Addiction LXXVIII
#1101
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Don't over-think it.
#1102
VFL For Life
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It is?
What kind of trouble?
What kind of trouble?
#1103
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#1104
serious cyclist
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I do wonder what type of filter we'll get run through.
I think it's likely that meaningful interstellar travel is impossible. For this purpose, "meaningful" means "I can just get in my rocket/ saucer/ ship/ whatever and fly to Alpha Centauri or an even more distant star". Frankly, I don't think meaningful interplanetary travel is possible - we can accomplish briefly putting couple of people on the Moon with the might of a superpower, and that's incredibly close by astronomical standards. We can't even get soil back from Mars (though it might be possible); getting humans there and back is right out. Getting a person to a Jovian moon? No. People make the mistake of thinking "well with progress we could get there, technology is great". No. The moon is ~380,000km away. Mars is a minimum of ~55,000,000km away. Jupiter is ~588,000,000km away. The energy cost of that is beyond anything we can comprehend, and that's just to zip around our own solar system. Alpha Centauri? That's a cool 41,000,000,000,000km away. As long as the laws of thermodynamics hold, the ability to get there is zero. At all. And being a laws of physics thing, that holds true for life that evolves on any other planet in any other solar system in this galaxy or universe. The ability to travel across space isn't just like advancing from a Model T to a Bugatti, or even like advancing from a chariot to a Concorde. It's tempting, because we're really bad at understanding just how large space is, but we'll never just be able to travel even between planets like we do continents. The best we could possibly hope for is a tiny group of colonists with knowledge and rudimentary tools and someone find a perfect slingshot route to get them to Alpha Centauri and just hope there's a Goldilocks planet there that can actually be lived in, and that they manage to survive and not die of disease, or poison, or just finding that there's not actually life there to eat. And we'd never know if they succeeded or not. It's probably also not actually possible, but maybe that sort of perfect slingshot course exists.
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#1105
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#1106
he said member
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#1107
he said member
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#1108
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Seeds' way too broad question got me listening to Copland with headphones (bonus: kids aren't a distraction) while I prep dinner. Thanks, seeds!
#1109
he said member
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#1110
he said member
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#1111
• —
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I said I would come back to this, and now I will.
I think it's likely that meaningful interstellar travel is impossible. For this purpose, "meaningful" means "I can just get in my rocket/ saucer/ ship/ whatever and fly to Alpha Centauri or an even more distant star". Frankly, I don't think meaningful interplanetary travel is possible - we can accomplish briefly putting couple of people on the Moon with the might of a superpower, and that's incredibly close by astronomical standards. We can't even get soil back from Mars (though it might be possible); getting humans there and back is right out. Getting a person to a Jovian moon? No. People make the mistake of thinking "well with progress we could get there, technology is great". No. The moon is ~380,000km away. Mars is a minimum of ~55,000,000km away. Jupiter is ~588,000,000km away. The energy cost of that is beyond anything we can comprehend, and that's just to zip around our own solar system. Alpha Centauri? That's a cool 41,000,000,000,000km away. As long as the laws of thermodynamics hold, the ability to get there is zero. At all. And being a laws of physics thing, that holds true for life that evolves on any other planet in any other solar system in this galaxy or universe. The ability to travel across space isn't just like advancing from a Model T to a Bugatti, or even like advancing from a chariot to a Concorde. It's tempting, because we're really bad at understanding just how large space is, but we'll never just be able to travel even between planets like we do continents. The best we could possibly hope for is a tiny group of colonists with knowledge and rudimentary tools and someone find a perfect slingshot route to get them to Alpha Centauri and just hope there's a Goldilocks planet there that can actually be lived in, and that they manage to survive and not die of disease, or poison, or just finding that there's not actually life there to eat. And we'd never know if they succeeded or not. It's probably also not actually possible, but maybe that sort of perfect slingshot course exists.
I think it's likely that meaningful interstellar travel is impossible. For this purpose, "meaningful" means "I can just get in my rocket/ saucer/ ship/ whatever and fly to Alpha Centauri or an even more distant star". Frankly, I don't think meaningful interplanetary travel is possible - we can accomplish briefly putting couple of people on the Moon with the might of a superpower, and that's incredibly close by astronomical standards. We can't even get soil back from Mars (though it might be possible); getting humans there and back is right out. Getting a person to a Jovian moon? No. People make the mistake of thinking "well with progress we could get there, technology is great". No. The moon is ~380,000km away. Mars is a minimum of ~55,000,000km away. Jupiter is ~588,000,000km away. The energy cost of that is beyond anything we can comprehend, and that's just to zip around our own solar system. Alpha Centauri? That's a cool 41,000,000,000,000km away. As long as the laws of thermodynamics hold, the ability to get there is zero. At all. And being a laws of physics thing, that holds true for life that evolves on any other planet in any other solar system in this galaxy or universe. The ability to travel across space isn't just like advancing from a Model T to a Bugatti, or even like advancing from a chariot to a Concorde. It's tempting, because we're really bad at understanding just how large space is, but we'll never just be able to travel even between planets like we do continents. The best we could possibly hope for is a tiny group of colonists with knowledge and rudimentary tools and someone find a perfect slingshot route to get them to Alpha Centauri and just hope there's a Goldilocks planet there that can actually be lived in, and that they manage to survive and not die of disease, or poison, or just finding that there's not actually life there to eat. And we'd never know if they succeeded or not. It's probably also not actually possible, but maybe that sort of perfect slingshot course exists.
