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Voyager 2 Set to Reach Termination Shock
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "A computer model simulation developed at UC Riverside has predicted that in late 2007 to early 2008, the interplanetary spacecraft Voyager 2 will cross the termination shock, the spherical shell around the solar system that marks where the solar wind slows down to subsonic speed. At the termination shock, located at 7-8.5 billion miles from the sun, the solar wind is decelerated to less than the speed of sound. The boundary of the termination shock is not fixed, however, but wobbly, fluctuating in both time and distance from the sun, depending on solar activity. Because of this fluctuation, the spacecraft is also predicted to cross the boundary again in middle 2008. The article abstract is available from The Astrophysical Journal."
speed of sound... wait a minute? In which medium? I don't think there is much atmosphere up there...
What exactly is the speed of sound in a vacuum?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
but can someone describe in layman's term what will that mean for the probe (if anything), will it change course/direction? can this negatively affect the mission/spacecraft itself?
(sorry, a little Doctor Who humour there...)
Perhaps a better subject line would've been "Voyager 2 Surfin' the termination shock wave!"
Does it travel back in time/come out the other side/anything else cool, or is it just like hitting a bug on the windshield? News at 11.
stuff |
Interesting that the sun can have variation 8 billion miles away, with its power "fluctuating in both time and distance" but Global Warming Alarmists will deny that it has any varying influence a mere 93 million miles away on the Earth. Never mind, buy some carbon credits, and we'll all be safe until the next crisis!
In space, no one can hear you scream? ... because the speed of sound in space is zero (well, undefined would probably be better)
So apart from it being a long way away, its where space (where there is no sound) is slower than sound (on earth)
?
The Bible: Historically verifiable fact from an observers point of view
this is the kind of thing scientists predict all the time and observe in lab experiments... but this device is actually GOING to the edge of a solar system... it's someplace human made instruments haven't been. Science at it's very purest form, simply going and observing something nobody has actually seen before.
Why do you go on vacation to foreign places.. aren't postcards and Discovery channel good enough? It's a whole lot different to say "we were there" than guessing what it would be like from a long distance.
Now that the tailwind has slowed down.
There's a Voyager 2?! Oh God no; come back Enterprise, all is forgiven...
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
"The boundary of the termination shock is [...] wobbly, fluctuating in both time and distance from the sun"
Are you SURE that it fluctuates in time from the sun, or do you actually mean that it fluctuates (only) in distance from the sun? Then there's this beautiful piece of prose:
"... Voyager 2 will cross the termination shock, the spherical shell around the solar system that marks where the solar wind slows down to subsonic speed. At the termination shock [...] the solar wind is decelerated to less than the speed of sound."
And finally:
"Because of this fluctuation, the spacecraft is also predicted to cross the boundary again in middle 2008."
Ignoring the poor English, care to explain the logic behind this? Surely, going from inside to outside, Voyager 2 will have to cross the boundary an odd number of times? Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest that this is worst article EVAR on slashdot. I rest my case.
It means Janeway's going to have to pretend to be thrown all over the place while bits of the ship fall off.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Anyone else notice the related stories on the news site?
Nov. 6, 2003: Voyager Spacecraft Approaches Solar System's Final Frontier
Dec. 19, 2000: Most Distant Spacecraft May Reach Shock Zone Soon
May 25, 2005: Voyager Spacecraft Enters Solar System's Final Frontier
Besides the speculation, will we even know when the boundary is crossed? Do they expect data to indicate a transition, or do we even know if the instruments can detect such a thing?
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Speaking as someone working on the project, posting anonymously for obvious reasons, I can give a little info. When the spacecraft reaches termination shock, it is quite likely that all the transistors will fall off the pcb's that make up the electronics. Chances are this isn't so bad, as their are lots of backup resistors, but if theres a leak in the spacecraft's petrol tank then it might be ignited by some arcing currents, which would probably throw it off course a bit.
No, it is not. It is the interstellar medium. Read: termination shock.
>Why do you go on vacation to foreign places..
I think you will find he is an american, and therefore that doesn't apply.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
I would expect that something called "Termination Shock" would have some dramatic effect on an object crossing it. Is this the case? It doesn't sound like it based on what I read. Sounds like a more appropriate name would be "Subsonic Solar Wind Boundary". But what fun is that?
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The speed of sound on earth is about 0.3 km/s. In the interstellar medium, it is tens of km/s.
Sir Mix-a-lot? Is that you?
Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
they will be used to get data from voyager 2 on conditions at the edge of the solar system
however, a wobbly spacetime continuum means that voyager 2 must be running linux
because the wobbly spacetime is an infinite loop, only linux can escape it in 5 seconds
but time at the termination shock is slow enough that 5 seconds will be 2 years
proud caffeine whore
The speed of sound isn't a constant, and space isn't a total vacuum.
Maybe you do work on the project. But you sound like the janitor for the project.
Why is it relevant that there are 'backup resistors' if 'all the transistors' fall off? Even if resistors were the same as transistors, all would include the backups.
Wanted: witty unique signature. Must be willing to relocate.
This is pure, over the horizon, is the earth round or flat, kind of stuff. While no one is expecting anything extraordinary, you never really know until you go and look.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Here is a funny cartoon about the Voyager Termination Shock: http://www.unripe.com/pages/cartoon%2067%20termination%20shock.html
Why do you go on vacation to foreign places...
OMG, underage Taiwanese hookers...in space?I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The speed of sound goes DOWN with reducing density , not up. Theres no way the speed in an almost vacuum could be hundreds of times higher than at sea level. Even in rock it only manages a few km/s. Perhaps the author meant 100m/s but even then I'd be suspicious since in intersteller space the gas molecules rarely touch each other so theres no physical way for sound to propagate anyway.
But what about the Delta Mark IV Hasselhoff-Dusseldorf-Kruller Flanges? Surely those should help compensate for the lack of vacuum tubes in the Minolta/Konica spinny thing-a-mabob.
"Other posters are saying..."
