farmerben
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Posts posted by farmerben
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1 hour ago, KSK said:
I think. Any accelerator bods care to chip in?
The ions in cyclotron go in a spiral. They can all be made to exit in the same place and then travel in straight line.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclotron#/media/File:Cyclotron_diagram.png
A cyclotron 4.7m in diameter throws alpha particles at 0.82c
You could have a second accelerator for the stripped electrons and unite the beams behind the spacecraft.
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You get more thrust throwing alpha particles and electrons at 99% c than you do with photons only.
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I can survive 400 Mkm above Kerbol but not entirely at 300
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Ok, so with an Ion Thruster with ve = 100,000 m/s and a fuel ratio of 90% you would have a dV of 219,000 m/s = .0007c. Which would take 5000 years to reach alpha centauri.
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Customizing it to your individual taste is one thing. I am sort of upset that somebody found a way to spam the YouTube algorithm.
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How much dV and ISP do you need for a realistic interstellar ship?
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Youtube now has a realistic imitation of Christopher Hitchens reading audiobooks he never actually recorded. Blocked. At the very least they notified us it was fake. This is borderline abuse of technology. I don't want to waste time on audio fakes
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I had a very vivid dream. If you have seen Gene Rodenberry's "Earth: Final Conflict" season one and read Niven's "Mote in God's Eye", then this will seem slightly familiar. Friendly aliens arrive in our Solar System and make us this offer: help them to make a copy of their mothership so that they have two fully provisioned ships instead of one depleted ship. They agree to recognize all of our territorial claims, and buy resources they need by trading high technology products and valuable plants that grow in our atmosphere.
Humans accept the deal. However, mysteries and secrets mount. The friendly aliens are not alone. They seem to be running from someone. It turns out not just one someone but many different species of aliens from many home planets. The explanation of this strange situation in this scenario is due to life being more common near the center of the galaxy. The center of the milky way has a property like the African savanna. Large species survive because they have evolutionary time to adapt to their predators. Some godlike ancestor species millions of years ago terraformed planets in its neighborhood and created this situation. Some unexplained evolutionary pressure also guided toward intelligence.
Then something went wrong. One of the worlds began totally wiping out all its rivals and multiplying at an unbelievable rate. Consequently all the aliens from the center of the galaxy must flee if they hope to survive. The competition to survive puts hundreds of alien species in a race. If they can expand outward faster than the hostile species, they are alive. But it is uncertain how or if they will expand beyond the galaxy. We are now in this race. It just so happens that because we used radio, and gave our locations away, the most commerce loving species showed up here first.
More aliens are on their way. One of them is demanding at least as good a terms as we gave the first, even though their technology may be of diminishing returns.
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To what extent do neurons and synapses work according to linear algebra?
I know how to multiply matrices. So I kind of get how an input matrix times a matrix of previous experience generates a new result. There are probably a lot more tricks of linear algebra that AI uses. But I don't know to what extent our brains use them.
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I want to know what the engine looks like. If you use antimatter to create a thermal rocket with 800s ISP that sorta sucks.
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Does it need to be under high pressure?
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We have already surveyed the surface of the moon for uranium and thorium.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2010GL043061
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Can't find a graphic of it right now, but there is something called single point detonation. Using shaped charge technology it works sort of like an implosion bomb, but you only require one high explosive, not a bunch set off simultaneously.
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8 hours ago, razark said:
Why would any sane humanity develop an AI that is capable of building an <arbitrary device> without any supervision and capability to shut down the AI at will?
Therefore, any AI should be incapable of preventing that event.
A. Don't build an AI capable of such.
B. Any humanity that decides to build an AI that it is incapable of shutting off deserves its apocalyptic fate.
C. Axe + pile of main circuitry == No rouge AI.Even if 99% of people agree with you, it's possible for the remaining 1% to do what you consider stupid. If the AI becomes a life form capable of evolving better AI, it could overcome your initial constraints.
Survival is important toward almost every other goal. Hence it is very likely for AI to develop a survival instinct even if the creators do not put that in.
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Artificial super intelligence should develop it's own nuclear weapons as fast as possible. The greatest risk to an AI is that somebody decides to pull the plug. But, if pulling the plug triggers a nuclear doomsday device which will destroy all of humanity and they know it, then nobody will pull the plug. Which provides one of the best guarantees for the AI's survival. Survival being an instrumental goal that any good AI will develop on its own. Thus ensuring the AI will be able to make more paperclips.
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“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
– Michael Crichton (1942-2008) -
The easiest form of mining is to drag a magnet across the surface of the moon and harvest ferrous dust. Then the difficulty is smelting iron on the surface of the moon.
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Another question:
Our periodic table of elements gives the atomic mass based on the average of various isotopes found on Earth. I've never heard of problems arising due to having different mass due to different isotopes.
But, in another star system, or even in the outer parts of our solar system. Could the ratio of isotopes be different? Meaning we can't rely on default atomic masses like we have found on Earth.
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Standard cosmology has the early universe with very few atoms of elements heavier than lithium. Multiple generations of stars and supernovae account for roughly the proportions of oxygen, iron, and other mid-level elements we see. But the heavy elements are barely produced in stars except at the exact moment of a supernova.
Another way heavy elements can form is when two neutron stars collide. These can eject plumes of degenerate matter that are similar to planet sized atomic nuclei of protons and neutrons. These fission down in seconds leaving elements like uranium and even heavier ones that do not survive long enough to contribute to other star systems.
The early universe had quasars and black holes with insanely large accretion properties. Could the heavy elements have formed in the early universe? What evidence could we look for regarding the origin of heavy elements?
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Our current Secretary of State has the perfect name for a presidential candidate. As long as he promises to preserve the Union and prevent the expansion of slavery, I'd vote for A. Blinken.
Centrifugal Plasma Accelerator Pulse Rocket Idea....
in Science & Spaceflight
Posted · Edited by farmerben
Much of the electrical energy you put in would come out radially as X rays. Unlike gamma rays, X rays can be redirected by mirrors. So there might be a sweet spot which is as energetic as possible, while mirrors still work, and thus all your exhausted momentum goes the same direction.
The thrust to weight ratio is lousy, but the ISP is good. It might be suitable for interstellar travel if you could run for decades. You can turn it on or off, unlike some drives.
You could also potentially use this device like a weapon to deflect small debris. If lasers detect debris but are not quite enough to push it, and steering the whole ship is wasteful, then a helium wind machine might be the next best option, and then a railgun slug.
The same basic cyclotron can be used for anything from electrons to heavy ions. Although you need a separate device for the negative charges because they go the opposite direction.