The Science Thread

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Pladio said:
Not sure if you're joking or not, but di-hydrogen is the H2 and monoxide is the O.
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A little bit of truth, joke, and fiction, but my link is real.:biggrin:

Go ahead and do a search on the internet.
 
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Couchpotato said:
A little bit of truth, joke, and fiction, but my link is real.:biggrin:

Go ahead and do a search on the internet.
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Yes, when I'm talking to kids, sometimes I like to challenge them with something that makes them go, "Hang on a minute..."

We were talking about disinformation, and I like that one - you can say it's in the food supply, can be fatal if inhaled, and needs to be banned. And you can explain that because it sounds science-y, and is on an official-looking document, many people will spread it around without examining it, thinking they've dropped some knowledge.
 
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Yep I was just joking around. Anyway my last job had a ton of those notices. You also had to take classes on how to clean up the spills, and when to evacuate the building.
 
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Anyway not as large as the 787 but still interesting.

How Boeing Builds a 737 Plane in Just 9 Days On Location

 
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Couchpotato said:
Anyway not as large as the 787 but still interesting.

How Boeing Builds a 737 Plane in Just 9 Days On Location
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Yes, considering all the certifications and the verifications they entail, that's quick! I suppose they don't count all the tests that must be done until they declare it air worthy, that must be much longer.
 
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Couchpotato said:
Two new interesting articles for those interested in science. :)


Mars was once like EARTH with lakes and oceans before collapsing

Link - https://www.newsy-today.com/mars-wa...apsing-on-hell-planet-reveals-nasa-scientist/
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Thanks for the link! Though to be honest, I find this tendency at NASA to turn space research into an Earth-lookalike contest irritating. The article, and the pop science video referenced therein actually make a very poor point. Yeah, sure, "Earth and Mars once formed from the same substance" - but so did Mercury and Jupiter. And while there now does seem to be some evidence that there must have been liquid water at times and in some spots, I'm not really sure how they would jump to the conclusion that it had vast oceans and lakes and "looked just like Earth".

Mars is a fascinating place in its own right (and we should by all means go and explore it), not because it rates high on an "Earth-likeness" scale. Though it probably does rank among the most hospitable places in the solar system, just below Antarctica (minus the oxygen) and next to the top of Mount Everest.

Back in 1976, none other than Carl Sagan famously noted that the first images returned by the Viking landers, which showed a blue-tinted sky, didn't really represent the visual impression that you would get when standing on the surface. Properly color-corrected for the ambient light, the sky should have appeared more salmon-pink than blue. And that's what subsequent Viking images showed... whereas nowadays, it seems to me that every second Mars picture NASA releases is showing a blue sky again.
 
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I think there is a general obsession with finding other planets for humans to live in, incase we screw our own. Most people don't realise that the technological effort it would take to go to even the nearest solar system is unsurmountable by the laws of physics alone, and even if we were to do that, it would not really do more than branching humankind into a new race that will evolve on its own away from Earth, while everyone who stays in Earth will stay the same, and die with Earth anyway. There wouldn't even be any feasible ways to communicate between the two civilisations anymore, as even the simplest text message you sent to your "neighbours" in Alpha Centauri would take 4 years to get there. Just imagine the lag playing an online game!

Before anything like that happens, it would be much more feasible to just mine asteroids to build what is called a "Ring World", basically a spinning disc where cvilaztion rests, and that contains all that is needed for life to be sustained comfortably and perpetually. If by then we are also capable of building a Dyson Sphere, we would be set for billions of years as a species, without need for drastic "life boats".
 
Bah I'll be the idealist and not kill the exploration spirit. We should find a way to survive and thrive on the moon first, then work on expanding to the rest of the system.

Sure I wont be alive to see all this happen as the technology isn't that advanced yet. Though someday it will be possible if we don't kill ourselves or the planet first.

Just because something seems impossible does not mean it's not possible.:p
 
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Exploration is good, it gives another perspective, pushes science further which usually reveals applications for us mere mortals, as a by-product.

We've always been explorers, I suppose that people must have felt the same before discovering other continents a few centuries ago. Minus the pressure because they hadn't depleted all the resources yet. ;) So a colony somewhere else? Why not, even if today we don't have a way to communicate or to travel regularly over those distances yet. I'm not sure how they'd handle the journey though, living many years in a ship seems to be a hard problem from several points of view (heat accumulation, resource management, physiological & psychological concerns, ...). So for now, I rather see that as a way to conduct experiments or to mine resources not too far away, and on a temporary basis.

I don't subscribe to the exodus scenario. It would be very awkward to pack so many people and ship them on another planet, then we simply wouldn't have the resources to do so. Unless it's reserved to a few "lucky" people, a little like a Noah's ark story.
 
