, information is energy, pretty funny right? 🤯

[round temple]

whats a practical example though? If you went back in 1939 and warned the polish about the coming germans, would that stop the germans? it might. It might not be free will but it's still a dice roll. you won't know until it happens

that's why i asked if the cat in the box was alive or dead. you don't know until you open the box.

[sand fern]

What would determine the threshold of change being important enough? And what would the threshold be

[sand fern]

I guess we're talking about different things here

[round temple]

time happens because you subconsciously know the seconds are ticking away on your existence. You can observe this effect by watching a sunset or looking at a clock. You won't know what happens when you go back in time until you do it. You can prepare and have a plan based on theoretical evidence and even then you the first step you could take could squish a bug and suddenly hitler won world war 2 (butterfly effect).

[somber zenith]

eh? If you travelled back in time and touched a stranger by the arm, he will react to you, purely on instinct. And if in the "unmodified past" he was about to be hit by a car if he continued walking, you stopping him for a split second can mean life or death to him.

thats a considerable effect by a tiny bit of manipulation

and those tiny manipulations can have extreme results of outcome that are totally unpredictable.

[round temple]

none of this matters until we can go back and observe the effects of messing with the chain of events of history

i mean lets be honest

the TVA really just comes back and fixes things and we just never know

[somber zenith]

IF you cant change the future by traveling to the past (if you get to keep your memory / "energy state"), then you are not in the same past, but basically a parallel world. Thats what i read into that guys paper... If you dont get to keep your memory, then yeah - the time travel wont change anything. You will just re-live the past. Only question is what happens if you travel further back than you have lived... means you couldnt experience anything, as you dont exist at that time, your atoms may just be distributed all over the place xD until you get "made"

[keen glacier]

Time Violation Agency?

[somber zenith]

and if transformation is not carried over, then you cant tell that time travel worked as you have no idea that you time travelled. You step into the machine to transport you back 5min. You experience the last 5min again, but since you dont realize it is happening again, you cant tell that you have in fact time traveled. Ergo, time travel may have worked but nobody can tell it works

[spice drum]

Time Violation Agency?
Hello, Time Travel Monitoring Agency? That guy over there!

[somber zenith]

nevermind, the paper claims that specifically time travel with knowledge transfer would not cause different outcome.... Which is ludicrous, if you think about it practically. People have made all kinds of theories and proven them mathematically, but they where still wrong at the end of the day, because they used some wrong or incomplete assumption. There's so many things we dont know yet about how the universe works

[somber zenith]

if you can transport a person back in time with full memory, then you can also transport any other matter back in time. A loaded battery back in time for an uncharged one. e=mc² ergo you cant just transport energy(states) but also mass... How about we transfer the moon back in time. In the Future we now have no moon, and in the past we have 2 moons possibly next to each other, pulling the earth off its course... I'd like to see the practical proof on how that is supposed to fix itself in some weird way, that doesnt involve a magic hand /magic creator pressing the UNDO button

https://tenor.com/view/todd-howard-it-just-works-bethesda-this-all-just-works-gif-20598651

[delicate hornet]

I believe it would mostly say "the space-time continuum will not rip apart", not "in the end, everything will be alright ❤️" 😄

[somber zenith]

he says "you can do whatever you want, the universe will fix itself to avoid paradoxes" ...

[round temple]

futurama has some things to say about paradoxes

[keen glacier]

Thats math speak for "somehow it cancels out in the end... Did I do sth wrong? Nooo, can't be"

[somber zenith]

just divide by zero and ...

[keen glacier]

:D that said there may be some way the universe actually fixes itself?

We might just not understand it, relativity is fully based with math theory and that's borderline in terms of "intuition".

[somber zenith]

if we assume the big bang, expanding and then conctracting and then bigbanging again is a cycle then... yes maybe thats how it fixes itself. It wont be particularly comforting for the inhabitants of that universe though

[keen glacier]

Not to mention fucking quantum mechanics...

[keen glacier]

True, although if it only fixes itself every 5 billion years I'd say that's alright.

