If you use and like the amenities that become possible with technology, then calling technology a "job terminator" is at best hypocrisy.
Also, a lot of the stuff we do with technology simply wouldn't be feasible with manual labor - we'd just do without a lot of stuff because it would be too expensive to do. So it's really hard to calculate how many people would be working if we didn't have technology vs how many actually are working; you can't just subtract out all our machines and figure out how many people it would take to do the same amount of work.
Not really what you're asking (I think you're asking about forcing vis-a-vis an Ice Age), but there are issues of equilibrium. I suspect that if we completely stopped all emissions the would would continue to warm for a while before it started cooling off. But eventually the temperature would come into an equilibrium vis-a-vis how much crap is in the atmosphere, and as the planet cleans the atmosphere the equilibrium temperature would fall, and the actual temperature would lag a bit behind it.
Not quite astronomy but just wondering if you think the human race will achieve some sort of "Singularity" brought about by A.I. and/or nano-technology? Within this century?
The "Singularity" is nonsense. Take an AI class or read through a textbook, and the problem will become obvious. Faster computers aren't smarter computers. A faster chess-playing program is just a faster chess-playing program. It may play better because it can search the game tree deeper, but it's still a stupid chess-playing program: no amount of speed-up will result in a singularity.
Anyone who thinks there will be a singularity this century is either ignorant (excusable) or a crank (not excusable).
I agree with the general thrust of you post: the biggest threat is deliberate misinformation, which may be motivated by politics, cult beliefs, etc. But a lot of people are deliberately peddling nonsense, for goals other than understanding the universe. It's not just ignorance, sloppy reporting, etc.
Having read today that some astronomers claim to have resolved the discrepancy between the giant nebula surrounding the oldest observed supernova (by Chinese astronomers) is there any chance that that supernova could've been responsible for the star of Bethlehem?
According to the biblical narrative, it "travelled before them" and came to a stop over Bethlehem. That would be funny behavior for a supernova.
Has anything emerged since the debunking of Pons/Fleischmann that gives any credence to cold fusion?
I think you have to decide what you mean by "cold fusion". AFAICT the P/F experiment was nonsense, but sometimes people make completely different claims of fusion in "cold" environments. For example, there was something about bubbles collapsing in a glass of wine giving rise to temperatures high enough to cause fusion, though in few enough molecules that the glass was still "room temperature".
I'm not an expert on any of this, but the point is you may have to list categories of "cold fusion phenomena", and give different answers for different categories.
I read that it is impossible to travel or even send information faster than light.
A question that interests me is, is there any reason to believe that information cannot be transmitted faster than light, other than that it would violate causality?
I.e., is the rule of causality an established fact, or just an axiom that we think/believe/hope is true?
How long do we have to put up with the notion of "Dark Matter"? Whenever I research this, I come back to the "galactic rotation problem" as the most solid evidence.
There are actually multiple lines of evidence for dark matter. That Other Astronomy Blog, which has a long rant^w article about dark matter about once a week, says that galactic rotation is actually the one observation where MOND (modification of Newtonian dynamics) can actually beat dark matter in predictive accuracy. But it doesn't help in the least for the other observations that tell us that there is dark matter out there.
With all the resurgence of hysteria due to 2012 as well as recent major earthquakes, pseudo-scientific explanations to otherwise natural phenomena are becoming the norm of the day.
What's funny is that all of God's message boys agree that a hurricane or earthquake is a warning from God, but they can't agree on whether it's because we're too tolerant of Teh Gay, too tolerant of abortions, too tolerant of Muslims, or too tolerant of spending tax revenues on poor people.
Maybe God told them that He didit, and they're just guessing at His reasons.
I support the Greek pronunciation to solve that problem: U (well, upsilon, really) is always 'ooh' as in 'food'
Actually, the Greek spelling is ouranos. Pronounced as "ooh" in late Attic, but may have been a dipthong earlier. (not sure)
Also, FWIW, upsilon was pronounced as Modern German's u-umlaut in the influential Attic dialect (Attic = Athenian, main source of koine/Biblical/Hellenistic Greek), though prounounced as you stated in most of the less-known dialects. That's why 'y' was added to the Roman alphabet, rather than just reusing 'u'. (And some languages still call the 'y' "i-grek" or the like.)
Recently, if I'm not mistaken, they proved (or at least suggested) the Big Bang Singularity was spinning, and thus... had angular momentum to start. And that explains the "left handedness" of the spin in the universe.
a) Can a singularity spin? (Wouldn't a non-zero radius be required?)
b) What does "spin" mean, when "everything" is spinning?
Related to this, I've always wondered if instead of thinking of the universe as expanding, if we could equally look at the situation as if the time itself was slowing down in the empty spaces instead?
*my* conclusion is that everyone would be better served if "ancient alien" and "ghost-hunting" programs were shifted off channels like History and Discovery and onto something dedicated to "off-beat" theories.
My question is, does Badass Astronomer consider them to be "theories".
Slashdot Mirror
My essay on things that sound too good to be true: they aren't.
/me strokes evil white pussy.
Ah, so you've met my girlfriend.
Can we stick to real life please?
You're new here, aren't you.
He's putting the buggy whip manufacturers out of business!
By letting robots make the buggy whips?
If you use and like the amenities that become possible with technology, then calling technology a "job terminator" is at best hypocrisy.
Also, a lot of the stuff we do with technology simply wouldn't be feasible with manual labor - we'd just do without a lot of stuff because it would be too expensive to do. So it's really hard to calculate how many people would be working if we didn't have technology vs how many actually are working; you can't just subtract out all our machines and figure out how many people it would take to do the same amount of work.