That's only because it's what Wikipedia says. The speed of sound in the interstellar medium depends on the density of the medium, which varies, so it's different everywhere.
Four, just four small space probes.
Sorry dude, all the space ships you see on TV are just FX. We are not (yet) exploring the galaxy. Will we get any new data about "termination shock" or whatnot? Yeah! We may confirm that there exists this termination shock we expect to find there, or we may find our theories are wrong and there is not such "thing".
around the solar system that marks where the solar wind
slows down to subsonic speed. At the termination shock,
located at 7-8.5 billion miles from the sun, the solar
wind is decelerated to less than the speed of sound.
repeat repeat after after me me
Want to see the actual orbital trajectories of the Voyager probes for yourself in 3d type of thing? Because you can, if you use my nBody modeling software.
If you go here:
http://code.google.com/p/nmod/downloads/list
and get the windows installer or linux source for my nbody modeling kit, and then download this:
http://www.politespider.com/nbo/time_series.zip
And unzip it to save you the bother of having to actually generate your own time series (3d time series model of the solar system), which can take a while. You can then watch both Voyager probes follow their orbits (with 24th august 2006 as their starting date), for 20,000 days of travel time.
This isn't a program with a scrummy easy interface I'm afraid, the viewer is console opengl. But there are instructions here:
http://code.google.com/p/nmod/wiki/nbview
And it's not too hard once you get the hang of it.
The orbits do not take termination shock into account, this is pure Newtonian motion. The dataset for the solar system has taken months to put together. It's incomplete, It only has our moon (zoom in for ages with Earth centred and you'll see it), the others have been tricky to get right.
Once it gets there and crossing is a non-event, we will see that there is nothing of interest out there. Voyager 2 is just crossing into vast, bleak nothingness.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
He proved that sound is possible in that episode whateverthefuxit when he attacked Obi-Wan in the mini spacecraft piloted by R4. Jesus! I know too much(or don't if you know what I mean), LOL!
Once to get outside the boundary, twice if the boundary expands and catches back up with it, and thrice to once again get outside the boundary.
Just a thought.
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What is the speed of sound in a vacuum? Kinda existential...
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
It's going to reach the edge of the simulation, where it'll get rendered in lower resolution.
-- Only information exists, the rest is just smoke and mirrors.
I am looking forward to the interstellar probe mission, which is specifically designed to explore the interstellar medium.
Unfortunately it will probably not happen in my lifetime, unless we stop putting in charge of the budget people who think that a talk between a teacher in LEO and school-children on earth is more "inspiring" than fundamental research.
What you are refering to is Voyager 1. TFA is about Voyager 2. They are two different vehicles.
<wikipedia href="Heliosphere">
Evidence presented at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in May 2005 by Dr. Ed Stone suggests that the Voyager 1 spacecraft passed termination shock in December 2004, when it was about 94 AU from the sun, by virtue of the change in magnetic readings taken from the craft. In contrast, Voyager 2 began detecting returning particles when it was only 76 AU from the sun, in May 2006. This implies that the heliosphere may be irregularly shaped, bulging outwards in the sun's northern hemisphere and pushed inward in the south.
</wikipedia>
That's garbage. Space is not a total vacuum, it's true. However, the density of particles of matter in space is, for the most part, so low that space can be treated as a vacuum. It's like rounding 0.1xE-25 to just 0.
And as for the whole thing about sound travelling faster in space, you just made that up. Light (and other electromagnetic phenomena) do travel faster in a vacuum like space (perhaps you've confused the two). Sound, however, is caused waves of physical compression. In other words, one particle bumps into the next, which bumps into the next, and so on. Sound travels faster and farther through more solid materials. It has a certain speed and a certain distance it will travel in air, a faster speed and greater distance in water, and an even faster speed and greater distance through concrete. It has no speed or distance at all in space, because what little matter there is isn't close enough to touch the next peice of matter, and you can't set up the compression wave.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
...it will land with a "kerPLUNK!" into a half full goblet of mead at the foot of Zeus.
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As another reply already noted, this is the interstellar medium, which should be a good deal dense than the space between galaxies and galaxy clusters.
Next, how does sound transmit? Well, sound is a density/pressure wave, right? All I need is for the free particles to be interacting somehow to set one up. Turns out, the interstellar medium isn't a gas like you're used to thinking of, it's a plasma. The important point here being that because the electrons are not bound to the atoms, the effective "size" of the atoms goes up (that is, the disntance over which they interact with neighboring atoms). Thus you should be able to get sound waves more easily than you would suspect from a regular gas that is that sparse.
Should've gone diesel...I'm just sayin'... :P
what?
:-)
The speed of sound is different depending on the medium. The speed of sound where? (I didn't RTFA, just pointing out the lameness of the summary). Usually, when you talk about the speed of sound, it is relative to the density where you are observing your speed. So in space, having the solar wind be less than that (~0), does it then bounce back?
Ehhhh, how fast does sound travel in space again.....?
I agree that this is a very pure and useful form of science. However, what I don't understand is why we don't do this more often. Why haven't we been sending out a probe every year, or at least every five years, upgraded with the best propulsion systems and scientific instruments we can put on it? These two probes were launched 30 years ago, and while they still work, technology improved a lot over the decades. If it takes 30 years to get to the termination shock, it seems like they took an awfully big risk sending just two probes and then sitting tight. If something went wrong or failed, you have just one probe left, or maybe none if it was an issue common to the two of them. And then you have to wait 30 years to get back to where you were. In addition, science usually likes many repeated observations of phenomena more than just a few, and repeatedly launching probes in different directions would have helped establish even more reliablity for all data returned.
I just don't understand why we don't do this more often. I would have to think we could build a better, sturdier probe with a faster propulsion system, longer lasting power sources and far more powerful scientific devices. Unless perhaps we have launched another probe that will eventually have this mission (but maybe is doing something else on the way for now), I just don't understand why we don't do this again.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
The nukes are way down on power, so most of the instrumentation is not running. We will get some though.
