Technology, Science and the Environment.

[leicsmac]

16 minutes ago, The Bear said:

It'll be a truly momentous day when the first human sets foot on another planet. 

And not a day too soon, either. For a variety of reasons. 

[SpacedX]

40 minutes ago, The Bear said:

/pedant

 

Technically the ISS is still in the upper atmosphere and therefore in the same inertial frame of reference as the ground. So they're still "with us" as part of the Earth. 

 

/pedant

And to continue to pedantry, the geocorona actually extends up to 391,464 miles away from the planet which is equivalent to 50 times the diameter of the Earth and nearly twice the distance to the Moon. So even beyond low Earth orbit, to further split hairs, no one has actually ventured beyond the Earth's atmosphere. Of course, in respect of the Apollo astronauts or future manned landings on the lunar surface, this equates to about 0.2 atoms per cubic centimetre. On Earth, we would simply call that a vacuum because that's essentially what it is. 

[The Bear]

7 minutes ago, SpacedX said:

And to continue to pedantry, the geocorona actually extends up to 391,464 miles away from the planet which is equivalent to 50 times the diameter of the Earth and nearly twice the distance to the Moon. So even beyond low Earth orbit, to further split hairs, no one has actually ventured beyond the Earth's atmosphere. Of course, in respect of the Apollo astronauts or future manned landings on the lunar surface, this equates to about 0.2 atoms per cubic centimetre. On Earth, we would simply call that a vacuum because that's essentially what it is. 

Yeah I'd say once atmospheric drag becomes negligible then you can essentially say you're out of the Earth's influence. Other than gravitational obviously. 

[SpacedX]

11 minutes ago, The Bear said:

Other than gravitational obviously. 

And that is infinite. As counterintuitive as it sounds, because this operates on a universal scale the Earth's gravity actually stretches over a distance of 4.5-billion light years. The force of gravity, regardless of how weak it becomes, is never zero for any object with mass.

[The Bear]

20 minutes ago, SpacedX said:

 The force of gravity, regardless of how weak it becomes, is never zero for any object with mass.

You can argue it's never zero for massless objects too. Photons famously curve around stars in gravitational lensing. Everything follows curved spacetime whether it has mass or not.

[Robo61]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

And not a day too soon, either. For a variety of reasons. 

I very much doubt it will happen before we've completly ****ed this one up first.

[leicsmac]

17 minutes ago, Robo61 said:

I very much doubt it will happen before we've completly ****ed this one up first.

That is an extreme probability. Hence the need for haste.

[leicsmac]

1 hour ago, SpacedX said:

And that is infinite. As counterintuitive as it sounds, because this operates on a universal scale the Earth's gravity actually stretches over a distance of 4.5-billion light years. The force of gravity, regardless of how weak it becomes, is never zero for any object with mass.

 

44 minutes ago, The Bear said:

You can argue it's never zero for massless objects too. Photons famously curve around stars in gravitational lensing. Everything follows curved spacetime whether it has mass or not.

And then you start to wonder how gravity can apparently violate relativistic laws by acting "immediately" over vast distances and it all gets rather runny. 

[The Bear]

3 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

 

And then you start to wonder how gravity can apparently violate relativistic laws by acting "immediately" over vast distances and it all gets rather runny. 

It doesn't though. If the sun suddenly disappeared then it'd take 8 mins 20s for us to notice or feel any effect. Which is the same time it takes light to get to us. 

 

Only quantum entanglement seems to break this law, but I suspect microscopic wormholes are involved there somehow. 

[SpacedX]

16 minutes ago, The Bear said:

It doesn't though. If the sun suddenly disappeared then it'd take 8 mins 20s for us to notice or feel any effect. Which is the same time it takes light to get to us. 

 

Only quantum entanglement seems to break this law, but I suspect microscopic wormholes are involved there somehow. 

Recently when Wymsey suddenly disappeared it took also took only 8 minutes for any of us to notice given the frequency of his posts. 

[leicsmac]

10 minutes ago, The Bear said:

It doesn't though. If the sun suddenly disappeared then it'd take 8 mins 20s for us to notice or feel any effect. Which is the same time it takes light to get to us. 

 

Only quantum entanglement seems to break this law, but I suspect microscopic wormholes are involved there somehow. 

Actually yes, you're right. The speed of light is the same as the maximum speed of causality and perception gravitational waves have been detected moving at light speed. 

 

I was referring in part to quantum entanglement, but also to the idea that because every single object that has mass in the universe has a measurable gravitational effect on every single other object in the universe and because the universe is so big, that effect would appear to have travelled faster than light in some cases. However, I do realise that's a matter of perception itself and therefore fallacious, though. 

[Robo61]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

That is an extreme probability. Hence the need for haste.

Would it not make more sense to put our energies into sorting this planet first so that we can continue to inhabit it,  rather than spending fast sums on a  billionaires fantasy

[Trav Le Bleu]

3 hours ago, The Bear said:

It'll be a truly momentous day when the first human sets foot on another planet. 