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#1112
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#1113
serious cyclist
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An analogy I sometimes use is, imagine if the only landmasses on the world are Cuba and Taiwan, and humans evolve on Cuba. Even if they invent boats, the chances of them being able to build a large enough ship to get to Taiwan, and get back, are basically zero. And that's on a scale that is much, much smaller than going interplanetary. It's much smaller again than interstellar, by factors we're really bad at internalizing. And it rains on the ocean, and there are fish, and there's wind. Space is basically empty. Outside of magical functionally-unlimited free energy (amounts of which would make that trip to HK take a few minutes and too cheap to charge for, and building or removing mountain ranges easy) we're stuck here. Unfortunately.
This also basically puts the kibosh on aliens, which doesn't stop my nightmares.
#1114
he said member
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#1115
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#1116
Senior Member
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I said I would come back to this, and now I will.
I think it's likely that meaningful interstellar travel is impossible. For this purpose, "meaningful" means "I can just get in my rocket/ saucer/ ship/ whatever and fly to Alpha Centauri or an even more distant star". Frankly, I don't think meaningful interplanetary travel is possible - we can accomplish briefly putting couple of people on the Moon with the might of a superpower, and that's incredibly close by astronomical standards. We can't even get soil back from Mars (though it might be possible); getting humans there and back is right out. Getting a person to a Jovian moon? No. People make the mistake of thinking "well with progress we could get there, technology is great". No...
I think it's likely that meaningful interstellar travel is impossible. For this purpose, "meaningful" means "I can just get in my rocket/ saucer/ ship/ whatever and fly to Alpha Centauri or an even more distant star". Frankly, I don't think meaningful interplanetary travel is possible - we can accomplish briefly putting couple of people on the Moon with the might of a superpower, and that's incredibly close by astronomical standards. We can't even get soil back from Mars (though it might be possible); getting humans there and back is right out. Getting a person to a Jovian moon? No. People make the mistake of thinking "well with progress we could get there, technology is great". No...
#1117
• —
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Maybe I should have made it explicit, but that's part of what I meant in "meaningful". Sure, once you slip the surly bonds of gravity you can just coast to your destination if everything's calculated correctly (and of course you need to carry enough fuel to decelerate upon arrival), but when I wrote of "just get in your rocket and go" I didn't mean "and your grandchildren will arrive". Hong Kong is on the other side of the world and I can fly out there in a day, turn around, and come back. That's incomprehensible for just a century ago, and is the sort of progress that's nothing compared to what we need to even take a trip to Mars and return. The best-case scenario with unlimited free energy is constant 1G acceleration to the halfway point, then turning around and using the engine to brake, and... well even that's years to get to and from Alpha Centauri, and it's the sort of energy cost where we might as well just be playing make-believe anyway.
An analogy I sometimes use is, imagine if the only landmasses on the world are Cuba and Taiwan, and humans evolve on Cuba. Even if they invent boats, the chances of them being able to build a large enough ship to get to Taiwan, and get back, are basically zero. And that's on a scale that is much, much smaller than going interplanetary. It's much smaller again than interstellar, by factors we're really bad at internalizing. And it rains on the ocean, and there are fish, and there's wind. Space is basically empty. Outside of magical functionally-unlimited free energy (amounts of which would make that trip to HK take a few minutes and too cheap to charge for, and building or removing mountain ranges easy) we're stuck here. Unfortunately.
This also basically puts the kibosh on aliens, which doesn't stop my nightmares.
An analogy I sometimes use is, imagine if the only landmasses on the world are Cuba and Taiwan, and humans evolve on Cuba. Even if they invent boats, the chances of them being able to build a large enough ship to get to Taiwan, and get back, are basically zero. And that's on a scale that is much, much smaller than going interplanetary. It's much smaller again than interstellar, by factors we're really bad at internalizing. And it rains on the ocean, and there are fish, and there's wind. Space is basically empty. Outside of magical functionally-unlimited free energy (amounts of which would make that trip to HK take a few minutes and too cheap to charge for, and building or removing mountain ranges easy) we're stuck here. Unfortunately.
This also basically puts the kibosh on aliens, which doesn't stop my nightmares.
#1118
serious cyclist
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300 years ago (or insert any period of time that takes you back beyond the 20th century) the idea of human flight would have seemed unfathomable (yeah, da Vinci, I know). 30 years ago, the idea of a smart phone would have seemed unfathomable to most (see TNG). Look at what the ITER project could mean to us. Putting a cap on future progress seems strange given human history.
#1119
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Unfortunately for you, it's not a question of math. Rather, it's a matter of critical thinking. The point is that what was once inconceivable is now commonplace. Orders of magnitude have nothing to do with it. It's more a question of the human mind. Multiplying zero by some other number gets you nowhere, so talking about orders of magnitude when discussing concepts that don't yet exist is pointless, no?
#1120
serious cyclist
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#1121
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But when work gets annoying and/or I need some motivation, these guys are pretty cool (skip to 19:55 or 24:29 for really good examples of their work):
__________________
"The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience."
"The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience."
#1123
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Nice. It’s my dream to rent a <insert your choice of exotic car here> and stick one of them magnetized new driver stickers on it while on lease. Of course there’s always more cycling stuff to buy for the same amount of money.
#1124
Senior Member
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#1125
Should Be More Popular
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