This time it seems they nailed it for real: gravitational waves

[Oberon]

Aye, heck we could already have been out to further edges of the solar system and back had it not been for humanities inability to trust one another.
The Orion drive could have powered a manned ship to Pluto and back, and is still probably our best option for fast in solar system travel, but it's also one of the most dirty and primitive ones, so perhaps in the long term it was best that it was never used.

But yeah, I think that eventually we will get near light speed travel, and then faster than lightspeed travel most likely through some variation of the Alcubierre drive.
Technologically wise we are on the precipice of human expansion into space, and it can't happen soon enough given our frailty confined to one planet, taking just a well placed asteroid, nuclear war or epidemic to smash centuries of progress and achievement.

The big question is whether we, as a race, are ready for it.

[Skybird]

Speculation. Let's stick to a healthy minimum of reasonability and realism. There is no tech demonstration of any kind allowing to imagine warp drives and light speed drives, AFAIK. Even with light speed, man still would creep across an empty abyss of dimensions that are beyond his imagination.

So far we have not even send a man to any of our close neighbour planets like Mars or Venus. Reaching Moon still is a high risk adventure with uncertain ending even today. Our technology is extremely fragile, a still huge percentage of our probes fail to get their jobs done, crash on contact, work erratic. And even if we could reach Neptune with a manned craft, or the recently announced suspected giant planet beyond Pluto - this would still not qualify for a description of mankind doing space travelling, considering the dimension and ranges we talk about. If space would be an ocean and we send a man to Neptune, we still would not swim in the ocean, and certainly not dive in it or sail on it, we would not even have put a toe into a wave at the beach, we would not even see the ocean from a distance, or smell the salt in the air. We only would have heard a almost forgotten rumour about what an ocean is.

Human imagination may be big, but space is bigger. So: baby-steps, one after the other. In 50 or 100 generations, we talk again, if man then still is there. Personally I think we will have ruined ourselves much earlier, within the next 200 years or so. That is the by far more realistic scenario.

I also wonder whether man's psyche really is made for bearing the unimaginable empty void and loneliness that there is. I do not want to test it myself. I fear madness more than just death.

[mapuc]

So true Skybird

I did wrote When and this mean sometime in the future.

So as mentioned let stay around earth and the moon.

Markus

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Speculation.

To be fair, so was the Theory of Relativity until this week.

[Red_88]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Human imagination may be big, but space is bigger. So: baby-steps, one after the other. In 50 or 100 generations, we talk again, if man then still is there. Personally I think we will have ruined ourselves much earlier, within the next 200 years or so. That is the by far more realistic scenario.

I also wonder whether man's psyche really is made for bearing the unimaginable empty void and loneliness that there is. I do not want to test it myself. I fear madness more than just death.

I agree that we probably ruin us much earlier, I give 100 years tops. The problem is while we progress in science we regress culturally and morally, far-sightness and wisdom are becoming more and more absent. Space travel or even space colonization will be absolutely pointless if we don't start to progress culturally and morally and sort our problems, but this will not happen. besides I really don't believe
we will manage to go really beyond our solar system anyway.

I think almost all people will not be able to bear the the empty void, only a very very few, who may bear it.

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

I'll contribute 1 3000mAh 50C 3P lithium polymer battery!

AW, c'mon, we know you've got 'em; stop hogging the dilitihum crystals...



<O>

[Commander Wallace]

The exciting , recent discovery of gravitational waves from binary black holes did considerably more than prove once and for all the validity of the theory of Relativity by Albert Einstein. It has now opened discussion on time travel and renewed interest on travels beyond the speed of light.

http://mashable.com/2016/02/11/gravi.../#.EWdYxxLQmqA




http://io9.gizmodo.com/all-the-evide...rou-1446262029

This Charlie Chaplin video above purports to show a man entering from the right walking to the left holding a cell phone to his head. I think that's far fetched but still....


The 2nd video shows a woman walking in 1938 while talking on her cell phone.

There is also the video of the " Time traveling Hipster " along with a photo of Shirley Temple. All of this is in the 2nd link provided.

If true, who knows where this will lead us ?

[Reece]

Originally Posted by Oberon

But yeah, I think that eventually we will get near light speed travel, and then faster than lightspeed travel most likely through some variation of the Alcubierre drive.

Not without inertia dampers though.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Commander Wallace

This Charlie Chaplin video above purports to show a man entering from the right walking to the left holding a cell phone to his head. I think that's far fetched but still....


The 2nd video shows a woman walking in 1938 while talking on her cell phone.

I believe these may be an example of a form of Pareidolia. "is a psychological phenomenon involving a stimulus (an image or a sound) wherein the mind perceives a familiar pattern of something where none actually exists." Wikepedia

We are familiar with a cell phone and the observed pose is similar to a person talking on a cell phone. There is not an obvious reason for what the people are doing (lack of context) so our mind, in searching for an interpretation "fills in the blanks" with something we know.

Different people will "see" different things depending on their experiences.

Older people who may not be as familiar with cell phones may "see" a person holding a transistor radio to their ear while younger people who have never used a transistor radio would be unlikely to "see" that.

Often the human mind, when presented with incomplete information, will attempt to fill in the missing information with more familiar stuff.

Photo interpreters spend many hours learning not to do this.

[Commander Wallace]

I feel the same way Platapus. Your explanation makes sense.
Those people in the video could well have been just scratching their ear. That's why I thought it far fetched and more likely the product of photo shopping.

Quote from Platapus : Different people will "see" different things depending on their experiences.

A friend , who had gone through Law School had a professor who conducted an experiment. The class all witnessed a " crime " . They were then all told to write down what they saw including a description of the " actor and crime ".

He was amazed at how widely the account of the entire class varied . This experiment was to demonstrate that people see what they want to see, perhaps based on bias. Others had described the event exactly .

[Dowly]

Or it could be a hearing aid, like the article suggests...

[Skybird]

In another forum I randomly got myself engaged in a brief cosmological debate, and one of the guys answered with a link to this 50 minute lecture by Lawrence Krauss: "The universe from nothing". Dry-humoured and laconic at times, I found this too entertaining and too good as if I would want to keep it from you. The lecture was given 2012 during the Zurich days of "Denkfest".



Enjoy. At least try to.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Commander Wallace

A friend , who had gone through Law School had a professor who conducted an experiment. The class all witnessed a " crime " . They were then all told to write down what they saw including a description of the " actor and crime ".

He was amazed at how widely the account of the entire class varied . This experiment was to demonstrate that people see what they want to see, perhaps based on bias. Others had described the event exactly .

I think the whole concept of "eye witness" has been debunked. If I were serving on a jury and the only thing the prosecution had was an "eye witness" it would be a tough call how to vote.

How many people have been falsely imprisoned or even killed because of three three words: "That's him officer"