It would be interesting to see a new voyager sent out. In particular, obtain bigger nukes, use bigger rockets (perhaps the ares IV/V), and finally, add ION drives. I do not know how long it would take to reach the edge again, but if done right, it could reach there in a fraction of the time and obtain more useful data. If nothing else, this would be the kind of science that Russia or China should consider doing. For some odd reason USSR/Russia really does not do that much with long term Science missions. They have never sent anything real deep. For the most part, they appear to be only interested in places that we can send mankind to.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
While it's not as DENSE, since sound is just energy, the atoms carry the energy (and the vacuum between transmits the energy) but there's not enough atoms to really stimulate your eardrum. That is, provided you could take your helmet off in the relative vacuum of space and survive, there's just simply not enough mass present to allow stimulation of our aural system.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The Pioneers were dead when the left the solar system. The Voyagers are still sending data.
Clear, Dark Skies
We will soon be intergalactic litterbugs.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Once for Voyager 1, then once again for Voyager 2, making twice.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Whats that? To visit space, I don't have to fly on VirginSpaceLines, I can just goto SoCal? (if you don't get the joke, leave the site now)
Alternate humorous statement:
So can we send some of the excess "stars" we have here into space to help fill that interstellar void? I think we have way more than we need now. (Bonus points are credited for this option too, as many in SoCal are just waiting for the spaceship to take them away anyways)
2^3 * 31 * 647
The 'speed of sound' referred to in the solar wind is the speed of 'Ion Acoustic Waves' in a neutral plasma. These waves exhibit the same sorts of behavior as typical pressure sound that we experience on a daily basis - namely that the speed of these waves is a constant. (\omega/k = v_s). In the case of the ion waves, a cloud of dissociated charges (ionized atoms and free electrons) exert direct electrostatic forces and pressures as the restoring force which allows the wave to propagate. Whereas sound that we hear is a fluid effect which propagates owing to conventional gas pressure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_acoustic_wave
haha, I try and go all AC, and I get this
I have heard that some stores use the cents part of the price to indicate a category of pricing. For example, $x.99 is regularly priced, $x.98 is sale priced, $x.97 is clearance priced, etc.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
A termination shock/shockwave/bore/hydraulic jump occurs when the bulk speed of a fluid drops below the wave propagation speed.
Run a tap in to a flat sink (like a kitchen sink) and you see a circular pattern (if the sink is flat) some distance from around where the water hits the sink. The pattern should have shallow fast moving awater close to where the jst hist the sink, and deeper slower water on the other side of the circle.
The "jump" where the water goes from fast to slow is the same kind of object as a termination shock. For extra fun, stick an object in the slow water, and see how waves propagate ahead of it (against the flow). Then see how it doesn't happen in the fast water.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
And thrice for the mortal men.
I can't wait to see the pictures of the Restaurant.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
So what is the relevance of the speed of sound in a near perfect vacuum? Not to mention the idea of a shock wave in nothing.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Hey, what if this imaginary fluctuating boundary is actually like the film of a soap bubble...what if Voyager Deuce bursts our bubble?
"...a civilian some of the time, a soldier part of the time and a patriot all of the time." -Brig. Gen. James Drain
/. 2072 Headline: Citadel to Reach System Shock
Actually no. The spacecraft would have crossed the boundary twice and the boundary would have overtaken the spacecraft once.
You can say you crossed the threshold of a door by walking through it. But if you stand still and the door suddenly flies past you, I don't think you can claim that you crossed the threshold.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
So why is Voyager 1 continuously beaming back: "Remember, aperture science take your daughter to work day is the perfect time to have her tested.." and "The Cake Is A LIE!" And When does Voyager 6 launch? :)
Remember, it's not paranoia if they really ARE out to get you...
*Whoosh* ;-p
I, for one, plan to welcome our returning creator-seeking V-Ger overlord
I think you will find he is an american, and therefore that doesn't apply.
I'll bite. The USA offers more climate and geographic diversity than most countries due to its size. Lets compare leaving the USA with leaving Europe for a fair comparison.
And yes I have left the continent.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
This is the effect of minute "dust" particles permeating space and absorbing/deflecting light. The effect is less for longer wavelengths which is why we can get a better view of the Galactic centre in the infrared.
... In Soviet Space, threshold crosses you!
Europeans in general don't understand this, and it's probably true for most of the rest of the world. From where I live I can make it to Mexico in about 12 hours of solid driving, or to Canada in about 20 hours, but in most places in the US it's a day or more of travel time to either country. In most of Europe you can be to another country in an hour or two. Now, I've lived in both Italy and Germany (for about a total of 5 years of my life), and when I'd be talking to people, they'd talk about wanting to travel to the US and all the places they'd like to see. Want to see LA, San Francisco, New York, New Orleans, Grand Canyon, Yosemite Valley, Yellowstone, etc., and expect they could manage this in about two weeks, which, by comparison, is like wanting to travel from Moscow to London and hit all the major points in between in that kind of time frame.
The reason why many Americans speak only one language or don't spend a lot of time in other countries is based in this. For a majority of Americans there is only one language besides English that is of any utility, and that is Spanish. I was once fluent in both German and Italian, but since I've been back in the US I have yet to run into a situation where I needed to speak either language. It's not like we can day trip to France or that most businesses can deliver finished products to a foreign country with a simple truck ride of 3 or 4 hours.
So at this point will Voyager 2 hit ludicrous speed or plaid?
In an effort to conform with internet communication standards, please note that the above comment is 100% biased opinion
You might have geographic and climatic diversity, but USA has literally zero cultural diversity. It's all the same stuff: dull suburbia, run down urban areas and rural areas. With the exception of NY (Manhattan), DC (downtown area) and a few other places, it's all the same crap. Strip malls, houses, cheap apartment, similar looking downtown areas...
In contrast, other parts of the world are much more diverse. Just take a look at India. Almost every state has it's own language/culture/history. Rajasthan is nothing like northern or southern India. Even a relatively small country like Ukraine has a quite a lot of cultural variety. From the Russian speaking east to the Ukrainian-speaking west.