Meh.

[Trav Le Bleu]

1 hour ago, SpacedX said:

Recently when Wymsey suddenly disappeared it took also took only 8 minutes for any of us to notice given the frequency of his posts. 

And it was almost as catastrophic as the sun disappearing!

[Zear0]

 

This is nice to see.  Don't actually know much, if anything, about this particularl company despite having a professional interest in these technologies.  It's just nice to see private enterprise putting their money where their mouth is on fusion to support data/cloud centre demand.  Governments so slow to make anything happen, see rant about SMR financing a few years ago here, that this is the only way to realise this technology.

 

I wish them luck and hope for some business...

[leicsmac]

17 minutes ago, Robo61 said:

Would it not make more sense to put our energies into sorting this planet first so that we can continue to inhabit it,  rather than spending fast sums on a  billionaires fantasy

 

In order to guarantee the continued inhabitation of our planet, we can have have to do both. Or at least give the requisite amount of attention to both, anyway. 

[leicsmac]

https://archive.is/ohLG8

 

The administration of US President Donald Trump is hacking away at funding for research institutions — aiming, it says, to eliminate waste and bias in government-funded research. This is disrupting science in ways that are rippling well beyond laboratories and lecture halls. Here, Nature’s Careers team looks into some of the figures that might indicate wider disruptions to the scientific enterprise.

 

Are the UK's "closest ally" really worth sticking with in terms of science at the present time?

[blabyboy]

<pedant>Is</present>

 

And yes

[leicsmac]

12 minutes ago, blabyboy said:

<pedant>Is</present>

 

And yes

I'd be interested in knowing why.

[blabyboy]

US still has a massive off world platform that does a lot of science, not only on the ISS, but NOAA satellites.

 

NRO donate a lot of 'old' kit e.g mirrors for telescopes. This old kit is still very usable compared to academic and private offerings.

 

5 Billions in grant to tackle climate change: https://www.epa.gov/inflation-reduction-act/climate-pollution-reduction-grants#:~:text=The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants,and other harmful air pollution.  to cite just one programme as I know you're a climate advocate.

 

The US outspends everyone else on R&D and a significant proportion of that is from private spend, almost as much as government spending. China is second with a significant gap back to Europe in third.

 

Depending upon how you classify R&D there really is no comparison, being friendly with the US when it comes to science is still the best/safest bet out there.

 

I've tried several times to access the archive link you've provided but it just times out for me.

 

 

[leicsmac]

9 hours ago, blabyboy said:

US still has a massive off world platform that does a lot of science, not only on the ISS, but NOAA satellites.

 

NRO donate a lot of 'old' kit e.g mirrors for telescopes. This old kit is still very usable compared to academic and private offerings.

 

5 Billions in grant to tackle climate change: https://www.epa.gov/inflation-reduction-act/climate-pollution-reduction-grants#:~:text=The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants,and other harmful air pollution.  to cite just one programme as I know you're a climate advocate.

 

The US outspends everyone else on R&D and a significant proportion of that is from private spend, almost as much as government spending. China is second with a significant gap back to Europe in third.

 

Depending upon how you classify R&D there really is no comparison, being friendly with the US when it comes to science is still the best/safest bet out there.

 

I've tried several times to access the archive link you've provided but it just times out for me.

 

 

Damn, sorry about that. It's an archived example of this article:

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01830-5

 

All of the programs and ideas mentioned here still exist now; however I have no confidence that they'll still exist in five years time, or even sooner, which is rather my point and why I'm speculating that it might be a better idea for the UK to back a different horse long term. 

[Dahnsouff]

Too good to be true?

[Trav Le Bleu]

4 hours ago, Dahnsouff said:

Too good to be true?

Not watched the video, is it about human flesh?

[Dahnsouff]

37 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Not watched the video, is it about human flesh?

Yes, human biomass is the future

[blabyboy]

14 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Damn, sorry about that. It's an archived example of this article:

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01830-5

 

All of the programs and ideas mentioned here still exist now; however I have no confidence that they'll still exist in five years time, or even sooner, which is rather my point and why I'm speculating that it might be a better idea for the UK to back a different horse long term. 

Thank you. That works for part of the article.

 

I guess my question back to you would be which horse to back? The authoritarian censoring one, the underfunded one, the one we can't join because we're not fully signed up to their group?

 

There are some points in that article which I think are moot. Getting together for example is easily mitigated by technology and there are plenty of places to share ideas and comment on others.

 

The jobs side, we've already seen the EU trying to entice US scientists over the water with a steady brain drain.

 

Money is being invested by more and more private investors too across different sectors.

 

Maybe I'm more optimistic here, I don't think the US will cut all grants and subsidies, they may dip for sure, but Trump is not going to get away with eradicating it all, there is too much pork in the science funding barrel that senators rely on for that to happen.