10 MAR 2017 by ideonexus
1937 Description of Lightspeed Travel
After a while I noticed that the sun and all the stars in his neighborhood were ruddy. Those at the opposite pole of the heaven were of an icy blue. The explanation of this strange phenomenon flashed upon me. I was still traveling, and traveling so fast that light itself was not wholly indifferent to my passage. The overtaking undulations took long to catch me. They therefore affected me as slower pulsations than they normally were, and I saw them therefore as red. Those that met me on my hea... 1 
notes
notes21 APR 2014 by ideonexus
Cool Science Facts
"There are a million points of light in the universe traveling a million miles an hour away from us, yet they are so far away they appear to be standing still."
"Estimate for # of planets in visible universe: 10^25, which = # molecules in a cup of water" Robert Garisto, PRL
"I'm is Juliet Retenford and my favorite science fact is that marmoset siblings are all genetic chimeras of each other because they all share a single placenta so a single circulation."
"Hi Dr. Jim Macena, University o... 1 notes
notesWhat happens when you ask scientists what their favorite science fact is.
03 MAR 2014 by ideonexus
An Alien United Nations
figure out how to live with high technology, how to avoid nuclear war, then tehre are at this moment a million advanced civilizations in the Milky Way.
This place was built to help get us through this dangerous time. it would be good to know if there are other civilizations out there, if their United Nations have succeeded. it's something to think about when you stare up at the stars on a clear autumn night.Folksonomies: speculation science fiction
Folksonomies: speculation science fiction
1 notes
notesWhat would life be like for extraterrestrial civilizations that survived their infancy?
03 MAR 2014 by ideonexus
The Silence of the Universe is Significant
Geoff Marcy, the University of California at Berkeley astronomer who has found scores of exoplanets, and who has diligently searched for signs of anything artificial in the data, says the silence is significant: “If our Milky Way Galaxy were teeming with thousands of advanced civilizations, as depicted in science-fiction books and movies, we would already know about them. They would be sending probes to thousands of nearby stars. They would have a galactic Internet composed of laser beams at ...Folksonomies: extraterrestrial life
Folksonomies: extraterrestrial life
1 notes
notesThe fact that we can't detect anything out there means there may be nothing to detect.
24 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
A Star for Everyone Who Ever Lived
Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber
the living. Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet
Earth.
Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred
billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this
Universe there shines a star.
But every one of those stars is a sun, often far more brilliant and...Folksonomies: speculation science fiction
Folksonomies: speculation science fiction
1 notes
notesIn just our own galaxy.
18 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
The Story of How the Universe's Size was Determined
It was into this fiery climate of the 1920s that the Protestant-raised Hubble, adorned with the cape, cane, and British accent he had adopted while at Oxford, returned after the war. He arrived at the Carnegie Institution of Washington-funded Mount Wilson Observatory outside Pasadena, California, insisting on being called "Major Hubble."^'' Looking through the great Hooker telescope—at one hundred and one inches in diameter and weighing more than one hundred tons it was by far the largest and...
1 Includes a cautionary tale of Shapely, who helped prove the Sun was not the center of the Universe, but who thought the Milky Way was all the Universe there was without empirical data.
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Science is Disconnected from the Needs of Man
A plain, reasonable working man supposes, in the old way which is also the common-sense way, that if there are people who spend their lives in study, whom he feeds and keeps while they think for him—then no doubt these men are engaged in studying things men need to know; and he expects of science that it will solve for him the questions on which his welfare, and that of all men, depends. He expects science to tell him how he ought to live: how to treat his family, his neighbours and the men o... 1 notes
notesIt gives useless facts, while the average man is seeking meaning.
24 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Inferring the Universe From Our Limited Perspective
It may seem rash indeed to draw conclusions valid for the whole universe from what we can see from the small corner to which we are confined. Who knows that the whole visible universe is not like a drop of water at the surface of the earth? Inhabitants of that drop of water, as small relative to it as we are relative to the Milky Way, could not possibly imagine that beside the drop of water there might be a piece of iron or a living tissue, in which the properties of matter are entirely diffe...Folksonomies: induction
Folksonomies: induction
1 notes
notesWe are like the inhabitants of a drop of water, unable to imagine other elements and molecules outside of it.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Wonders of the Universe
There is a place with four suns in the sky – red, white, blue, and yellow; two of
them are so close together that they touch, and star-stuff flows between them.
I know of a world with a million moons.
I know of a sun the size of the Earth – and made of diamond.
There are atomic nuclei a mile across that rotate thirty times a second.
There are tiny grains between the stars, with the size and atomic composition
of bacteria.
There are stars leaving the Milky Way. There are immense gas cloud...Carl Sagan describes some of the amazing things science and astronomy have discovered in our universe.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Homogenization of the Milky Way
It is possible to speculate on the very distant future of advanced civilizations. We
can imagine such societies in excellent harmony with their environments, their
biology, and the vagaries of their politics, so that they enjoy extraordinarily long
lifetimes. Communications would long have been established with many other
such civilizations. The diffusion of knowledge, techniques, and points of view
would occur at the velocity of light. In time, the diverse cultures of the Galaxy,
involving a...Folksonomies: culture homogenization
Folksonomies: culture homogenization
1 notes
notesJust as human culture is undergoing a process of homogenization, culture of the Milky Way will eventually undergo the same.