So stop pretending that Americans don't check out foreign places because they have everything they need in their own country. Americans are so USA-centric because they are largely ignorant of foreign cultures/countries and they tend to be pretty cheap.
I just love when Americans (who know I am foreigner from the other side of the ocean) ask me whether I went back home for Thanksgiving, and I study in one of the top 25 universities in the USA. I can never understand how people can ace Calc IV without studying and yet they are too ignorant to know that Georgia isn't simply a state. It's nation with a 3000 year old history, no less.
Actually...
"The Voyager spacecraft will be the third and fourth human spacecraft to fly beyond all the planets in our solar system. Pioneers 10 and 11 preceded Voyager in outstripping the gravitational attraction of the Sun but on February 17, 1998, Voyager 1 passed Pioneer 10 to become the most distant human-made object in space."
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/fastfacts.html
Wikipedia sucks.
How do we know that solar winds slow down to sub sonic speeds if Voyager is the first thing from Earth to reach this point.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
I will entertain your argument of semantics about the number of times the boundary is crossed:
1. The Voyager crosses the boundary.
2. The boundary expands; now it is the boundary crossing the spacecraft.
3. The spacecraft crosses the boundary for the second time.
So the article is correct! OMG!
When does Vger come back?
It's possible this could be very important. NOTE: What I'm suggesting here is a long odds sort of thing, not the likelyest scenario, but it's also not impossible, maybe not even all that low probability. Science in general is frequently about a new hypothesis having low probability in the initial stages, and someone still researching it because if that hypothesis works out, it will have major implications. Many of those gambles never pay off, but Nobels get awarded to ones that do.
There were some odd position and velocity data coming back from the Pioneer spacecraft when they reached the same distance from our sun. It's a known anomaly, and some unusual hypothesi exist.
http://www.sixside.com/13_things_that_do_not_make_sense.htm
(about halfway down)
The likelyest scenarios probably involve instrumentation flaws, methods of calculating, and such, basically anything which would affect the data from both craft in the same way. Those scenarios are testable, i.e. by finding bugs in the code. Looking for similar effects with the Voyagers at the least will rule some of these scenarios out, as they are built with very different components from the Pioneer design. If corresponding data anomalies occur here, it will be fair to assume a common cause.
The unlikely but very, very interesting alternatives include some basic 'Laws of Physics' working a bit differently once you get far enough from a star. That's a spectacular claim, and needs a lot of proving, but I'd argue that even if the odds are, say, 100,000 to 1 against, it's worth throwing a few grad students and a cheap Beowulf cluster at the Voyager data for a summer project, to see if it links up with the Pioneer anomalies. If the odds are as good as 1,000 to 1 against, someone with their piled higher and deeper needs to really look at it.
Who is John Cabal?
India is also a shithole of a country to add a fact to your point. If you're residing in the US most people will refer to Georgia as a State because it is in our country. Just like when someone is in Europe, chances are Georgia will refer to the country. Get over yourself. Stop trying to act like Europe is the pinnacle of human evolution. You guys have your fair share of shit shoveling, rural shitholes, and political turmoil. Just because every state doesn't drastically vary in culture of has practiced genocide on one another doesn't mean it has no culture. You're just as ignorant as those Americans you are talking about. Why are you at a US university anyway since the US sucks so much? Why not go back to the backwash city you're from and attend university there. I am sure they are much more enlightened.
Fucking Europeans man...Sometimes I hope a 2nd bubonic plague hits.
Well, also, since the speed of sound depends on the density of the medium the sound is traveling through, what exactly is the speed of sound in the perfect vacuum of space? If they're just using sea-level speed of sound as an arbitrary measure to convey it to the common "non scientist consumer" then what's the point? What meaning could the speed of sound possibly have in a place where sound does not exist?
-Steve Tired of voting for the "lesser of two evils?" Come talk about it on www.bothsidesarewrong.com
Oh, and it's its its its its its its its ITS ITS ITS!!!
Bow-ties are cool.
Sounds to me like they're running something other than Linux...
Is that the right terminology? What is the "interstellar medium"? Surely it's not stationary with regards to the sun or earth, is it?
When I first read the headline I thought that they had brought out another Star Trek series and shocked their fans by early termination.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
No no. The article says that due to the expansion/contraction of the barrier, voyager 2 will cross the threshold twice.
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Thank you for that extremely enlightening explanation. Patient with the OP and well thought out.
Thanks again.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Well I wasn't just trying to be clever with semantics. It seems that the border overtaking the spacecraft is as scientifically interesting as the spacecraft overtaking the border - or is there something physically different about the border overtaking the spacecraft that makes it different and unremarkable?
The threshold and spacecraft will cross each other 3 times, right, not two. So why only talk about two?
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
If your talking high culture then yes Manhattan is pretty much our epicenter. I have only been to DC on guided tours, so the only culture I experienced there was tours of the Smithsonian, government building and monuments.
Now in terms of folk culture, you are wrong. First of all the world epicenter of low culture is Queens NYC, possibly the most ethnically diverse area of its size on the planet. Secondly, if you can't tell the difference between different parts of the country then you need to open your eyes. Compare New York and California for example. Even though a small but sizable portion of the population regularly travels between the LA and NY metro areas, the cities have completely different feels. Try finding good grits in the North East, or decent Italian food in the South, minus a few places with significant migration from New York.
I just love when Americans (who know I am foreigner from the other side of the ocean) ask me whether I went back home for Thanksgiving, and I study in one of the top 25 universities in the USA. I can never understand how people can ace Calc IV without studying and yet they are too ignorant to know that Georgia isn't simply a state. It's nation with a 3000 year old history, no less.I have two counter points to that.
First of all good at math does not mean good at history. If they are that good at math, and don't care for geography, they can survive just fine in college. I know a brilliant Mathematicians and programmer that probably didn't know where Prague was until he had to fly there to enter his physics engine into a competition. I would think that brilliant mathematicians in Georgia that do not study overseas have a narrower world view than you do. Also, I'm also sure Americans that study overseas have a firmer understanding of the world then their classmates.
