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Post by The Escapist on Feb 23, 2016 15:31:16 GMT -5
We are so small, it's ridiculous. The greatest thing mankind is even theoretically capable of achieving will always be unfathomably tiny compared to even just the small sections of the universe we inhabit. Relative to the time periods of the universe, everything anything has been, is, or will be is already forgetten. Although I get why many find it depressing, I think it's the only thing that consistently uplifts me.
Nothing matters.
Existence is nothing.
Relax.
I think your way of thinking is absurd and as a reaction to the linked video it just makes me shake my head in disbelief in humanity. We are not small, nor are we big in the context of space and universe as both the word "small" and the word "big" is relative to the idea of one specific size being the normal size. They require a certein kind of size to have as a reference point. One which isn't available in this video. When looking at the universe there are things so small and so big that you can't take just one specific perspective and use that as a reference to compare things as either small or big, at least not if you want to stay true to the facts. You always have to be ready to take in that there are things way bigger than the biggest thing you could imagine and much smaller than the smallest thing you could imagine aswell. As both of those things to keep in mind are equally important, truths such as those stated in the video do not have any effect whatsoever on what we subjectively should consider either small or big. It only makes us aware that we always have to be ready to change the frames of what we can imagine in both ways. Both so that we can imagine even bigger things and so that we can imagine even smaller ones.
What's more important though is always to hate malmö.
Clearly, the reference point is the size frames we are used to. If it makes you feel better, feel free to imagine such an explanation at the end of every sentence, but I think it was fairly clear it was implicit. |
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Post by tomlivesforever on Feb 23, 2016 15:47:04 GMT -5
We are so small, it's ridiculous. The greatest thing mankind is even theoretically capable of achieving will always be unfathomably tiny compared to even just the small sections of the universe we inhabit. Relative to the time periods of the universe, everything anything has been, is, or will be is already forgetten. Although I get why many find it depressing, I think it's the only thing that consistently uplifts me.
Nothing matters.
Existence is nothing.
Relax.
I like your view and agree with much of it. Only to me existence is everything, that's all there is and its all we do. |
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bastuz
Madferrit Fan
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Post by bastuz on Feb 25, 2016 6:56:46 GMT -5
I think your way of thinking is absurd and as a reaction to the linked video it just makes me shake my head in disbelief in humanity. We are not small, nor are we big in the context of space and universe as both the word "small" and the word "big" is relative to the idea of one specific size being the normal size. They require a certein kind of size to have as a reference point. One which isn't available in this video. When looking at the universe there are things so small and so big that you can't take just one specific perspective and use that as a reference to compare things as either small or big, at least not if you want to stay true to the facts. You always have to be ready to take in that there are things way bigger than the biggest thing you could imagine and much smaller than the smallest thing you could imagine aswell. As both of those things to keep in mind are equally important, truths such as those stated in the video do not have any effect whatsoever on what we subjectively should consider either small or big. It only makes us aware that we always have to be ready to change the frames of what we can imagine in both ways. Both so that we can imagine even bigger things and so that we can imagine even smaller ones.
What's more important though is always to hate malmö.
Clearly, the reference point is the size frames we are used to. If it makes you feel better, feel free to imagine such an explanation at the end of every sentence, but I think it was fairly clear it was implicit. You're seriously making that sound as if all human beings were used to the same size frames.
How about the chemical processes and the particles involved? Were they too big for the size frames you're using as reference point?
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Post by The-Ghost-Dancer on Feb 26, 2016 15:43:31 GMT -5
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Post by The-Ghost-Dancer on Feb 26, 2016 15:44:28 GMT -5
always thought this was one hell of a movie opening scene
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Post by Guy Fawkes on Feb 27, 2016 7:08:30 GMT -5
One of my friends believes he's solved the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, ideas and things that still allude scientists.....my friend is so fucking goofy and eccentric that I believe him. He's currently working on publishing a paper on the subjects and he's just some random guy on disability in central Ohio....
God bless.
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bastuz
Madferrit Fan
Posts: 57
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Post by bastuz on Mar 1, 2016 18:52:14 GMT -5
They're basically saying that 1+1 is 2 but look how bad the ice cream tastes. "Einstein thinks this black hole is something nature should avoid - It's baaaaaaad"
I'm not exactly sure that's appropriate material to distribute as science. To kill malmö though remains as the unquestioned way of solving everything, or at least some things. If you really were to inflict unimaginable pain on them things would sort of lighten up. Especially if it had austronomic proportions. It would be very fair.
