”We must continue to go into space for humanity."

[Peter]

From Anthropology News:

71-year-old physicist Stephan Hawking said, We must continue to go into space for humanity. We won't survive another 1,000 years without escaping our fragile planet."

Last year Hawking revealed he held a party for time travelers - but none showed up. Of course that might have been because he waited until the party was over to send out the invites.

end quote

[BaalChatzaf]

From Anthropology News:

71-year-old physicist Stephan Hawking said, We must continue to go into space for humanity. We won't survive another 1,000 years without escaping our fragile planet."

Last year Hawking revealed he held a party for time travelers - but none showed up. Of course that might have been because he waited until the party was over to send out the invites.

end quote

I will bet Hawking is wrong. Humans have been on this planet for at least 150,000 years. It may very well be that our civilization or society will not last another 1000 years, but I will bet human kind will. barring a hit by an asteroid/comet the size of Mt. Everest.

[Guyau]

Bob, you’re too optimistic. Once man reached nuclear weapons, his centuries were numbered. Might reach ten centuries more. A slender chance of it. Sooner or later, our own high civilization here or not, I’m pretty sure of this: Nuclear deterrence, defense, and disarmament will ultimately fail, and human kind will be ended by nuclear war. Of course that is no excuse for failing to protect, for failing in nuclear wisdom, so far as we can reach into the future.

That humans will migrate into space, free of humanity on earth, is not something I think will happen. But if I’m wrong on that, the circumstance of knowing how to build nuclear weapons will remain, human nature will remain, and the nuclear end will come.

This ending is indeed the end. *

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob, you’re too optimistic. Once man reached nuclear weapons, his centuries were numbered. Might reach ten centuries more. A slender chance of it. Sooner or later, our own high civilization here or not, I’m pretty sure of this: Nuclear deterrence, defense, and disarmament will ultimately fail, and human kind will be ended by nuclear war. Of course that is no excuse for failing to protect, for failing in nuclear wisdom, so far as we can reach into the future.

That humans will migrate into space, free of humanity on earth, is not something I think will happen. But if I’m wrong on that, the circumstance of knowing how to build nuclear weapons will remain, human nature will remain, and the nuclear end will come.

This ending is indeed the end. *

I bet it won't and you bet it will. No matter how it turns out in the long run neither of us will be able to collect....

[Peter]

Stephen wrote:

Bob, youre too optimistic. Once man reached nuclear weapons, his centuries were numbered.

end quote

The *human hedge fund* should hedge its bets and disperse from cities, more populated continents, and from earth. If and when we can, we should.

Peter

[Peter]

Quantum entanglement manifests itself at the rate of ten thousand times the speed of light. Einstein, using his math, but no experimental proofs called entanglement spooky.

Say Albert. If a starship were one quantum entity and it was entangled with its pair, another starship, could the second starship travel as fast as the first? Would only one starship need fuel? The rate of ten thousand times the speed of light could be the incentive to begin sending out entangled space probes for later use in the next century. Could any of you Objectivist Living Quants supply a premise for a scifi novel?

Without a clue,

Peter

[dennislmay]

Quantum entanglement manifests itself at the rate of ten thousand times the speed of light. Einstein, using his math, but no experimental proofs called entanglement spooky.

Say Albert. If a starship were one quantum entity and it was entangled with its pair, another starship, could the second starship travel as fast as the first? Would only one starship need fuel? The rate of ten thousand times the speed of light could be the incentive to begin sending out entangled space probes for later use in the next century. Could any of you Objectivist Living Quants supply a premise for a scifi novel?

Without a clue,

Peter

Sounds like you want to reinvent the Infinite Improbability Drive:

or something similar to how propulsion worked in this Star Trek TNG episode

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nth_Degree_(TNG_episode)

Dennis

[Peter]

Dennis wrote:

Sounds like you want to reinvent the Infinite Improbability Drive . . . . or something similar to how propulsion worked in this Star Trek TNG episode.

end quote

Well Dennis, Doctor Who and Captain Picard from Startrek are just fiction. Whereas we all should consider more scientific television like The Big Bang Theory, and The Barenaked Ladies, Theory of Everything:

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,

Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started--Wait!

The Earth began to cool,

The autotrophs began to drool,

Neanderthals developed tools,

We built a wall (we built the pyramids),

Math, science, history,

Unraveling the mystery,

That all started with the Big Bang!

BANG!

end quote

What a catchy tune . . . . Ah crap I cant stop thinking like that now and I have a question for my favorite Quants, Dennis,(and you too Baal).

I once read the entire universe,

was once just one point.

If this majestic singularity erupted

to become the big bang,

and it was spinning

then wouldnt space / time already exist

beyond that point of matter?

All that there IS (per the Wizard Aristotle Rand)

could NOT BE spinning within nothing.