As far as people asking you how your thanksgiving was, we Americans are known for engaging in mindless smalltalk. Most people probably didn't think out their statement. They also probably didn't care about your holiday. Finally how many of these people know you are in this country alone and not with your family.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
Peeing their pants after observing a blip on their sensors that this in fact has happened.
Woot! /. Signed
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
As pointed out elsewhere: sound = waves in matter.
Space is NOT empty, but filled with the solar wind (and interstellar medium beyond the heliopause). So there is some matter, and thus waves can move at a certain speed (= speed of sound).
This type of wave is of course is extremely far from human audible sound.
....are you sure that isn't Star Trek in its purest form?
There is more to science than physics!
www.iomalfunction.blogspot.com
First it tells us twice that the solar wind falls below the speed of sound at the termination shock. Surely saying this once would have sufficed. Even in Montreal where they like to tell you everything twice they at least do it once in English and then again in French.
Then it goes on to claim that the terminator wobbles both in time and space. What the heck does that mean? How can something wobble in time and space?
Squirrel!
All that's important about Georgia is whether it's still a part of our huge multinational coalition in Iraq, which we can't locate on a map either, and whether it's got oil that we can get into our supertankers. And that may sound ugly, but I believe that's the current state policy. We also prefer if you don't call any separatists you may have terrorists, because by terrorism, we mean anti-US terrorism.
First off, at my university, most of our foreign grad students DO go back home for Thanksgiving, due to the break, just like most other people travel to their homes. Even if this isn't the reason they're asking you, I'm sure if I was in India people would ask me dumb shit about my Diwali plans, just because not everyone has your extraordinary intelligence and spends 100% of their time considering every facet of the most insignificant minutia.
Also, your examples of places with cultural diversity show your ignorance. While we might not be the most culturally diverse nation in the world (although it is my opinion that we are), your examples of culture are simply asinine. Try visiting one of the poorer apartment developments in Atlanta, where your dumb ass will get shot for acting better than everyone, and then walk your way over to Salt Lake City, where even the Mormons probably don't want you. The USA has freakin' cowboys. How can you say that's not cultural diversity? There are even two kinds, I'm told. We have people from every race, culture, religion, and background, and yes, in cities like new york you can even see them all. The culture from the hills of Kentucky to the deserts of the west, both coasts, from Maine to Florida, and from Washington to California, not to mention the gulf and the amazing culture in New Orleans. Literally zero cultural diversity? I'm embarrassed that one of the top 25 school in the USA let a fool like you in. Ironically, probably trying to meet diversity requirements.
I'm not saying that the US is the pinnacle of culture across the globe, but saying they have literally zero diversity? That's beyond ignorant, but you are obviously an idiot and a bigot, so I don't expect any less.
I don't go anywhere without my Hasselhoff flanges. I wouldn't think of using anything else on my sub-lightspeed cruiser.
In Soviet Russia, threshold crosses YOU!!
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV...
I just love when Americans (who know I am foreigner from the other side of the ocean) ask me whether I went back home for Thanksgiving, and I study in one of the top 25 universities in the USA.
It *is* a vacation in this country for most people *regardless of your origin or citizenship*.
You could have gone any number of places without even thinking about doing anything "Thanksgivingish", so it's not really a dumb question. It's just like asking, "What did you do over the weekend".
Not many places in the US interest me. I've seen the natural beauty, but I prefer bumming around cities. US cities....meh...NYC, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco are all interesting but the majority of 'vacation destinations' in the US just don't interest me. I'd rather spend my dough hanging about Rome for 2 weeks than spend 6 weeks touring the US.
Blar.
But then I got a new job.
(Hanging my head in shame at not being able to post anything more insightful than this as everyone else already has.)
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I'll bite. Only someone who goes from Disney Land to Disney World will say that the US lacks cultural diversity. Going from Massachusetts to Arizona is a much larger change than going from say, the US to Holland. Customs are different, climate is different, culture is different. I can honestly say it no longer felt like the "US" I was used to. Then travel over to Florida, and expect different accents, food, customs, traffic, entertainments, etc. And if you really want a shock, go visit a Navajo Reservation... You might argue that they fall under a different government, but they are still within the borders of the US. The Navajo reservation I visited felt far more like El Salvador than like Boston.
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I keep imagining that scene in the Truman Show where Truman's boat hits a wall painted like the sky.
My theory is that the terminal shock is just a big wall painted with stars and galaxies all over it. We're going to find out our solar system is just inclosed in a big ball and that we're part of some cosmic reality show.
or else!
No no. The article says that due to the expansion/contraction of the barrier, voyager 2 will cross the threshold twice.
Yeah, sorry about that. I misread something somewhere along the line.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Obviously, you've visited a few cities as a tourist. You've fallen for tourist view of any city, visited landmarks, etc. If you've lived all over the US, you would have realized that large cities have ethnic neighborhoods where English is not always the first language. Polish, Spanish, Italian, Hmong, Irish, etc. Hell, English isn't always understandable from various parts of the country.
I asked my co-worker what she was doing for Thanksgiving. She was going back home... to India. I may even ask her what's she's doing for Christmas even though she's not Christian.
While there are dumb, socially-inept, or culturally unaware Americans, are you sure they know you're from the other side of the ocean? A Georgian (country) accent isn't enough to say you're from another country.
LOL, I love the comment about India being a shithole. Just shows how much you know foreign countries.
I never said that Europe is the pinnacle of human evolution. They have their own set of problems, they let racism take priority over economic interests unlike Americans who are racist but will let you work in the USA if it economically benefits. Europe has fuckloads of bad things about it. But that's not my point...
My point is that culture within the USA tends to be very similar. It's pretty much the same shit everywhere. Strip malls, ghettos and downtowns. There are very few landmarks worth visiting if you are not American. Compare the landmarks in say Washington with any major European city.
