you had to list your cell phone number? It'll be a very sad day when solicitors start calling my cell using my minutes that I pay for
It's already illegal for telemarketers to call cell phones, for that reason. There may be some loophole for those which you have a "established business relationship" with.
That's a 29-hour year. A 29-hour day isn't impressive in any way.
Hold off on the colony ships.
It's a gas giant. Colony ships wouldn't be useful even if it was at a livable temperature. Granted, overly large moons might be habitable for some gas giants, but we'd have to be able to find them first.
I wonder what alien astonomers looking at our solar system are thinking? (Something like: "No chance intelligent life could exist there.")
Molecular oxygen in an atmosphere implies life of some sort, as most non-biological processes reduce the amount of free oxygen. Once you've got evidence of life, you've crossed one of the major hurdles to finding intelligent life.
If you've got enough viewing ability to take spectral readings of individual planets in a system, you can make pretty good guesses about which ones have some sort of life on them.
If our alien astronomers have a technology level equivalent to ours roughly ten years ago or earlier, they're not going to see anything other than the Sun. If they're as advanced as we are, they might be able to see Jupiter, if they're close enough. If they're more advanced, then what they can tell about us depends on just how advanced they are.
Well, I don't think there is just one magical number for the pressure...
Of course not. The magical number is two numbers that locate what is called the triple point, where solid, liquid, and vapor phases of a substance can coexist. A triple point is commonly defined by pressure and temperature.
If your pressure is higher than the pressure at the triple point, then you can have solid, liquid, or vapor. What you have is dependent on temperature. If the pressure is equal to the pressure at the triple point, you can have solid, vapor, or a mixture of solid, vapor, and liquid.
If the pressure is lower, you can only have solid or vapor. No liquid phase. Sublimation.
Now, just to put a rest to this, I'm digging up the actual numbers. The triple point of water occurs at 0.6113 kPa and 0.01 C. Atmospheric pressure on Mars is a bit variable, but is perilously close to the magic 0.6113 kPa. Now, according to NASA, Mars Pathfinder reported a minimum pressure of 0.67 kPa. This means that liquid water could exist at the Pathfinder site today, but would be restricted to a very narrow temperature range.
However, this assumes that the atmospheric pressure on Mars has never dropped below 0.6113 kPa, which is unlikely given that its current pressure is so close to that number. As soon as the pressure drops below that value, all your liquid water goes to vapor. I'm not qualified to say exactly what happens next, but it's probably much easier for a planet to lose water vapor than liquid water.
So, while you could take a cup of ice water outside your Mars habitat without losing all the liquid (and a good deal of the ice), you are unlikely to find any liquid water on Mars's surface today after several billion years of climate variation.
Why give up hope?
Because wishful thinking cannae change the laws of physics!
(Hooray, I'm getting some use out of my thermodynamics class!)
... some smartass oriental company will introduce a cell phone where the owner can either key-in his own ring-tone...
I remember sitting in a quiet sitting area in the local university's student center several months ago. There was a guy about 20 feet away programming the Super Mario Bros. theme into his cell phone.
If you think cell phones are annoying now, wait until you've heard the first five notes of a song repeated as a person tries to find the next note by trial and error.
I agree with the principle, here, but isn't there a corollary to Godwin's Law stating that you're not actually allowed to verbally invoke Godwin's Law?
No, but there is a corollary that says you cannot intentionally invoke Godwin's Law just to get people to shut up.
This is just what Big Brother needs. Cheap mass storage to collect info from you will be a breeze now. Electronic sniffing noses, spy cams, facial recognition software, the Total Information Awareness project will all join together to track every thing about you, and store it on disc.
Yeah, and the hard part of this won't be installing a smart tracking system capable of autonomously watching everyone 24/7, but finding portable media big enough to store the data.
Does that mean I'll be able to get an 802.11b signal in a plane?
Big metal tube = lousy reception
Re:Not that I believe aliens are buzzing Earth, bu
on
Starcraft
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
My father tells a similar story.
He was walking through a lit parking lot one hazy evening, and he noticed these cream colored blobs off in the distance. They were swooping back and forth, and performing maneuvers no aircraft could possibly handle, at least not without turning the pilot to gel. He stood there watching for several minutes, because he was certain he was seeing real live UFOs.
Then one of them swooped down and ate a bug that was circling one of the parking lot lights.
He's had a rather skeptical view of UFO claims since.