[somber zenith]

no i mean, if you travel a moon back in time, so the earth has 2 moons, gets thrown out of its orbit and becomes a frozen planet wandering through deepspace ... then it doesnt really count if you say "you can do whatever you want, there wont be paradoxes, universe will fix itself"

[delicate hornet]

maybe just as in "it will create a parallel universe/timeline"

to be 100% fair, I did not read the article :p

[round temple]

i mean all things considered eventually they will sort themselves out. Billions will die in the process but i mean yknow...details

[somber zenith]

"you can do what you want, it wont affect the universe, because you are too small and weak".

[lone swan]

I mean human events are pretty insignificant on the universe, but to us they sorta matter because we are human.

[tired egret]

Did you guys actually read the IPCC report?

I decided to focus on the Technical Summary. Pretty interesting, especially how much we already know today

[somber zenith]

🙈 <- me

[keen glacier]

https://i.imgur.com/ryiskFa.png

sad fusion noises

[somber zenith]

who needs fusion when you can buy more tanks...

[round temple]

lets just combine SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic into one company. then we might actually be able to build ships beyond earths atmosphere. After that we can work on fusion drives without the pesky problem of potentially sterilizing everyone on the planet (or vaporizing them)

[nimble field]

sounds good, doesn't work

[round temple]

i can dream, harold

[keen glacier]

Fusion drives aren't dangerous at all. Probably the reason why the military doesn't care for them.

Unless you're talking about fission ram jet engines, they are pretty deadly

[tranquil maple]

i must admit this was quite spectacular Astra rocket launch failure and kudos to whoever is responsible for the gyros and stabilization subsystems https://twitter.com/Kemp/status/1431812555324854272 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2jU5W4ehPE

Chris Kemp (@Kemp)

Reviewing flight data and video, two things are very clear - 1) An engine shut down right after launch 2) Everything that happened next made me incredibly proud of our team. Space may be hard, but like this rocket, we are not giving up. #AdAstra https://t.co/2g3n812EaW

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▶ Play video

Twitter · Aug 29, 2021, 2:54 AM

[plain sierra]

wee

[tranquil maple]

Perovskite solar cells https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWU89g7sj7s

[somber zenith]

sounds like a perfect business model for window type solar panels ... 'oh yeah, you got to exchange them every 3 years - we offer a subscription model' 😄

[runic wren]

I dunno if this can really be called science. At least it’s biology.

https://youtu.be/C2Jw5ib-s_I

This is insane

[river saddle]

I wish my catalysts would survive that long 😅
Finding the right spot between reactivity and stability is though.

[runic wren]

is there a scientific way to breed an arma team for me to play withing 3 months?

[delicate hornet]

no.

[river saddle]

You might have a better chance with DeepMind's latest AI technology 😅
https://deepmind.com/research/publications/2021/open-ended-learning-leads-to-generally-capable-agents

[opal nebula]

nobody could have predicted that skynet would begin as an arma ai tweak mod

once it got a taste for firing missiles and deploying artificial soldiers in the game, it wasn't long before it was doing it irl

[river saddle]

SkyMind or DeepNet? The latter actually sounds like a neural network 😅

[opal nebula]

SkyMind makes it sound specifically like improved ai for jet pilots or something

[river saddle]

Or it became SkyMind by a skyrocketing performance^^

But let's not dwell in AI-induced dystopians. They can also provide a chance for humanity after all.

[opal nebula]

oh for sure, i just wanted to make a joke

[river saddle]

No worries. It's just usually the first thing you hear from ppl that are not well-versed in machine learning. Can get tiring sometimes, but ethics is an essential component of AI research.

[opal nebula]

yeah, i totally get that

the real skynet was the biased training data we made along the way

[runic wren]

this sounds like a good alternative to me.

the only thing is that this ai doesnt really seem to work in groups

[river saddle]

On the contrary, multiple agents turned out to work very cooperatively with each other in some cases.