The reason why I study in the USA is because I am not a dumb asshole like you. America has a better University system and it has more economic opportunity if you are a non-citizen (compared to Europe). Unlike you, I am not some mad fanatic who gets insulted by every random thing you say about their country. Get over it man, America has no culture. All your public holidays are just consumerist rage fests, you have no real history, you have very few cool landmarks (with the exception of NY). But that doesn't mean USA is a pile of shit, what it lacks in culture it makes up for in economic competitiveness.
It's funny that you talk about genocide considering that USA was founded on the mass eradication of the Native American population.
Chill out man, nation states are a load of bullshit anyways.
Dude cmon, comparing California to NY? You've been living in the USA for way too long. Yeah, of course their different, but look at the scales involved. For 95% of the world population, it's the same shit. Of course, I am not saying that every part of US is identical. If you want differences, try comparing Cairo with Tallin. We'll see how different New York will feel from California.
Regarding the math vs geography thing, I think not knowing about the existence of nation (let alone actually knowing anything about it) is pretty fucking bad. I mean it's common knowledge. It's not rocket science, it's like not knowing about colonialism or communism. I am pretty sure mathematicians in Georgia wouldn't get confused between a local administrative region and a nation.
Regarding the whole Thanksgiving thing. I forgot to mention that the kid implied that I would be going back home to have Turkey with my family, which pretty stupid considering Thankgiving is more about celebrating 'Native American genocide'.
Yadda yadda bla bla. I am fool for questioning American cultural diversity... Get the fuck out of your suburb and check out the world. Let me put it this way: compared to every other country I've been to (17 + Uzbekistan where I stayed for a day when I was like 3), USA has a pretty bland culture. For a country this size, it has very little variety and culture in general.
If you think I am wrong in my conclusion, you can go fuck yourself. Spend a fortnight in Paris and a fortnight in say LA and then tell me which experience was better. Having different kinds of immigrants in the ghetto is not culture. USA is good at something and sux for other things. It's in terms of economic opportunity and economic growth. It sux in terms of culture and partying (frats? fuk that shit! And why don't clubs stay open until at least 4am. How can a club close at 2am? Americans really need to stop Christians from enforcing social policies).
"I'm not saying that the US is the pinnacle of culture across the globe, but saying they have literally zero diversity? That's beyond ignorant, but you are obviously an idiot and a bigot, so I don't expect any less"
I though you believed that USA is one of the most culturally diverse nations on the planet?
LOL, have you been to Holland? Are you seriously saying that there is bigger difference between Massachusetts and Arizona than between USA and Holland. You have no clue what the fuck you are talking about.
I'd like to check out an authentic Native American reservation, hopefully one that does not include a casino...
I don't really see how you can say that. It'd be like me saying "Those European countries are all the same. See one castle or palace and you've seen them all." There's more to culture than fancy landmarks.
Maybe they took their motivation from the crusades...
I'm not entirely sure how exactly this is related to Voyager 2 and the termination shock, but your comment is too interesting to pass up.
Your comments seem to focus on the fact that there was extremely limited permanent structure building in the area occupied by the United States 500 years ago. 500 years ago towns in Europe and other places were building structures using ideas and materials there were essentially isolated from each other. This resulted in cities that look significantly different from each other. The US on the other hand already had decent communication and transport systems in place by the time structures of significance were being built. This resulted in a lot of shared ideas and materials being used to build cities, and so less general diversity. There are still a lot of specific differences due to differences in climate, immediate materials, and cultural differences. Still, it's not like the difference between pyramids and castles.
Of course, if I want to see castles and pyramids, I have to spend a small fortune (by my standards) and travel half way around the world. In the US I can go on a road trip and see quite a bit for significantly less money (but still not that many pyramids). There are places in the US where I can barely understand the spoken language because it is so different. The foods (mostly derivatives from all over Europe) vary quite a bit too. This summer I went to see several sets of American Indian ruins there were thousands of years old. I've seen many different buildings of American cultural significance, and enjoyed the differing city planning and building styles. They are certainly not all ghettos and suburbs (but then suburbs are an American culture that I see other countries try to imitate).
You may laugh, but I had to Tallin to find out what/where it was. My geography skills have always been pretty poor, but this isn't surprising. Americans have a hard time learning about the rest of the world because it is so far removed from them. Estonia? Usually you learn about other countries' histories by how they relate to your own. I honestly can't think of how Estonia relates to the US. I've never met anyone from there. I've never knowingly had any economic trading or seen products made in Estonia. It doesn't crop up on movies (except Encino Man from 1992), the news, or TV shows. Relevance of knowing where Estonia is to the American people at large is somewhere close to zero. You have to spend time and effort learning things to live your life, and I'd have to say that most people are better off learning something else.
Yes, I realize that makes me sound like an ego-centric American, but it just makes sense. I don't spend any time learning sewing techniques, and they have a lot more relevance to me in my daily life as a sysadmin then Estonia. My brother speaks Dutch, but has lived in the US for the past decade where he has had exactly zero opportunity to speak to anyone in Dutch (though he has managed to try and sound smart by providing some basic etymology for the random Dutch word we come across). Guess how much time he spends practicing it now? Can you guess how much time I've spent learning words from him?
If Estonia, or whatever other random country, comes up, I'll do exactly what I did tonight. Look it up and learn exactly what I need or what to know about it. Just like I do for everything else.
Genocide? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Thanksgiving traditionally has it's basis in the original European settlers to the Americas being thankful for the local American Indians saving them all from starvation one winter. And while a lot of the European immigrants purposefully killed a lot of them and drove them off their land, they weren't interested so much in genocide as much and just taking all of their land. The Nazis were trying to round up all of the Jews and kill them. That's genocide. Early American immigrants were trying to round them all up on their land and send them someplace else.
It's a vacuum out there. What slowed the solar wind down?
Forgive me, I'm not a science major.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
If you want truly identical cities, compare Manhattan to Quebec. You are right that 95% of the world wouldn't care if you made them realize the difference. However, I pride myself in noticing these things.