Not really what you're asking (I think you're asking about forcing vis-a-vis an Ice Age), but there are issues of equilibrium. I suspect that if we completely stopped all emissions the would would continue to warm for a while before it started cooling off. But eventually the temperature would come into an equilibrium vis-a-vis how much crap is in the atmosphere, and as the planet cleans the atmosphere the equilibrium temperature would fall, and the actual temperature would lag a bit behind it.
Not quite astronomy but just wondering if you think the human race will achieve some sort of "Singularity" brought about by A.I. and/or nano-technology? Within this century?
The "Singularity" is nonsense. Take an AI class or read through a textbook, and the problem will become obvious. Faster computers aren't smarter computers. A faster chess-playing program is just a faster chess-playing program. It may play better because it can search the game tree deeper, but it's still a stupid chess-playing program: no amount of speed-up will result in a singularity.
Anyone who thinks there will be a singularity this century is either ignorant (excusable) or a crank (not excusable).
I have the feeling that dark matter and energy are just excuses to get our incomplete models fit with our incomplete observation of the universe.
Arguably, that's what all science is.
Don't say it like it's a bad thing: matching theories to evidence is what science does.
I agree with the general thrust of you post: the biggest threat is deliberate misinformation, which may be motivated by politics, cult beliefs, etc. But a lot of people are deliberately peddling nonsense, for goals other than understanding the universe. It's not just ignorance, sloppy reporting, etc.
Please give me the one simple proof that I can tell my wife that she will finally believe that we actually went to the moon!
Recent telescopic views of the landing sites?
Lasers bouncing off the reflector we left there, for the past 40 years?
Nah, all that is faked too. If someone won't accept evidence, they won't accept the conclusion it leads to.
Having read today that some astronomers claim to have resolved the discrepancy between the giant nebula surrounding the oldest observed supernova (by Chinese astronomers) is there any chance that that supernova could've been responsible for the star of Bethlehem?
According to the biblical narrative, it "travelled before them" and came to a stop over Bethlehem. That would be funny behavior for a supernova.
What do you think is the answer to Fermi's question? That is, why do you think we see no signs of intelligent life other than humans?
The ones that advertise themselves get eaten first.
Has anything emerged since the debunking of Pons/Fleischmann that gives any credence to cold fusion?
I think you have to decide what you mean by "cold fusion". AFAICT the P/F experiment was nonsense, but sometimes people make completely different claims of fusion in "cold" environments. For example, there was something about bubbles collapsing in a glass of wine giving rise to temperatures high enough to cause fusion, though in few enough molecules that the glass was still "room temperature".
I'm not an expert on any of this, but the point is you may have to list categories of "cold fusion phenomena", and give different answers for different categories.
I read that it is impossible to travel or even send information faster than light.
A question that interests me is, is there any reason to believe that information cannot be transmitted faster than light, other than that it would violate causality?
I.e., is the rule of causality an established fact, or just an axiom that we think/believe/hope is true?
How long do we have to put up with the notion of "Dark Matter"? Whenever I research this, I come back to the "galactic rotation problem" as the most solid evidence.
There are actually multiple lines of evidence for dark matter. That Other Astronomy Blog, which has a long rant^w article about dark matter about once a week, says that galactic rotation is actually the one observation where MOND (modification of Newtonian dynamics) can actually beat dark matter in predictive accuracy. But it doesn't help in the least for the other observations that tell us that there is dark matter out there.
With all the resurgence of hysteria due to 2012 as well as recent major earthquakes, pseudo-scientific explanations to otherwise natural phenomena are becoming the norm of the day.
What's funny is that all of God's message boys agree that a hurricane or earthquake is a warning from God, but they can't agree on whether it's because we're too tolerant of Teh Gay, too tolerant of abortions, too tolerant of Muslims, or too tolerant of spending tax revenues on poor people.
Maybe God told them that He didit, and they're just guessing at His reasons.
Or maybe they're just making the whole thing up.
I support the Greek pronunciation to solve that problem: U (well, upsilon, really) is always 'ooh' as in 'food'
Actually, the Greek spelling is ouranos. Pronounced as "ooh" in late Attic, but may have been a dipthong earlier. (not sure)
Also, FWIW, upsilon was pronounced as Modern German's u-umlaut in the influential Attic dialect (Attic = Athenian, main source of koine/Biblical/Hellenistic Greek), though prounounced as you stated in most of the less-known dialects. That's why 'y' was added to the Roman alphabet, rather than just reusing 'u'. (And some languages still call the 'y' "i-grek" or the like.)
Do you find joy in anything that goes against the mainstream?
In our society, sticking to the facts is a radical position to take.
I'd have expected to see a cluster of bodies tumbling chaotically.
There are galaxies like that.
I thought you would have linked to "orgy".
Recently, if I'm not mistaken, they proved (or at least suggested) the Big Bang Singularity was spinning, and thus ... had angular momentum to start. And that explains the "left handedness" of the spin in the universe.
a) Can a singularity spin? (Wouldn't a non-zero radius be required?)
b) What does "spin" mean, when "everything" is spinning?
Related to this, I've always wondered if instead of thinking of the universe as expanding, if we could equally look at the situation as if the time itself was slowing down in the empty spaces instead?
Your are close to the Tao of TimeCube Cosmology.
*my* conclusion is that everyone would be better served if "ancient alien" and "ghost-hunting" programs were shifted off channels like History and Discovery and onto something dedicated to "off-beat" theories.
My question is, does Badass Astronomer consider them to be "theories".
FWIW, I don't.
and by the way, why is that show on so often? I swear, every other week they play it.
Maybe they're trying to shake off the "Hitler Channel" stereotype.
Wouldn't it make more sense for the universe to be empty?
If the universe was empty, "make sense" wouldn't exist.
if you disagree, call your Member's number.
Sorry, but I can't decide whether to make this joke a little bit vulgar or a whole lot vulgar.