But they might ditch you if you are not efficient enough according to their learned reward metric 😅

[runic wren]

Oh im not good at all. Im good in giving commands and being convinced of myself

[nimble field]

15min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkGIFPAxlmE

[tranquil maple]

butterfly vs science ... https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/metamorphosis-scientists-watch-butterfly-wings-grow-inside-chrysalis-in-real-time/

[jolly scarab]

Elon Musk Tweet about Bankrupt: https://imgur.com/quEeK3O

[delicate hornet]

(link description next time plz)

[jolly scarab]

Added.

[somber zenith]

that reads like "our stock price is too high, people, please lower it for me"

[frozen jasper]

mmm, spacex isn't publicly traded

afaik

[runic wren]

elong mosque is overrated

[tranquil maple]

i hear the wheels in BO and SX going at 110% why they didn't figure it out first, aka Rocket Labs shaking the rocket game again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kwAPr5G6WA

[keen glacier]

looks pretty nuts, also crazy to see the total mass to payload mass

ratio of 32 😄 fuck me rockets are not efficient

[river saddle]

They are efficient from a thermodynamic perspective. It's just expensive in terms of energy to leave the gravity well.

[keen glacier]

You mean the engines being thermodynamic efficient? Probable, never looked into that

[river saddle]

Exactly

[keen glacier]

actually.... now that I think of all the massive cooling you need for the nozzles, probably not that efficient

probably close to the theoretical process efficiency but less than 70%

Which for "burning stuff" is quite good

[river saddle]

If you don't like Chemistry, you can always nuke it 😅

[keen glacier]

for some reason nuclear powered rockets are out of fashion:D

[river saddle]

How about matter-antimatter annihilation?

[somber zenith]

nozzles are cooled by the fuel that flows through it, pre-heating the fuel in tern (at least to my understanding... havent kept up with latest rocket technology)
cooling the fuel down pre-launch is probably not that efficient...

[nimble field]

Cooler fuel means more density = more fuel to load

[keen glacier]

yeah, but anytime you need that excessive cooling that heat isn't being used for its intended use 😄
that preheating fuel feature is probably one of the reason for its high efficiency.

[somber zenith]

its not excessive, if your nozzle would just melt without it... And i'm pretty sure even the F1 (i think thats what it was named) had nozzle cooling via fuel

[keen glacier]

Every car uses fuel evaporation to cool its engine

Doesn't mean that suddenly makes it high efficiency, compare a 100kW electric motor to a 100kW car engine and you see why one of it needs its own cooling circuitry and the other doesn't.

And thats all I meant, if there is massive cooling going on it usually points towards energy losses --> lower efficiency

[jolly scarab]

Two ways to save humanity:
1 - Save humanity by traveling to a planet that will probably have 10X worse condition than poorly cared Earth.
2 - Save humanity by stopping making shit with Earth.
What sounds more intelligent?

[nimble field]

What sounds more intelligent?
3 - save the planet by removing humanity

[jolly scarab]

4 - Save the planet by removing planet. Lol.

[river saddle]

As if sitting on one limited fragile planet is the best way for a species to endure

[jolly scarab]

Yes, let's go to not fragile, not limited and wonderfull Pluto and be happy there.

And my IQ is 75.

[river saddle]

Since when is Pluto a planet again? 😉

[merry salmon]

Exactly, we can’t sit on a fragile planet and survive, so we go to a dwarf planet/planetoid, genius!

[delicate hornet]

So cool! Scientists study how birds take off, land, and grasp; using that knowledge they develop a biomimetic drone-like robot that can dynamically perch on complex surfaces and grasp irregular objects!
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abj7562

[somber zenith]

News line 2030 - mechanical, ai controlled eagle malfunctioned during a mission to snatch a Terrorist leader. Instead of delivering the target to authorities it devoured the target.