Regarding the math vs geography thing, I think not knowing about the existence of nation (let alone actually knowing anything about it) is pretty fucking bad. I mean it's common knowledge. It's not rocket science, it's like not knowing about colonialism or communism. I am pretty sure mathematicians in Georgia wouldn't get confused between a local administrative region and a nation.Regarding the whole Thanksgiving thing. I forgot to mention that the kid implied that I would be going back home to have Turkey with my family, which pretty stupid considering Thankgiving is more about celebrating 'Native American genocide'.
I am sure that there are plenty students that aced the equivalent of CALC IV in the country of Georgia that don't know where the state of Georgia is, or Puerto Rico. No education system in the world can will prevent the creation of idiot savants.
Regarding the origins of Thanksgiving, its realyl has little to do with celebrating the "Native American Genocide". It's origins were that of English Harvest Festival. The puritans, and later colonists were thankful for their crop. As a matter of fact colonial thanksgiving would be scheduled each year to coincide with harvest.
One more thing, Georgia, as with all 50 states is of a higher status than "a local administrative region." Of course I don't expect a foriegner on a student visa such as yourself to understand how our government is supposed to work.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
"The medium IS the message"
Your comments seem to focus on the fact that there was extremely limited permanent structure building in the area occupied by the United States 500 years ago. 500 years ago towns in Europe and other places were building structures using ideas and materials there were essentially isolated from each other. This resulted in cities that look significantly different from each other. The US on the other hand already had decent communication and transport systems in place by the time structures of significance were being built. This resulted in a lot of shared ideas and materials being used to build cities, and so less general diversity. There are still a lot of specific differences due to differences in climate, immediate materials, and cultural differences. Still, it's not like the difference between pyramids and castles.
Of course, if I want to see castles and pyramids, I have to spend a small fortune (by my standards) and travel half way around the world. In the US I can go on a road trip and see quite a bit for significantly less money (but still not that many pyramids). There are places in the US where I can barely understand the spoken language because it is so different. The foods (mostly derivatives from all over Europe) vary quite a bit too. This summer I went to see several sets of American Indian ruins there were thousands of years old. I've seen many different buildings of American cultural significance, and enjoyed the differing city planning and building styles. They are certainly not all ghettos and suburbs (but then suburbs are an American culture that I see other countries try to imitate).
Yeah, I guess when you get to this point, it goes down to a matter of taste. Some ppl might prefer 'the variety' of the USA, while others prefer the 'variety' that the rest of the world has to offer. I am sure the fact that transportation networks in the USA are well developed, the USA is relatively isolated and that Americans are cheap can contribute to people's tastes. Let's put it this way, for me, most of my non-American friends and a majority of my American friends who had the opportunity to travel abroad, USA's cultural level doesn't cut it. I am glad that exploring the USA alone is working out for you and I'd like to check out more of the USA as well, but overall I don't find USA to be as interesting as other places I've been around the world.
You may laugh, but I had to Tallin to find out what/where it was. My geography skills have always been pretty poor, but this isn't surprising. Americans have a hard time learning about the rest of the world because it is so far removed from them. Estonia? Usually you learn about other countries' histories by how they relate to your own. I honestly can't think of how Estonia relates to the US. I've never met anyone from there. I've never knowingly had any economic trading or seen products made in Estonia. It doesn't crop up on movies (except Encino Man from 1992), the news, or TV shows. Relevance of knowing where Estonia is to the American people at large is somewhere close to zero. You have to spend time and effort learning things to live your life, and I'd have to say that most people are better off learning something else.
I would question your assertion about Estonia being removed from USA. I would agree that average American can easily ignore Estonia's (and pretty much 90% of the world's nations') existence and get away with it, but that doesn't mean that it makes sense to ignore it. This kind of attitude is what gets you guys into messes like Afghanistan/Iraq/Vietnam. You guys don't jack shit about these countries and you allow your politicians to do whatever the fuck they want as long as say some BS like "Terror, WMD, Terror, Saddam Hussian, Terror, WMD, Iraq". This kind of attitude is what allowed that fucktard Reagan to get away with the creation of Al-Qaeda/bin Laden. If you want to see how Estonia plays into the bigger picture, just look at what's behind your recent failures in implementing sanctions against
From the wiki article linked in the summary
.. Whats up with that?
", it was announced that Voyager 1 had crossed the termination shock and entered the heliosheath in December 2004, at a distance of 85 AU. In contrast, Voyager II began detecting returning particles suggesting it was entering the termination shock when it was only 76 AU from the sun, in May 2006. This implies that the heliosphere may be irregularly shaped, bulging outwards in the sun's northern hemisphere and pushed inward in the south. "
So
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I hear the USS Enterprise make power-up warp sounds and Darth Vader's Tigh fighters screech across interstellar space with Doppler pitch shifts all the time while in a vacuum. What about that cool rumbling power of Borg cubes?
Also, what about the cataclysmic explosion one hears when a star supernovas with a small dose of trilithium? How could you hear that if sound traveled at zero ft/sec?
From the amount of rabid (and normal) replies, I see I've touched a pretty painful spot for Americans. I wonder what that could mean...
Let's see, you go to a major city in the US, you have buildings, electricity, water, thriving industry and shops, a large wealthy class, high speed internet cafes, etc. You go to Holland, all of those apply, although there are some cultural differences, there is still the "Western City" atmosphere. Now travel to a reservation, say Fort Defiance, and look at the massive poverty, the large unsettled stretches, the falling apart cars, dialup if you find a computer at all, etc. Tell me which one feels more like Massachusetts...
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Your assertion that Americans are cheap is a bit of a low blow, it's more that transportation is different. I know lots of people in Europe, and many of them have traveled around Europe quite a bit. Heck, you can get rail passes and travel Europe for relatively small amounts. You don't have that option in the US, and just getting to Europe will cost you more than a few weeks of traveling around Europe. Plane tickets overseas cost a lot of money and time. Because less people can or are inclined to afford it, it produces some isolationist attitudes where people are less likely to travel outside the US anyway.