Remember kids, lighting and atmospheric conditions can make even ordinary events like birds looking for an easy meal look odd.
Remember, it takes 4 minutes for light from our closest neighboring star to reach earth, traveling at, well, the speed of light.
If you mean the Sun, then you're wrong. It takes light from the Sun about 8.5 minutes to reach Earth.
If you mean Proxima Centauri, you're still wrong. Light takes just over 4 years to reach Earth from there.
You're off by either a factor of 2, or a factor of 365.
In all probability, this CHIPS will be using radio frequencies which are much, much slower.
Somebody needs to take an E&M class. All electromagnetic waves travel at c (~300,000,000 m/s) in a vacuum. This includes light and radio. Where you got the impression that radio waves travel slower than light, I don't know.
And don't try to cop out by saying you meant radio has a slower data rate, it's quite clear you meant velocity.
So, in college, I worked with some astrophysicists at the Enrico Fermi Institute, which is where they build nuclear powered satellites, and took some classes from professors at at The Laboratory for Advanced Space Research...
Yeah, right. Right now, I'm have a hard time believing you managed to pass a basic college physics class.
Compare the view that science fiction has of our future NOW to the view expressed in 1930, 1940, 1950.
The popular view, perhaps.
Let's not forget when some of the classic novels of future distopias and/or science run amuck were published.
1984 - 1949
Brave New World - 1939
I could probably list more, but my brain is a bit frazzled at the moment. Hell, there's Frankenstein, although it falls pretty far outside your time range.
- New moderation options: +1 Sweet, +1 Thoughtful, +1 Caring, and -1 You Don't Smile Like That To Me Anymore.
On the plus side, we also finally get the -1 Wrong option so many of us have wanted. Unfortunately, it can only be applied by female readers to male posters, and cannot be overridden, even when the male is in fact right.
Whoa now. Back the conspiracy truck up. adjust the tinfoil cap. ok, better? Let's stop searching everyone. Let's allow everyone unfettered access to where ever. The subway, your house, my house. but when the bomb goes off and we're all obliterated, well, on second thought, let's search people, in PUBLIC PLACES.
Although I can't find a decent reference at the moment, except for a snippet from the back cover of a book roblimo wrote about making profitable websites.
Pretty much correct, except for a minor nitpick. By looking at the Phase Diagram for Water and the Atmospheric Pressure on Europa (10^-6 Pa), you would only need to warm the ice to about 210 K, or -63C
The pressure is going to increase fairly rapidly as you descend. So you would need increasing amounts of heat the further down you go, assuming a homogenous temperature in the ice.
Slashdot Mirror
The difference between 1.00 and 0.95 is significant.
The difference between 1.00 and 0.95 (plus or minus) 0.25 is not.
(My browser doesn't seem to be rendering the ± entity)
It's already illegal for telemarketers to call cell phones, for that reason. There may be some loophole for those which you have a "established business relationship" with.
That's a 29-hour year. A 29-hour day isn't impressive in any way.
It's a gas giant. Colony ships wouldn't be useful even if it was at a livable temperature. Granted, overly large moons might be habitable for some gas giants, but we'd have to be able to find them first.
Molecular oxygen in an atmosphere implies life of some sort, as most non-biological processes reduce the amount of free oxygen. Once you've got evidence of life, you've crossed one of the major hurdles to finding intelligent life.
If you've got enough viewing ability to take spectral readings of individual planets in a system, you can make pretty good guesses about which ones have some sort of life on them.
If our alien astronomers have a technology level equivalent to ours roughly ten years ago or earlier, they're not going to see anything other than the Sun. If they're as advanced as we are, they might be able to see Jupiter, if they're close enough. If they're more advanced, then what they can tell about us depends on just how advanced they are.
Of course not. The magical number is two numbers that locate what is called the triple point, where solid, liquid, and vapor phases of a substance can coexist. A triple point is commonly defined by pressure and temperature.
If your pressure is higher than the pressure at the triple point, then you can have solid, liquid, or vapor. What you have is dependent on temperature. If the pressure is equal to the pressure at the triple point, you can have solid, vapor, or a mixture of solid, vapor, and liquid.
If the pressure is lower, you can only have solid or vapor. No liquid phase. Sublimation.
Now, just to put a rest to this, I'm digging up the actual numbers. The triple point of water occurs at 0.6113 kPa and 0.01 C. Atmospheric pressure on Mars is a bit variable, but is perilously close to the magic 0.6113 kPa. Now, according to NASA, Mars Pathfinder reported a minimum pressure of 0.67 kPa. This means that liquid water could exist at the Pathfinder site today, but would be restricted to a very narrow temperature range.