Therefore the universe was already bigger

than the point of energy and matter

that is called the Big Bang.

Hey!

Peter

[dennislmay]

I once read the entire universe,

was once just one point.

If this majestic singularity erupted

to become the big bang,

and it was spinning

then wouldnt space / time already exist

beyond that point of matter?

All that there IS (per the Wizard Aristotle Rand)

could NOT BE spinning within nothing.

Therefore the universe was already bigger

than the point of energy and matter

that is called the Big Bang.

I have never believed in the Big Bang theory so I really can't help you attempt to understand it.

Dennis

[BaalChatzaf]

I once read the entire universe,

was once just one point.

If this majestic singularity erupted

to become the big bang,

and it was spinning

then wouldnt space / time already exist

beyond that point of matter?

All that there IS (per the Wizard Aristotle Rand)

could NOT BE spinning within nothing.

Therefore the universe was already bigger

than the point of energy and matter

that is called the Big Bang.

I have never believed in the Big Bang theory so I really can't help you attempt to understand it.

Dennis

With all those old starts dying how do we get new ones?

And if the cosmos is a closed system and entropy increases, if the cosmos is eternal why is it not totally disordered?

[dennislmay]

I have never believed in the Big Bang theory so I really can't help you attempt to understand it.

Dennis

With all those old starts dying how do we get new ones?

And if the cosmos is a closed system and entropy increases, if the cosmos is eternal why is it not totally disordered?

As has been discussed several times before...

We get new stars because matter and energy are recycled both through conventional recycling and through non-linear QM entanglement recycling. Even our own sun produces extended streams of pure hydrogen at speeds where it leaves the galaxy to recollect between galaxies - thus materials for nearly pristine new galaxies form again.

The cosmos is not a closed system and the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply.

Dennis

[BaalChatzaf]

I have never believed in the Big Bang theory so I really can't help you attempt to understand it.

Dennis

With all those old starts dying how do we get new ones?

And if the cosmos is a closed system and entropy increases, if the cosmos is eternal why is it not totally disordered?

As has been discussed several times before...

We get new stars because matter and energy are recycled both through conventional recycling and through non-linear QM entanglement recycling. Even our own sun produces extended streams of pure hydrogen at speeds where it leaves the galaxy to recollect between galaxies - thus materials for nearly pristine new galaxies form again.

The cosmos is not a closed system and the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply.

Dennis

What is outside the cosmos?

[dennislmay]

I have never believed in the Big Bang theory so I really can't help you attempt to understand it.

Dennis

With all those old starts dying how do we get new ones?

And if the cosmos is a closed system and entropy increases, if the cosmos is eternal why is it not totally disordered?

As has been discussed several times before...

We get new stars because matter and energy are recycled both through conventional recycling and through non-linear QM entanglement recycling. Even our own sun produces extended streams of pure hydrogen at speeds where it leaves the galaxy to recollect between galaxies - thus materials for nearly pristine new galaxies form again.

The cosmos is not a closed system and the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply.

Dennis

What is outside the cosmos?

Word games won't change the definitions of boundary conditions in thermodynamics - I suggest you look into it so we don't have to keep having this dead end discussion every few months. The 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply to a spatially and temporally infinite universe.

Dennis

[syrakusos]

Orbital Sciences Corporation "Antares" booster has successful test - April 21, 2013 NPR here.

SpaceX has gained worldwide attention for a series of historic milestones. It is the only private company ever to return a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit, which it first accomplished in December 2010. The company made history again in May 2012 when its Dragon spacecraft attached to the International Space Station, exchanged cargo payloads, and returned safely to Earth -- a technically challenging feat previously accomplished only by governments. In October 2012, Dragon again successfully delivered cargo to and from the space station, in the first official cargo resupply mission for NASA. SpaceX website here.

The Wikipedia article on "Private Spaceflight" is good beginning - in case you have not been following this since 1979 when Robert Truax, ORTRAG, and others were extending the possibilities beyond the many competing governments (NASA, ESA, Japan, India, China).

Tucked away in Wikipedia (not cited in the article above) is this summary list of Private Spaceflight Companies.

By the way, oldsters might remember Telstar, AT&T's communication satellite from July 10, 1962. BFD. OSCAR - Orbital Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio - was built by the Amateur Radio Relay League and launched by NASA December 12, 1961.

[BaalChatzaf]

I have never believed in the Big Bang theory so I really can't help you attempt to understand it.

Dennis

With all those old starts dying how do we get new ones?

And if the cosmos is a closed system and entropy increases, if the cosmos is eternal why is it not totally disordered?

As has been discussed several times before...

We get new stars because matter and energy are recycled both through conventional recycling and through non-linear QM entanglement recycling. Even our own sun produces extended streams of pure hydrogen at speeds where it leaves the galaxy to recollect between galaxies - thus materials for nearly pristine new galaxies form again.