[tranquil maple]

NASA probe pass thru solar plasma https://twitter.com/coreyspowell/status/1471147994456145926 , https://twitter.com/astrogrant/status/1471221277700485123

Corey S. Powell (@coreyspowell)

NASA's Parker Solar Probe plunged deep into the Sun's corona & passed directly through streamers of solar plasma. The view out the window was...staggering. https://t.co/LLy8fB2dmZ https://t.co/4fWkHIgmlA

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Twitter · Dec 15, 2021, 3:59 PM

Grant Tremblay (@astrogrant)

@SungrazerComets @hervst @coreyspowell @GrumpyKelson Thank you Andrew & Karl!!! Okay, so just to make sure I have this right:

Twitter · Dec 15, 2021, 8:51 PM

[slate radish]

Who are you going to be if you time travel to past?

Let's say you traveled to 1920s in 2021

I think you cant exist unless all your family travaled at the same timeline xD

[river saddle]

Don't see how you make that connection. You are just a bunch of atoms assembled in a specific way.

[slate radish]

I tried to say that when you time travel you still get old/young. So for example if you are in age of 35 you can't time travel by yourself back to 1920s

different perspective

[river saddle]

Well, yes at the moment we can't, but maybe in the future. Who knows.

[keen glacier]

James Webb telescope lift off

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nT7JGZMbtM

[brittle minnow]

Some exiting 30 days till it arrives

[keen glacier]

And then a solid two weeks until it's unfolded.

[brittle minnow]

Yes. I hope it all works out.

[stuck vortex]

~6 months to calibrate & configure everything before it can go in to operation properly.

[brittle minnow]

Let's just hope it doesn't end up in a disaster like with hubble 😄

[brittle minnow]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N6vguDvkpE

[stuck vortex]

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html

[keen glacier]

Brain Computer Interface

https://twitter.com/tomoxl/status/1473809025254846467?t=KysbHbhfvEdW6dFjMOE7RQ&s=09

[rough tide]

It's been about 1 hour and 14 minutes on miller's planet

[slate radish]

this is so interesting

[nimble field]

https://www.space.com/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-hit-moon-march-2022

[somber zenith]

on the far side of the moon... i think this will prompt the nazis that live there, underground, to come out of hiding and start an invasion of earth

[tranquil maple]

great pic quality https://www.chaosmosnews.net/2022/01/06/nasas-1-billion-spacecraft-has-taken-mind-bending-new-photos-of-jupiter/ (something i forgot to sent here)

[tranquil maple]

some great read about recent volcanic eruption(s) and lightning strikes https://graphics.reuters.com/TONGA-VOLCANO/LIGHTNING/zgpomjdbypd/index.html

[tranquil maple]

3D printing rockets at Relativity Space https://fxtwitter.com/WevolverApp/status/1501068262687318017

[vivid stone]

Saw some Sun's fart tonight in Southern Estonia https://www.upload.ee/image/13961975/275500022_950003869040697_8681768919705549606_n.jpg

[tranquil maple]

NASA Artemis rolling out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxzC2S8Z2Ng

[vivid stone]

Today the whole day has been a quite strong solar storm. Started at 5AM my time here, was the entire time through the US night, a quite powerful one at that and now has circled back to Europe and I'm gonna go out to check in a bit

Blessed with clear skies tonight aswell, gonna hope to see xd

[vivid stone]

Lol the winter doesn't want to leave this year. Literally everything covered in snow again

[sand fern]

I'm so anxious right now that it's driving me nuts. I read yet another specialist interview about how badly the vast majority of the world is prepared to CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections) of the Sun. At this moment it looks to me that most of the world's population would be killed by its consequences (especially in modern societies) AND the fact that based on our current data it's likely that such thing will hit Earth during our lifetime

[keen glacier]

Go read up on dormant super volcanos 😄

[robust jolt]

well it's not like we can do anything about it anyway
the healthiest thing is just not to think about it...

[sand fern]

I'm aware of those, but AFAIK the actual likelihood of them erupting is a lot smaller

[river saddle]

Impact events, the possibilities are endless. We are doomed either way 😅

[keen glacier]

pretty sure yellowstone is long overdue, but same thing for CMEs, 100 years in these big timeframes are quite "short"

[sand fern]

That's the point, it's actually relatively simple task to prepare for CMEs, but if you don't do it in time, the recovery will be extremely time taking and painful

[sand fern]

CME has more than 50 % chance to hit us during the next 50 years actually

[keen glacier]

Got a source for that? I find that hard to believe

[sand fern]

According to NASA the risk is 12 % per 10 years

[robust jolt]

I mean we as individuals...at least I personally can't so...

