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Fast-Moving Neutron Star From Hubble
CEHT writes: "Recently, the Hubble discovered a fast moving neutron star which is 10 trillion times denser than steel, 100 times faster than a supersonic jet. Here is the article from CNN.com." If we had a General Products hull, we could send a probe to investigate.
not completely true
it should read that a neutron star is composed almost entirely of neutrons
just thought I'd be anal!
admit defeat, live in decline, be the victim of our own design
m/s = meters per second.. it always has, it always will.. they're called s.i. units.. that "standard international" something that Americians no nothing about.. tune into the 20th century and then maybe you can join us all in the 21st.
How we know is more important than what we know.
-t
Assuming "faster than a supersonic jet" is 1500 km/h, this works out to .00014c. I suppose this is pretty fast for natural phenomena, but I think we have already attained over a third of this ourselves.
Hey! That's not offtopic at all. Maybe I should explain: Moliere (a famous French playwright BTW) wrote a play with a character Tartuffe (from which we derive the word Tartufferie). This character explained that opium worked because it has a 'soporific virtue'. Now any but the least bright person realises that 'has a soporific virtue' is nothing other than a restatement of 'opium makes you soporific' but somehow it sounds more scientific to the uneducated ear. Well explaining why neutron stars might fly out of a nova in terms of an 'asymmetric explosion' is much the same thing. It is quite clear to anyone who knows the meaning of the word 'asymmetric' that any explosion that flings out a neutron star is asymmetric. So this is a vacuous explanation is it not? But somehow 'asymmetric explosion' sounds scientific. The word 'asymmetric' probably sounds really technical to a science journalist who doesn't really understand what they are talking about and that's why it was probably used in the original article.
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-- SIGFPE
Of course, I wouldn't use a General Products hull at all. I would use that radiation-shielded American-made craft from the future in Michael Chrichton's "Sphere".
Hell, that thing survived a trip bouncing off a black hole, went through time, sat at the bottom of the ocean for three-hundred years AND managed to pick up a gold alien ball that got the better of Samuel Jackson.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
All cosmic velocities are measured relative to the frame of the microwave background.
The images of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) from the COBE satelite (amoung others) show that the CMB is doppler shifted in opposite directions (a dipole shift) on either side of the Earth. By defining a stationary observer as an observer for which there is no dipole shift, it is possibleto define a frame which all observers, at any point in spacetime, will define as stationary. Therefore all observers will measure the an object as having same speed relative to this frame.
So the speed of RX J1856.5-3754 (about 85-100 km/s) is more in the lower range. What make this star interesting is not its velocity, but the fact that it is rather unique, because it does not show any activity (e.g. pulsations), unlike most other known neutron stars.
Also, as there is no gaseous shell from the supernova left, thus it must be quite old (at least 100000 yrs), but nevertheless the neutron star is still rather hot (as evidenced by its X-ray emission). This is puzzling because neutron stars have no internal energy source (unlike "normal" stars that are powered by thermonuclear reactions), and therefore should cool down continuously from the moment of birth.
There is an ESO Press Release about this object which offers much more info than the CNN article, yet is still written for non-scientists.
Now, if we could just get some Rishathra going! :)
a gross generalization on slashdot? Never. My mum knows what m/s means and she knows fuck all about physics, and that's the norm here (.au btw).
How we know is more important than what we know.
When is THIS one scheduled to smash into the earth?
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Americans are bred for stupidity.
You'll probably have read a lot of what I'm about to say: I do hope you don't think I'm teaching my grandmother to suck eggs...
Niven's other "Known Space" stuff: World of Ptaavs, Neutron Star, Protector, Tales of Known Space, A Gift From Earth & The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton? (Personally, I don't like the newer stuff, Ringworld Engineers/Throne and all the Man-Kzin War rip^H^H^Hspin-offs)
Gotta read some Asimov: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, The Robots of Dawn.
Philip K Dick: A Scanner Darkly, all his short stories, Ubik, Dr Bloodmoney, The Man In The High Castle [stops listing Phil Dick stuff by main force]
Over here in Blighty, there's a series of books been published by Millennium called "SF Masterworks". They do exactly what it says on the tin: buy all of them.
Ursula Le Guin: The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness
E E 'Doc' Smith: start on Galactic Patrol (yes, I know it says it's number 3 in the series, but trust me), then do Grey [sic] Lensman, Second Stage Lensmen, Children of the Lens, then go back for Triplanetary and First Lensman, then if you can be arsed read Masters of The Vortex, but prepare to be disappointed
Slightly offtopic, but Fritz Leiber: all the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stuff: Swords... and Deviltry, against Death, in the Mist, Against Wizardry, of Lankhmar, and Ice Magic, The Knight and Knave of.
Is that enough to keep you going?
nal 11
Actually the Piersons Puppeteers, and with it GP, spans more than just the Ringworld series (or Neutron Star for those who mentioned it). The Puppeteers, along with the Kzin, and other elements of that universe belong to Larry Nivens "Known Universe" books - a set of books with completely different stories set within the same universe. These include a good number of Mr. Nivens work.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
The General Products Corporation (and their mainstay product line of spaceship hulls) was the mouthpiece of the cowardly race called the "Puppeteers" in the book Ringworld (so named because of their "heads", two mouth/eye stalks resembling human arm-puppets as well as their devious and manipulative ways. They are also tripedal which isn't nearly as silly as it sounds here).
The GP Hulls are constructed of one solid piece of some fantastic transparent and indestructable material. The inside surface is coated with a 'stasis field' conducting film making the ship indestructable and extremely safe. If a threat were detected, such as immenent collision or attack, the satsis field would flip on and further interaction with the space-time continuum would be cut off for anything within the field. The computer would set to deactivate the field in random intervals and poll for conditions. if it was safe (say the sun you crashed into finally blew up and cast you free), then you were back in real time and could continue your voyage.
As a side note, even with all these amazing strentghs, the puppeteers, as a race, were far to paranoid to actually use a spaceship. that would be madness!
:)Fudboy
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm only a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta
if only the residents of Florida could move that fast. Most of their walkers can't even reach warp 3 :/
Stupid star...
Too dense to take its time and look around a little.
...how many
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Since we haven't met the outsiders and bought the faster-than-light drive, we'd also need boosterspice, to live long enough to be around when the probe got there and sent back the data.
For those who haven't read Niven's "Known Space" series:
- The outsiders: wandering traders in information - a lifeform that lives at liquid helium temperatures. They don't use FTL drives themselves, but will sell you the plans. For a decade or so of your gross planetary product. They'll take installment payments. (As you can tell from their spacedrive they're no in any hurry.)
- Boosterspice: A longevity drug by and for humans, made by a gene-engineered plant derived from ragweed. Good for several extra centuries of life.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
and yet 99% of your countrymen still think a meter is a messure of planetary mass.
How we know is more important than what we know.
100 times faster than a supersonic jet is....
C'mon. Nothing.
Sound travels at slower than twice the speed of an ordinary 747 aircraft. 200 times the speed of a 747 aircraft (about 200,000m/s) is not a very big deal on the cosmic scale...
I think even our solar system is moving along that speed circling the centre of the Milkyway. Just my guess tho.