WestAir

Well that's discerning, but at least enlightening.

K^2, Thanks for the explanation. While you're still here, would you mind explaining to me why my slightly off-topic thought experiment won't work? Here's the jist, from another thread: It sounds like, if QM and Relativity could be assumed to flesh out evenly with this experiment, that 3x10^20 Joules is the single energy requirement below a value of infinity [today], and adding more energy would do nothing to accelerate the proton further [until the future when spacetime expands further]. It also means that the energy required to reach "a quanta below infinity" changes based on the distance being measured, and you can only reach true infinity with a distance of infinity... Unless I'm dead wrong, which is really what I'd like to know from the above wall-o-text.

A thumb drive that's really a thumb. Hahaha. Puns...

Really quick question: If accelerating an object to relativistic speeds increases its mass, and there is no limit to how fast you can accelerate an object (because infinity is the limit), then: Is it possible to accelerate an object so fast that its mass increases to the point where it is massive enough to fall within its own event horizon and become a black hole? If so: Is this a local phenomenon (only apparent from a nearby observers POV) and if so, how does relativity handle the discrepancy of what is or isn't within its own event horizon?

I don't think I'll live to be 74, so we'll both be in jar's next to each other.

We often don't. A lot of crew use a system called "Known Crew Member" to avoid losing their pocket knives or removing their shoes just to pass security. It's not always available, but it usually is.

I feel like transhumanism will take a different turn from usb-implantations. I feel like we'll be working on inventing new organs that do stuff better, faster, with fewer glitches. Carbon nano-tube bones so falls won't hurt you. Nanites to help identify and/or repair diseases, infections, and improve stuff like mylin coverings and your CNS. Blah blah blah. Hooking up to the internet or your pc, or charging a usb with your heart? I feel like such ideas be put on the backburner when compared to what else can be done with a human body.

This. The same approach is done in almost every massive industry. In the Global Security field we respond to threats after they're made apparent, not before. [For instance, it took an airline employee taking a gun through security and shooting his boss and three pilots, causing a crash, for us to change the rules requiring flight crew to be screened] In aviation it took two planes colliding over the Grand Canyon for us to decide we needed air traffic control. In the building regulatory industry it took a boss locking hundreds of factory workers into a Manhattan structure with no fire exit, resulting in a fire that slaughtered way too many people, for us to require fire doors and escape routes be made mandatory. We as a society seem content to respond to disasters, rather than prevent them. It's as if the people in charge look at the statistics of a plausible disaster and say "We have a 12.5% chance of a catastrophic disaster? Not worth the money to prevent." A trend I've noticed over the centuries is that the people who make such decisions are never the ones killed by them.

Oh snap. I'm xenophobic and didn't even realize it till I read this. I hope our ancestors can still cry, because this post was beautiful. The phrase "Good Riddance" can never be used to describe humanities extinction so long as people like you live.

Here's the better question. Is a man who is augmented with sophisticated technologies, and bio-engineered with sophisticated prosthesis (Like nano-tube bones and synthetic organs and whatnot) still human? Will such a transhuman even meld with todays society? I can't help but feel like if we start churning out super humans, they'll be a greater threat to humanity than any of the above because they'll start to replace us natural-born people. We'd be like Blondes - a dying bread.

Here's a new one: What about advancing technology? Eventually all the jobs that are done now will be outsourced to mechanized workers; Automated assembly lines, planes that fly themselves, taxi's that need no driver. Even the people who design, build, and maintain such sophisticated technologies will be replaced by machinery that can do the job better. We'll reach a point where there will be no point in jobs, because technology can always do it better than us. How can we continue to exchange goods when they're all produced and maintained by machinery? What happens to a society and an economy where the workforce doesn't exist?

True. It'll be as bad as the housing bubble, dotcom, whathave you. Entire industries collapsing are never a good thing, and it can bring the entire world to a halt for almost a decade - but it certainly isn't the biggest problem humanity faces, or the start of several "centuries of darkness."

But we do have other industries around today. Biofuels [biomass, Algae based fuels, Biodeisel], Alcohol fuels [Ethanol, Methanol, Butanol], Ammonia, Carbon Neutrals [synthetic fuels], Hydrogen fuels, etc al. Are any of them remotely as successful, cheap, and capable as petroleum? Absolutely not, but that's not what is being argued. The argument is if something else can take over when oil is gone, and the answer is without a doubt yes; I'm extremely hesitant to believe that humanity as a whole will sit on its hands and ask "what now?" when oil runs out. It must be obvious that we won't do nothing, and the only something we can do is turn to an alternate, so the only obvious answer here is that we'll expand an alternate industry to become mainstream.

While I'm not sure this is completely relevant to the space race decades ago, the end result seems to point towards the US. The USSR made it to Space & the Moon first, but we made a more stable space administration that hasn't ceased its operations. I'll vote in favor of the US this time.