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Nereida said:
branching humankind into a new race that will evolve on its own away from Earth
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But that's a good thing, isn't it? Branching out, diversifying, exploring new ways of existence... and, in doing so, writing a narrative of humanity as a force for the spread of life to places that would otherwise never have felt its touch. There's no denying that humanity has wreaked havoc on biodiversity on this planet - but on the other hand, humanity is currently the only tool in nature's toolbox by which biodiversity on other worlds could even get started.

So, yeah, while I'm not convinced of the existence of the past, vast oceans on Mars... maybe we'll get there eventually.

And build that solar sunshade at L1 to cool Earth back down while we're at it.
 
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Redglyph said:
Exploration is good, it gives another perspective, pushes science further which usually reveals applications for us mere mortals, as a by-product.

We've always been explorers, I suppose that people must have felt the same before discovering other continents a few centuries ago. Minus the pressure because they hadn't depleted all the resources yet. ;) So a colony somewhere else? Why not, even if today we don't have a way to communicate or to travel regularly over those distances yet. I'm not sure how they'd handle the journey though, living many years in a ship seems to be a hard problem from several points of view (heat accumulation, resource management, physiological & psychological concerns, …). So for now, I rather see that as a way to conduct experiments or to mine resources not too far away, and on a temporary basis.

I don't subscribe to the exodus scenario. It would be very awkward to pack so many people and ship them on another planet, then we simply wouldn't have the resources to do so. Unless it's reserved to a few "lucky" people, a little like a Noah's ark story.
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I would love to join in this romantic view of the human race, but "humans are explorers" is an idealisation that never corresponded with reality. Yes, individual humans sure have the desire to explore, sometimes you find a path in the forest while you walk your dog that you never followed and you might feel "hey, let's go explore this way, see what's in there". That's barely exploration, though. As a species, the drive for spearheading civilisations to push new boundaries is never exploration, but power.

The greatest examples of human exploration, the times when we pushed our boundaries, are there as the greatest example of this. When Cristopher Columbus "discovered" America, it wasn't out of a desire for exploration, it was to provide an economical edge to the trading operations of the realm of Spain. He first tried to sell his idea to other countries, but they didn't buy it, globe earth being a kind of daring theory back in the day. Eventually, Elisabeth of Spain accepted the proposal, and the tremendous investment both in gold and faith that took to trust this enterprise in which, if true, going around the world you could reach India for an easy trade route, and avoid all the pirates and rivaling trade ships that were wreaking havoc in the traditional trade routes at the time. The drive was not exploration, it was political, driven by gains in power and economic gain.

The next human step of great exploration was when humans went to the Moon, and similarly, it wasn't inspired by a romantic desire for exploration. It was, in a nutshell, because the world was going through the cold war and the US basically wanted to tell URSS and everyone else "Our D is bigger than yours. Watch out who you mess with.". Once that was proven, all further exploration enterprises were quickly suspended and swept under the rug, to the point that 50 years later we haven't been back to the Moon yet, as there was no profit to be gained from it.

Sure, people look through telescopes, we've sent little probes to surrounding planets and such to send cute pictures of what's out there, but those are really budget projects to timidly prod at what's going on out there. When anything is at stake at all and requires a nation's backing to push any real bondaries, humans are not driven by exploration, they are driven by what is profitable, and what provides them with power over other humans.
 
Nereida said:
I would love to join in this romantic view of the human race, but "humans are explorers" is an idealisation that never corresponded with reality.
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I'm not saying we always explore for the sake of exploring, and I'm not aware of having written that in a romantic view either. It's just what we do.

Instead of optimizing the use of the local resources, one of the first spontaneous ideas is to expand and explore other territories to find those resources (which has been the main motivation of many wars). Instead of all taking our holiday peacefully in our garden, a good part of us travel somewhere else just to see something new.

In the US vs USSR space exploration, they have been pushed by competition, but it wasn't a spontaneous race to space. Both had the initial idea to explore it, then it became a race. And we didn't stop there, we sent telescopes in space and probes away just to see further.

If that's not the behaviour of a race of explorers, I don't know what is. ;)
 
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Redglyph said:
If that's not the behaviour of a race of explorers, I don't know what is. ;)
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There are explorer elements in humans as species (race means something else), but it's hard to argue that it drives anything in our behaviour and growth. Just stop to think how much of your budget goes towards exploration, and how much of it goes towards living a comfortable life in your living room, or gaining status within the rules that society has set down for you.

Then do the same, and compare how much of your country's budget goes towards space exploration, and how much of it goes towards following established paths for economic, social, and political stability.

I don't know you or your country, but it would be safe to bet both of the "exploration budgets" and time investments are well below 1%. If you'd still like to define the human species as "explorers", then might as well define us as species of… I don't know, tooth brushers, TV watchers and shit cleaners, since both the average human and their governments invest a larger portion of their time and budget developing those activities.

To me, it takes a little more than doing a bit of a thing with money and time we didn't need anyway to call it a defining factor.
 
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