[keen glacier]

In 2019, researchers used an alternative method (Weibull distribution) and estimated the chance of Earth being hit by a Carrington-class storm in the next decade to be between .46% and 1.88%.

[sand fern]

We can spam politicians about it and vote for those that promise to do something about it

[keen glacier]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-38918-8

[keen glacier]

Isn't the countermeasure either having some nice prewarning systems or EMP proofing all your equipment?

[river saddle]

Still waiting for that supposed CERN created black hole though 😹

[sand fern]

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2011SW000734

There are varying estimates nowadays, yeah, but that's the NASA one. There was a very close call in July 2012 already, as a massive solar storm that could have killed the majority of population in civilized countries because of its consequences missed the Earth only by a few days on Earth's trajectory around the Sun

https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm/

[river saddle]

Earth magnetic polarity reversal is also an interesting scenario for us

[keen glacier]

looking at both briefly it seems they both estimate based on quite a small numberset (not their fault, we haven't measured them that long) and extrapolate from there

@sand fern have you read the discussion part in both papers? imho they list the issues with such analysis quite nicely

[river saddle]

if they hadn't, the reviewers would have, or maybe they did 😅

[keen glacier]

to be clear I'm not refuting either of them, they have good points but I'd be careful basing my numbers on only one if the other one differs of by a factor of 10

[sand fern]

No, I haven't read those exact ones through. But the leading astrophysics professor of my uni (they have developed the most accurate model of solar weather and extreme storms in the world) estimates that Carrington class events happen every 100-150 years on average

[river saddle]

Also technically 12% 10 years would make it 47% in 50 years, since you have 1-0.88^5

got a little rounded up

[keen glacier]

One of the problems with extreme events is that prior to their occurrence, their perceived risk is effectively zero, yet following it, the risk rises to nearly 100%.
Maybe after having a global pandemic leaders are more open to having safeguards against unlikely but real bad events.

[keen glacier]

Yeah its 54.22 years for the 50% mark

Lilliefors-corrected Kolmogorov-Smirnov test
I'm having flashbacks

You know...the more I read about this.... I'm not even comfortable with a 1% chance per decade for such a cataclysmic event

[river saddle]

It's certainly no joke

[keen glacier]

If I take the wiki artical on effects of CME for face value the estimated damages vary wildly

[keen glacier]

watching contagion is really bizarre...

[astral ridge]

yeah, I rewatched it early last year, there it was even more weird.

[delicate hornet]

@molten spoke no offtopic nor link without description, thank you.

[molten spoke]

Ight

[somber zenith]

what happens when you wire an image recognition Neural Network backwards (something like that):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deIORHOqJ-s

[river saddle]

It's the graveyard the AI will leave once they are done with us 😆

[peak prism]

exactly

[keen glacier]

Watching Chernobyl really shows you the major failure point of complicated infrastructure: Humans

[delicate hornet]

oh, yes.

[stuck vortex]

https://hybrid-propulsion.space/vehicles.html
This French space company has the most French rocket naming ever, some interesting underlaying hybrid rocket engine science/tech if it works too.

[ebon hazel]

OB-1 also sounds very #other_ip_topics 😉

[tranquil maple]

T-20s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HptHSdDYHrU

[daring ore]

https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png

Absolutely breathtaking picture taken by the new webbs telescope, picturing a part of the carina nebula.

Picture is about 140mb, beware.

To think that this is actually real and not just a render.. astonishing

A bunch of more info on their website: https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/031/01G77PKB8NKR7S8Z6HBXMYATGJ?page=1&filterUUID=91dfa083-c258-4f9f-bef1-8f40c26f4c97

[wet kindle]

The pictures are fantastic