However, this assumes that the atmospheric pressure on Mars has never dropped below 0.6113 kPa, which is unlikely given that its current pressure is so close to that number. As soon as the pressure drops below that value, all your liquid water goes to vapor. I'm not qualified to say exactly what happens next, but it's probably much easier for a planet to lose water vapor than liquid water.
So, while you could take a cup of ice water outside your Mars habitat without losing all the liquid (and a good deal of the ice), you are unlikely to find any liquid water on Mars's surface today after several billion years of climate variation.
Because wishful thinking cannae change the laws of physics!
(Hooray, I'm getting some use out of my thermodynamics class!)
What's to dispute? The properties of water are well-known. All you need is the Martian atmospheric pressure and a full set of steam tables.
I remember sitting in a quiet sitting area in the local university's student center several months ago. There was a guy about 20 feet away programming the Super Mario Bros. theme into his cell phone.
If you think cell phones are annoying now, wait until you've heard the first five notes of a song repeated as a person tries to find the next note by trial and error.
No, but there is a corollary that says you cannot intentionally invoke Godwin's Law just to get people to shut up.
Note that this is on a passenger-mile basis. The plane itself is obviously not getting 40 mpg.
Yeah, and the hard part of this won't be installing a smart tracking system capable of autonomously watching everyone 24/7, but finding portable media big enough to store the data.
Here's $0.50, buy a clue.
I see your vapor-kernel, and raise you a Moller Skycar. He's been promising it since the 1960's.
Surface area goes up with the square of the radius.
Volume (and therefore lifting ability) goes up with the cube.
Thus, the ability to lift stationkeeping engines goes up faster than the need for them.
This of course ignores any structural problems in making a bigger airship.
Big metal tube = lousy reception
My father tells a similar story.
He was walking through a lit parking lot one hazy evening, and he noticed these cream colored blobs off in the distance. They were swooping back and forth, and performing maneuvers no aircraft could possibly handle, at least not without turning the pilot to gel. He stood there watching for several minutes, because he was certain he was seeing real live UFOs.
Then one of them swooped down and ate a bug that was circling one of the parking lot lights.
He's had a rather skeptical view of UFO claims since.
Remember kids, lighting and atmospheric conditions can make even ordinary events like birds looking for an easy meal look odd.
If you mean the Sun, then you're wrong. It takes light from the Sun about 8.5 minutes to reach Earth.
If you mean Proxima Centauri, you're still wrong. Light takes just over 4 years to reach Earth from there.
You're off by either a factor of 2, or a factor of 365.
Somebody needs to take an E&M class. All electromagnetic waves travel at c (~300,000,000 m/s) in a vacuum. This includes light and radio. Where you got the impression that radio waves travel slower than light, I don't know.
And don't try to cop out by saying you meant radio has a slower data rate, it's quite clear you meant velocity.
Yeah, right. Right now, I'm have a hard time believing you managed to pass a basic college physics class.
Find out what slashdot's admins did the couple of times they moved their servers.
Then don't do that.
The popular view, perhaps.
Let's not forget when some of the classic novels of future distopias and/or science run amuck were published.
I could probably list more, but my brain is a bit frazzled at the moment. Hell, there's Frankenstein, although it falls pretty far outside your time range.
On the plus side, we also finally get the -1 Wrong option so many of us have wanted. Unfortunately, it can only be applied by female readers to male posters, and cannot be overridden, even when the male is in fact right.
Welcome to science, where everything is theory, even the stuff we call "law".
False dichotomy. Score: -12, Idiot/Troll
It's a reference to Yakov Smirnoff's comedy routine from back when there was a Soviet Russia.
The only actual example of a real Smirnoff joke of this form that I can find is:
Which is rather more insightful than most slashdotters' attempts.Both.
Yes.
Although I can't find a decent reference at the moment, except for a snippet from the back cover of a book roblimo wrote about making profitable websites.
In even more breaking news, Slashdot posters stick their feet in their mouths up to the knee.
Electromagnetic radiation isn't electricity, it is light (and associated photons at wavelengths outside the visible portion of the spectrum).
The pressure is going to increase fairly rapidly as you descend. So you would need increasing amounts of heat the further down you go, assuming a homogenous temperature in the ice.
Gives a whole new meaning to Guru Meditation...