29 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
Loss of Hope Accelerates the Death of Trantor
"The fall of Trantor," said Seldon, "cannot be stopped by any conceivable
effort. It can be hastened easily, however. The tale of my interrupted
trial will spread through the Galaxy. Frustration of my plans to lighten
the disaster will convince people that the future holds no promise to them.
Already they recall the lives of their grandfathers with envy. They will
see that political revolutions and trade stagnations will increase. The
feeling will pervade the Galaxy that onl... 1 
notes
notes24 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
The Dilemma of Human Diversity Across the Cosmos
When life spreads out and diversifies in the universe, adapting itself to a spectrum of environments far wider than any one planet can encompass, the human species will one day find itself faced with the most momentous choice that we have had to make since the days when our ancestors came down from the trees in Africa and left their cousins the chimpanzees behind. We will have to choose, either to remain one species united by a common bodily shape as well as by a common history, or to let our...
2 03 MAR 2014 by ideonexus
Stages of Galactic Intelligence
Imagine the history of the galaxy with respect to extraterrestrial intelligence. Very early there were only first generation stars, no heavy metals and therefore no possibility of life, much less intelligence. That's Stage One. In Stage Two planets with heavy metals form from the starstuff processed in the previous generation of stars, life arises and evolves, but It's quite some time before a technical intelligence developes. In Stage Three, radiotélescopes are invented, radio contact among... 1 notes
notesWhat stage are we in now?
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 a...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.
06 JUL 2012 by ideonexus
The Bootes Void
In the course of a redshift survey of galaxies brighter than R approximately equal to 16.3, 133 redshifts were measured in three fields, each separated by roughly 35 deg from the other two. If the galaxies in these fields were distributed uniformly, the combination of a galaxian luminosity function and the magnitude limits predicts that the distribution of redshifts should peak near 15,000 km/s. In fact, only one galaxy of the 133 was observed with a redshift in the 6000 km/s interval centere... 1 notes
notesAn inconceivably massive region of space extremely sparsely populated with galaxies, strangely spherical in shape.
31 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Radio Telescopes as the Stethoscope Observing the Universe
When they [radio astronomers] grew weary at their electronic listening posts. When their eyes grew dim with looking at unrevealing dials and studying uneventful graphs, they could step outside their concrete cells and renew their dull spirits in communion with the giant mechanism they commanded, the silent, sensing instrument in which the smallest packets of energy, the smallest waves of matter, were detected in their headlong, eternal flight across the universe. It was the stethoscope with w...Folksonomies: astronomy
Folksonomies: astronomy
1 notes
notesTaking it's pulse.
22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
1420 megahertz
In the Next Generation episode “Galaxy's Child,” the Enterprise stumbles upon an alien life-form that lives in empty space, feeding on energy. Particularly tasty is radiation with a very specific frequency 1420 million cycles per second, having a wavelength of 21 cm.
In the spirit of Pythagoras, if there were a Music of the Spheres, surely this would be its opening tone. Fourteen hundred and twenty megahertz is the natural frequency of precession of the spin of an electron as it encircle... 1 notes
notesThe natural frequency of precession of the spin of an electron as it encircles the atomic nucleus of hydrogen, it is the tone of the universe.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Parallax Method
It is possible to measure how far away from us each galaxy is. How? How, for that matter, do we know how far away anything in the universe is? For nearby stars the best method uses something called 'parallax'. Hold your finger up in front of your face and look at it with your left eye closed. Now open your left eye and close your right. Keep switching eyes, and you'll notice that the apparent position of your finger hops from side to side. That is because of the difference between the viewpoi...Folksonomies: measurement parallax
Folksonomies: measurement parallax
1 notes
notesUsing the change in position of an object when viewed from two different points can be used to determine its distance from you.
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.