The cosmos is not a closed system and the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply.

Dennis

What is outside the cosmos?

Word games won't change the definitions of boundary conditions in thermodynamics - I suggest you look into it so we don't have to keep having this dead end discussion every few months. The 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply to a spatially and temporally infinite universe.

Dennis

You have not demonstrated either deductively in inductively (by experiment) that the Cosmos is infinite.

Furthermore you have not provided a method which -in principle- could potentially falsify you assumption.

Try again.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Bob, you’re too optimistic. Once man reached nuclear weapons, his centuries were numbered. Might reach ten centuries more. A slender chance of it. Sooner or later, our own high civilization here or not, I’m pretty sure of this: Nuclear deterrence, defense, and disarmament will ultimately fail, and human kind will be ended by nuclear war. Of course that is no excuse for failing to protect, for failing in nuclear wisdom, so far as we can reach into the future.

That humans will migrate into space, free of humanity on earth, is not something I think will happen. But if I’m wrong on that, the circumstance of knowing how to build nuclear weapons will remain, human nature will remain, and the nuclear end will come.

This ending is indeed the end. *

This is "On the Beach" thinking if you're thinking about radiation. Radiation won't do the job. As for nuclear blasts, they won't either. The greater and greater sophistication of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems means smaller warheads to accomplish the same thing. The only way I can think of to exterminate mankind with these weapons would be 30-megaton bombs exploded at high altitude all over the planet. Human beings survived the ice age and the plague and they have and will survive any use of nuclear weaponry. They won't survive a serious asteroid strike. To otherwise credibly posit how humanity will end--and it will end--we have to know how human beings will self-evolve and what they will self-evolve into in the next few hundred years thanks to technology and what these self-evolved creatures will do to, with and about human beings who don't evolve right along with them. We are on the cusp of a lot of game-changing things, but not the extinction of the human race. We can identify with human beings through the life of Cro-Magnon man, about 40,000 years--that's who we are--but in a thousand years we will probably be the Neanderthals or worse as historical memory.

--Brant

[dennislmay]

I have never believed in the Big Bang theory so I really can't help you attempt to understand it.

Dennis

With all those old starts dying how do we get new ones?

And if the cosmos is a closed system and entropy increases, if the cosmos is eternal why is it not totally disordered?

As has been discussed several times before...

We get new stars because matter and energy are recycled both through conventional recycling and through non-linear QM entanglement recycling. Even our own sun produces extended streams of pure hydrogen at speeds where it leaves the galaxy to recollect between galaxies - thus materials for nearly pristine new galaxies form again.

The cosmos is not a closed system and the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply.

Dennis

What is outside the cosmos?

Word games won't change the definitions of boundary conditions in thermodynamics - I suggest you look into it so we don't have to keep having this dead end discussion every few months. The 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply to a spatially and temporally infinite universe.

Dennis

You have not demonstrated either deductively in inductively (by experiment) that the Cosmos is infinite.

Furthermore you have not provided a method which -in principle- could potentially falsify you assumption.

Try again.

Ba'al Chatzaf

You have not demonstrated either deductively in inductively (by experiment) that the Cosmos is finite.

Furthermore you have not provided a method which -in principle- could potentially falsify you assumption.

Try again.

Dennis May

[Peter]

I watched Atlas Shrugged part two for the first time last night and I am very optimistic today.

Dennis wrote:

Try again.

end quote

Well said Dennis. So you dont *believe* in The Big Bang or other creation myths? I wonder in the opposite direction. Even with the observation and scientific evidence for infinite expansion I am also not convinced there will be an infinite expansion into near zero universal density. We lucky humans have no proof there has not been an infinite number of Big Bangs. This is not a religious view I hold in my bones. After all my bones are *older* than the galaxy. I am sure the universe will begin to contract at some point leading to another big bang. This contraction from this point in time / causality then another big Bang another expansion contraction cycle is infinite.

Or consider this: what if there are periodic if not simultaneous Big Bangs throughout the universe? As matter is expelled from one Big Bang, it is collected at some far point by gravity or other forces. Then that matter contracts until sufficient density occurs and BOOM! there is another Big Bang. Every time our senses are artificially enhanced the universe is perceived to be larger. Big Bangs may just be the norm . . . one may be occurring just over the horizon.

I am optimistic along with Brant, that we can survive the human monsters amongst us. The dispersal of humanity was once Dennis May's suggestion to avoid that insanity. We can survive an asteroid strike if we disburse to other regions of space. We can survive the cumulative mutations of time through genetic manipulation. We can survive a contraction and eventual new Big Bang . . . as a new order of sentient beings.

Set against the insane jihadists and dictators, look at our advances in genetic knowledge, human electronic enhancements, prosthetics and artificial body parts like the heart. *Consciousness* will be saved eventually. It will be our scientific goal as it is now the goal of many religions. The quest for immortality or much longer lives is innate . . . innate to ALL species.