Heck, I could easily travel around the US for a few weeks for less than one day in Europe.
Your post only served to further encourage that sentiment.
"From the amount of rabid (and normal) replies, I see I've touched a pretty painful spot for Americans. I wonder what that could mean..."
It means you're being a bit of a dick, but this is an interesting subject. Anyhow, 2 things. One, the diversity of America is different from the diversity of Europe. For one, we have massive ecological and geographic diversity. Some of the taller mountains in the world, deserts, strange natural rock formations, rainforests, vast plains, the largest trees in the world, swamps, canyons, etc. Secondly, the cultural diversity isn't so much that various cities are really different, as much as the people or neighborhoods are often different even within areas. For instance, if I want Russian food I can go to my Russian friend's house. Or Vietnamese, I can go to a Vietnamese friend's house. Chinese, Mexican, same. My parents grew up in an Iraqi neighborhood....in Detroit. Yeah, our houses may look similar, but the people who live in them have very different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. That's often more than you can say for a lot of other places, where foreigners are rarer. Also, on states, they were very nearly all different sovereign countries 200 years ago, so they are more than "local administrative units."
The difference is not in the degree of cultural spread, it's in the way the people are scattered. There are thousands of enclaves in this country. Yeah, okay, so the Ukraine has all kinds of variety. That's great. I'm willing to bet that there are actually groups of both Russian- and Ukranian-speaking Ukranians here. I'm pretty certain that you'll find many different categories of Indians. There are Irish communities, there are African communities (especially in the east). There are very large Asian communities (especially in the west).
It seems ridiculous that you can say there's zero culture in the U.S., then go and talk about all the variety to be found in the rest of the world. The truth is that this is a country filled with groups from everywhere. You might think that this at least means that the U.S. has no culture of its own, but I think that's wrong too. I think that the interactions between all these groups creates something new.
And, by the way, I think that's something that you really only notice if you're a resident, a member of the community. You seem to be seeing a lot of things from the eyes of a tourist -- you see the veneer, but not the nitty-gritty underneath.
In all seriousness, of the 17 countries and states of the US, in how many have you actually done one or both of the following:
A) Attended a wedding or funeral for a local-born person whom you know independently of the rest of your family.
B) Participated in a significant community activity unconnected with a university (e.g, coaching or participating in a sport, participating in local political debates/forums).
The U.S. as a nation has existed for a little over 200 years. The various Native American tribes had no interest in permanently altering the land. England, on the other hand, stretches way back to 1066. Of course they'll have a lot more really cool landmarks. Europe has castles, because they were once a viable means of defense, and were constructed in such a way that they last pretty much forever. If you're looking for recent European landmarks, you'll find the Eiffel Tower, the London Eye, a bunch of sites that are notable mostly because of WWI and WWII, and that's about it. Europe has inherited its rich culture, America just hasn't had the time, and now it may never get the chance to build its own.
Now, don't get me wrong. I have the utmost appreciation for Europe's rich heritage. But we're the historical equivalent of the nouveau riche. The only thing that will put us on an even footing is more time, and blaming the current crop of Americans for that is useless, and only causes more strife. Feel free to keep insulting us individually, though, and for things that we deserve. Nationalism shouldn't excuse stupidity.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
And then bounces back off the glass of some cosmic snow globe.
Assuming you're in the US, then you have a damn good chance of being part of a second bubonic plague.
Bullshit. Most parts of Spain are 4-5 hours away from France or Portugal. The same can be said about France or Germany. Great Britain or Italy (specially the south) is much worse. Just take a map and verify it yourself (by the way, we don't have the luxury of long stright flat roads you have).
I just did it last year. Just replace New Orleans and Yellowstone for Las Vegas and Chicago (OK, the only thing I saw in NY and Chicago was the international airport but still...)
Where's the "noonecanhearyouscream" tag?
"Europeans in general don't understand this"
"In most of Europe you can be to another country in an hour or two."
"is like wanting to travel from Moscow to London"
Ehmm, and Americans in general don't understand that Moscow is in Europe...
Well Said.
My mistake. I meant the island of Montreal, where like NYC you cannot make a right on red. Granted it lacks the sprawl of NYC, but its a port city with a diverse immigrant population. Also both cities are older than their current sovereign governments. I think we just look at cities in different ways. However, I feel that the feel of Montreal is closer to NYC than the feel of LA is to NYC.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
You're using the same argument by quantity that you just got done blasting: you say "EU Theory is not *popular*" and then you say "who have been reading astrophysical papers for 30 years" as if that's persuasive. There are still other such people who've been working on astrophysics at least that long who've reached different conclusions. We won't have to wait much longer to have the truth explained to us? I might be anxious like you for that event if it would shut you people up, but I don't think you'll accept any disproof anyway so I'm indifferent.
Who would have ever thought there would be a 'shock' once we pass Uranus?
Oh WOW, 4-5 hours away! That's soooooo far!
Oh wait, if you're in Nevada it takes you 8 hours just to get from Las Vegas to Reno, and you're not even leaving the state. Get some perspective. 4-5 hours is nothing. I drove that almost every week to get from home to college in Virginia, without leaving the state. And Virginia is a relatively *small* state.
I would *love* to be able to drive 4-5 hours and be in a completely different country with its own language, customs, etc. The closest I get is driving down to North Carolina and not being able to understand the natives because their accent is so bad. But even then, half of the people are mexican immigrants.
most =/= all
But without degenerating into the inadequacies of generalizations, the point is that for many Europeans it is easy to day trip to other countries cheaply, and it is also likely in day to day business affairs that speaking another language will be of some use. In the US this is not the case. The exception being that speaking Spanish can be useful in some areas.
As for your trip, visiting some cities and landmarks in the west and flying through NY and Chicago hardly makes your point. Other than the cities where you just at the airport, everything you note is within less than a day's driving distance.