Well that was full of happiness and sunshine. I'm hesitant to consider the looming oil disaster as, well, disastrous. When the oil industry collapses and fossil fuels run dry, which will happen, I can't help but feel like all it will do is turn us to create a new industry in its place. Maybe we'll turn to alternate types of mogas like kerosine or avgas for combustion as petroleum resources fade. Note that the collapse of the oil industry won't happen on the 2nd Tuesday of October and catch everyone by surprise. It'll be a gradual collapse that will see to the gradual rise of gas prices and the reduction of oil infrastructure and manufacturing. As industry jobs are lost and oil prices exceed affordable rates, it will make alternative industries less expensive than oil, and they'll begin to take hold. While none of us can see the future, it's hard to say definitively that we're in for "centuries of hell". People have been saying that for centuries, and it's never come to fruition. If anything, life has become a lot better over the centuries despite the complexities we continue to throw into our society as a result.

Uh. Going to call you out on this one. I think you might be confusing "fusion" and "fission" in your attempt to correct Ralathon. Fission is what we currently use. Fusion is the "experimental" thing we want to use. Not the other way around.

China is offering aid to other countries interested in getting into space? Who here has Kim's number. North Korea has to get on this bargain before China changes her mind!

Money. Let's be completely honest. Nothing happens without money. No projects, no successes, no new technologies advancements or frontiers can be made without money. It is the single largest drawback to man exploring the Galaxy or progressing further. Sure, we'd love to send man to Mars, but it won't happen without economic backing. Yes, we'd love to explore genetics engineering to help remove diseases before birth, but it won't happen without money. Yes, we'd absolutely love to improve the quality of life for everyone who must live in paper shacks with no clean water or power, but... And there you have it.

I'm honestly surprised Russia doesn't have a flag anywhere.

|Velocity| You hit my thought experiment right on. I had assumed the proton could be an OH MY GOD particle, but if it's 6x10^18 more powerful than the one that frightened us decades ago, I'm obviously mistaken! It might be that the QM approach to relativity is what makes this experiment fail, or maybe it's simply because the proton would be massive enough to fall within its own event horizon. [Does the mass increase caused by acceleration even affect the object locally from its perspective? Or would it just have an event horizon to an outside observer but not itself? How can that even be explained?] I'm extremely intrigued by these questions. I just wish I had the answers. Edit: It sounds like, if QM and Relativity could be assumed to flesh out evenly with this experiment, that 3x10^20 Joules is the single energy requirement below a value of infinity [today], and adding more energy would do nothing to accelerate the proton further [until the future when spacetime expands further]. It also means that the energy required to reach "a quanta below infinity" changes based on the distance being measured, and you can only reach true infinity with a distance of infinity.

Anything they have? Even rockets? I wonder if you need a license to operate a Saturn V Rocket.

Well, it started off cold.

Can't you just use a fission explosion to compress the atoms you want to undergo cold fusion?

Speed is determined by distance x time. In this case, meters x seconds. The plank length, too, is a distance. The difference here is that you can't crunch any information smaller than the plank length - so something that's moved 0.1 Plank Lengths is in the exact same physical position as something that has moved 0.6 Plank Lengths. There's no difference. There is a similar variable for time; if it takes you "the age of the universe" to move 1 meter, then you've moved 1 meter as of today. If it takes you "longer than the age of the universe" to move 1 meter - well you've yet to move 1 meter. The thought experiment here is that there is a physical, non-infinite energy requirement for an proton to travel 10 plank lengths in 10.5 plank times. However, because you can't fractionate the plank length, both the proton and a photon will have traveled the same physical distance. The thought experiment can be dragged even deeper. Pretend both a proton and a photon began their journey during the birth of the Universe. If the protons speed is slower than a photon by 1 plank length x the age of the universe plus one second, then up until now, it's kept pace with a photon - it's traveled at C, which is impossible, but will become possible in the future when it begins to lose the race. How can that be without breaking the rules? Surely the energy requirements needed to accelerate the proton to this speed are calculable, and surely some Oh My God particle has been traveling at this speed somewhere. It's NOT traveling at the speed of light, but because of the existence of the Plank Scale, it should appear to be.

My position is deemed "essential", so I cannot be furloughed. However, I won't be payed for the time we're in a shutdown. My financial obligations (bills or creditors) will obviously be understanding, and will accept an IOU for the period, so I'm not at risk of losing anything important. If the Department I work with is funded as normal, I will receive back pay, but it's not guaranteed. As for me choosing not to work because I'm not being payed, it will be marked as an AWOL on my record and once HQ opens its doors again, AWOL can be punishable by termination. That's the current situation, unfortunately. I imagine a lot of people at NASA and other "essential" functions got the same e-mails as myself, and the same talks concerning the shutdown.