Peter

[syrakusos]

Mashuo of out-takes from The Right Stuff set to the film score

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTj8bR2_2Ec

John Glenn will not be the last 80-year old person into space:

I will be 74 when I take a one-way trip to Mars.

http://applicants.mars-one.com/

[BaalChatzaf]

You have not demonstrated either deductively in inductively (by experiment) that the Cosmos is finite.

Furthermore you have not provided a method which -in principle- could potentially falsify you assumption.

Try again.

Dennis May

It is you who claimed the Cosmos is infinite. The burden of proof is yours.

Me? I don't know if it is infinite or not. I simply note what has been shown empirically and what has not.

I am not interested in theories nearly as much as I am interested in facts.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[dennislmay]

Me? I don't know if it is infinite or not.

Then you withdraw any claims concerning entropy and the 2nd law of thermodynamics as well - since you no longer have boundary conditions to assume the 2nd law applies.

I have no problem with that.

I assume an infinite universe in size - large and small and an infinite universe in temporal duration past and future. That assumption has observational consequences but can never be proven.

If you assume a finite universe of defined size there are observational consequences as well. You cannot prove or disprove the possible existence of other finite universes or an infinite universe outside of that observation [many modern cosmologies assume that is in fact the case].

So there we are, I assume something I can't prove but observation can support. You don't know if it is infinite or not and you base that on empirical facts. Facts which still have to be processed through a theory to determine if they support an infinite or finite view.

Dennis

[BaalChatzaf]

Me? I don't know if it is infinite or not.

Then you withdraw any claims concerning entropy and the 2nd law of thermodynamics as well - since you no longer have boundary conditions to assume the 2nd law applies.

I know the surface of a 3 sphere of finite dimension is topologically unbounded. So I will not withdraw a thing. If physical space time is a manifold that is homeomorphic to a four sphere (I don't know that it is) it is unbounded. It is possible that space-time is bounded. It is possible that space time is unbounded. There exist pseudo Riemanian manifolds of both kinds. We don't have empirical data to decide the question.

Write us when we have empirical data to resolve the question. Otherwise you should hold your peace.

I am not withdrawing a damned thing.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[dennislmay]

Me? I don't know if it is infinite or not.

Then you withdraw any claims concerning entropy and the 2nd law of thermodynamics as well - since you no longer have boundary conditions to assume the 2nd law applies.

I know the surface of a 3 sphere of finite dimension is topologically unbounded. So I will not withdraw a thing. If physical space time is a manifold that is homeomorphic to a four sphere (I don't know that it is) it is unbounded. It is possible that space-time is bounded. It is possible that space time is unbounded. There exist pseudo Riemanian manifolds of both kinds. We don't have empirical data to decide the question.

Write us when we have empirical data to resolve the question. Otherwise you should hold your peace.

I am not withdrawing a damned thing.

Ba'al Chatzaf

So on faith you want to assume the 2nd law of thermodynamics applies without any empirical data to support boundary conditions where it would apply.

Dennis

[Brant Gaede]

To be flip--what a useless warning--we don't need to go into space for the sake of humanity; we need to send some of humanity into space--with no way back--for the sake of humanity.

--Brant

bon voyage!

[BaalChatzaf]

Me? I don't know if it is infinite or not.

Then you withdraw any claims concerning entropy and the 2nd law of thermodynamics as well - since you no longer have boundary conditions to assume the 2nd law applies.

I know the surface of a 3 sphere of finite dimension is topologically unbounded. So I will not withdraw a thing. If physical space time is a manifold that is homeomorphic to a four sphere (I don't know that it is) it is unbounded. It is possible that space-time is bounded. It is possible that space time is unbounded. There exist pseudo Riemanian manifolds of both kinds. We don't have empirical data to decide the question.

Write us when we have empirical data to resolve the question. Otherwise you should hold your peace.

I am not withdrawing a damned thing.

Ba'al Chatzaf

So on faith you want to assume the 2nd law of thermodynamics applies without any empirical data to support boundary conditions where it would apply.

Dennis

there are megatons of empirical evidence supporting 2LOT. Like any general proposition about ALL of physical reality a finite number of experiments cannot prove it in its generality. No physical law can be -proven- in the same way a mathematical theorem is proven. A physical law can only be falsified by a contrary empirical finding. So it is not faith. It is holding 2LOT provisionally until such time as it is disproved empirically. In the meantime there is lots of evidence for 2LOT even though it is not proof.

Faith is for preachers. Practical provisional holding of an evidence supported general law is just prudence and good sense, not faith. The sure fire way of proving 2LOT is false is producing a perpetual motion machine of the second kind. Can you do it?

Ba'al Chatzaf