Myself I would like it. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2016 14:39:53 GMT -5
reading about the new horizons space probe.
launched January 19, 2006 As of July 2015 the spacecraft was about 4.5 light-hours away from Earth after passing pluto
to think the nearest star to ours is 4.24 light YEARS away and that space probe has managed 4.5 light HOURS in 9 years.
voyager 1 which is the furthest probe away from us launched in september 1977 and is about 16 light hours away which even though is a great achievement is still absolutely nothing in the scale of things.
just shows the distances your dealing with.
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Post by tomlivesforever on Aug 10, 2016 14:43:07 GMT -5
Horizon is on BBC2 now. Special on CERN, definitely worth catching up on.
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Post by mystoryisgory on Aug 24, 2016 23:09:14 GMT -5
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Post by Guy Fawkes on Mar 20, 2017 2:50:47 GMT -5
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Post by matt on Apr 10, 2017 14:16:32 GMT -5
I'm not religious and don't believe in religion, but I get those folk who have a sense of spirituality. Not in the sense of a deity but something else beyond death into the next realm. The universe is far too mindblowing to contemplate and considering we only know a tiny fraction about life and the universe, well it's nice to think there's may be some sense and meaning to this life and that we are all on a journey to somewhere.
But then I hear Ed Sheehan on the radio and I think otherwise.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2017 2:25:17 GMT -5
Anyone read Big Bang by Simon Singh? I plan on re-reading it soon. It's excellent but it was hard to get through the first time because I kept having to sit back and take in what I was reading. You hear all your life about how vast the universe is, but until you actually sit and study the numbers involved you just don't appreciate it. And although it does put our own existence in perspective, I feel tremendously gifted to be a part of it, however small my role might be. I'm actually reading it right now. Really interesting book  I thought it's really mindblowing to think that Einstein came up with theory of relativity without any "real" tests, he just predicted it. Time dilation is one thing I find really amazing. I mean, time travelling isn't science fiction anymore, it's actually real. Even GPS satellites have to be programmed for time dilation because they're travelling so fast that their time is different to our time. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2017 6:33:20 GMT -5
Anyone read Big Bang by Simon Singh? I plan on re-reading it soon. It's excellent but it was hard to get through the first time because I kept having to sit back and take in what I was reading. You hear all your life about how vast the universe is, but until you actually sit and study the numbers involved you just don't appreciate it. And although it does put our own existence in perspective, I feel tremendously gifted to be a part of it, however small my role might be. I'm actually reading it right now. Really interesting book I thought it's really mindblowing to think that Einstein came up with theory of relativity without any "real" tests, he just predicted it. Time dilation is one thing I find really amazing. I mean, time travelling isn't science fiction anymore, it's actually real. Even GPS satellites have to be programmed for time dilation because they're travelling so fast that their time is different to our time.Just before I start, I've got a mock exam on general relativity this time next week, which I'm really not in the mood to revise for, so this seemed like a more efficient method of procrastination than the usual hours of watching crap on YouTube. Also, doing the algebra for this stuff really crushes any initial enthusiasm you once had for the subject, so apologies in advance if this comes across as jaded and cynical (actually, if you find relativity interesting, might be for the best to just ignore the rest of this post  ).
-Einstein came up with theory of relativity without any "real" tests, he just predicted itThat's the case with a lot of theories; you come up with some theory that matches all of your observations, and then what you check it against is other random stuff that the theory predicts but hasn't been tested. In Einstein's case there were a couple of experiments/theories that pointed him towards special relativity, notably Maxwell's equations and the Michelson-Morley experiment. They both basically ended up pointing towards the idea that there wasn't any preferred reference frame, with the speed of light being constant for all observers. Einstein basically took that idea of the speed of light being seen as the same to all observers travelling at any constant velocity, and worked out that the only way the equations can all work out with this constraint is to allow 'time' (the observed rate of progression of time) to vary as well as position. General relativity then uses a similar but distinct basic idea, this time equating frames in free fall from gravity with frames accelerating without gravity. The main reasoning for this was so that he could get gravity to be consistent with special relativity which he'd theorised a decade before. So, whilst impressive, I wouldn't see it as something he just predicted out of nothing, but more a combination of taking ideas that were known well (like Newtonian gravity and classical electromagnetism), working out how they could be used to explain gaps in the theory (why there is no preferred reference frame, no background ether, etc.) and then logically working everything through to the point where new theory and old theory are all consistent. Newton's "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants," is a quote that applies to Einstein just as much as any other scientist -...time travelling isn't science fiction anymore, it's actually real.Newton didn't invent gravity, Einstein didn't invent relativistic effects. Ok, more a pedantic point of how it's phrased this, but relativity's always existed and been real, as has time dilation. A running caveman would appear to age slower to the sitting caveman by a factor of around 1+10^(-16).  Tbh, amazing as it is, I wouldn't really call it 'time travelling' as such in the pure science fiction way. I mean, you can only travel one way in time and the only variant is the rate at which you experience time relative to another observer, whereas I think the science fiction viewpoint of time travel would let you go to a point in the future and then return. Also, even the fastest rockets relative to Earth at the moment only seem to age slower by around 1+10^(-9), so TARDISes are unfortunately off the table until the next Einstein level sort of breakthrough  -Even GPS satellites have to be programmed for time dilation because they're travelling so fast that their time is different to our time.It's only partly to do with their relative speed giving time dilation as in special relativity, but also being further above the Earth's surface reduces their gravitational potential, which gives gravitational time dilation which is fully encompassed in general relativity. Also, even though you definitely need to account for time dilation, as you said, to keep the atomic clocks on the satellites matching the ones on Earth, it turns out that as long as the satellite clocks are consistent with each other, GPS would still function normally, as it's the relative time at which signals arrive from satellites that determines your location, irrespective of what the actual time is on Earth. Anyway, back to YouTube  |
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Post by Guy Fawkes on Jul 22, 2018 18:51:54 GMT -5
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Post by Beady’s Here Now on Jul 22, 2018 19:14:43 GMT -5
Well the universe is shaped exactly like the earth - If you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were.
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Post by Guy Fawkes on Nov 26, 2018 16:12:40 GMT -5
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Post by Beady’s Here Now on Nov 30, 2018 16:14:33 GMT -5
Humans aren’t capable of fully grasping the concept of infinity.
So it’s either amazing that the universe is indeed infinite because that’s just mental. Or it’s amazing if there’s an edge to the universe and if so what does that look like or even mean?
In the year 2018 it’s easy to believe that we know practically everything, but in reality we know very little. A humbling realization.
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Post by Guy Fawkes on Sept 6, 2019 17:49:30 GMT -5
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Post by heathenchemist01 on Sept 7, 2019 9:29:06 GMT -5
I've been thinking about space all my life and as a child, I was weirdly obsessed with space shuttles. I can still remember that when the space shuttle program ended, I was devastated (relatively, but from a child's perspective it felt like the end of an era) and it was only later that I found out that the space shuttle program was a financial failure rather than a success because it didn't make space travelling as cheap as the NASA initially hoped. Not to forget that concerning their built, frankly, the shuttles were nutshells (see Challenger and Columbia disasters). However, space shuttles were also the most aestetically pleasing spacecrafts ever built to this point imo (only a small plus, I know) and no other spacecraft has ever been able to carry as much freight.
Also, it's crazy to think that both Voyager space probes have practically left our solar system by now and are still functioning. I stumbled across the Pale Blue Dot photograph again lately and it really makes you realize how small we are and that although our existence matters to us for social and evolutionary reasons, there's either no other civilization to care about us other than our own or that there are so many planets inhabited by living creatures that planet Earth is just one among many others and not unique at all. I'm not going into all those conspiracy theories surrounding the Golden Record though, I just want to emphasize that even though we care about our lives due to our sole existence, we are absolutely neglegible with regards to the whole universe.
And one weird fact to close my writings with is that although just a handful of people have ever left our planet, we know more about faraway galaxies and planets in scientifical terms than we know about the planet we call our home and all its inhabitants. It seems a strange and almost shocking thought to me.
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Nov 4, 2024 5:04:30 GMT -5