/sci/ - Science & Math

We exist because there is this gigantic fucking space where we float in around a ball of hellfire on a blue rock.

I'd say that's pretty useless information, yeah.

There are things that might be useful to us in the future- the ability to terraform mars or detect an asteroid on a course for earth. Everything else is just general knowledge, which you could say is a waste of time and money for any subject.

Earth = Eggbasket
Humanity = Eggs

Anyone who pooh poohs space exploration is retarded. No exceptions.

Spending over 700 billion dollars on the military-industrial complex and killing sandniggers? That's patriotic.
But increasing NASA's budget from 17 billion to 22 billion to search for more exoplanets and a mission to Mars? That's communism.

It is. We don't even have our ocean floors mapped or properly explored. We shouldn't leave until we've mastered our own planet.

Also, NASA is horribly wasteful. It doesn't deserve anything.

>>2500163
Brilliant analogy.

>>2500184
Terrible reasoning.

>>2500164

Long time no see inu.

>>2500184

>Map the ocean floor
>Map whole galaxies and other planets.

I wonder what I would pick...

>>2500184
Why not do both?

>>2500184

And what about the military? They're pretty wasteful too.

As to your first statement refer you to the eggbasket argument.

>>2500203

To solve the dispute, for the last couple of decades we have been moving horizontally.

However I don't think that's sustainable.

>>2500184
Because we can hide out from a gamma ray burst in the ocean, right?

>>2500202
Diamond Age was initially boring for me but now it's awesome.

>>2500224

What percentage? :3

Also, what did you think of Accelerando?

>total moneys spent on exploring space:
over a trillin dollars

>total things we gained from exploring space:
the glory of beating the russians to the moon?

honestly I'd rather my tax dollars only be spent on things that are absolutely necessary,save space for rich private companies.

Not a waste of time or money.

The andromeda galaxy is set to crash into our galaxy in 3 billion years. I don't quite remember if that is longer or shorter than the amount of time until the sun expands enough to render earth uninhabitable.

Either way, if we are to assume that humans will not have killed ourselves off in that LARGE length of time, and I think most people do assume so, we will need to have developed space travel well enough to get beyond not only our own galaxy, and not only the closest galaxy (Andromeda; that wont help when it crashes into us) but to a galaxy even further from that.
3 billion years is the deadline, and I know it seems like a lot of time, but this is one of those homework assignments that it would be best not to procrastinate about.
Ignoring THAT, it is nearly statistically impossible, with the sheer number of stars and planets, that there is not life somewhere out there. That life form, and it's home planet, can give us TONS of information about BILLIONS of questions regarding life. So far, we've only got our own case study as far as that is concerned.

Ignoring that, wouldn't finding an actual real alien in space blow your mind? And wouldn't it blow your mind even more if WE were the ones landing, saying "take me to your leader."?

>>2500230
It scares me simply because I don't know if something similar will happen in the future. Also the mind uploading bits (like half the book) clashed directly with my view of the continuity of the mind

>>2500248

I am on your side but Andromeda is not a problem at all.

We aren't going to die or anything, and the collision will not be noticeable in anyone's lifetime (well in 3 billion years, we might live to 10,000 years old, but still).

>>2500255

I thought it turned shit in the last three stories.

And Stross' writing style... Jesus: "They approached the post-scarcity Singularitarian matrioshka brain upload bioborged society which resided in a Dyson Swarm feeding off the waste heat of a dyson sphere composed of thousands of solar-and-magnetic sail-suspended statites made out of polyfullerene quantum nanowires that allowed them to act as a single multiprocessor dual-core wormhole-bus quantum nanomechanical nanocomputer"

No one sane thinks space exploration is pointless. However, manned space exploration is (at the moment) a complete waste of time, resources, and money. There is absolutely nothing a manned mission can do that robots can't do 10 times better. We should be sending probes to Europa to look for life, to kuiper belt objects, into Saturn, into Neptrune, to Mercury, to Venus. And yes, we should probe Uranus.

What we SHOULDN'T do is spend billions of dollars and millions of man-hours sending three chucklefucks to Mars to prance around for two hours and then come back. That's a PR stunt, not science.

Stupid ignorant laymen here. I have not set foot in a school since the early 80's and the last time I did, it was a high school. I am in the top tax bracket these days so I suppose I am a fairly decent example of the mindless Joe Sixpack taxpayer.

Everybody I know IRL thinks that programs such as NASA are a huge waste of money. personally I think it is one of the only worthy causes we spend public money on.
I dont know what discoveries might come from learning about our universe and the physics that govern it. I know that if we did nothing and did not try, we would surely reap no rewards at all.
I am old enough that I have seen my life improved by the comercial application of inventions that came about by entities such as NASA during the course of their research and efforts. So that is a consideration as well.

I am just glad that there are so many scientists willing to condense their work and explain it in such a way that it is accessable to somebody like me that cant even remember how to do basic algebra.

Personally, as long as people are willing to put in the extra effort to dumb things down to the point that they can share their information with me I am happy, and as far as I am concerned they can plug away at their formulas on my dime to their hearts content.

I might not be able to understand the equations behind a breakthrough but I can still share in the excitement of unravelling the workings of our universe.

And who knows? maybe the lives of my children will be saved by such research. Maybe not, but I think that its worth the effort either way.

>>2500247
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2oXFWKpJiA

>>2500248

By that time the Earth will be uninhabitable due to the sun expanding. Besides, even if we were still around the chances of the collision actually harming us in any way is very very slim. Galaxies are probably 99.9 percent empty space, not sure if there's an actually number on that. We won't hit anything, and even if we are flung out of the galaxies it won't matter to us one bit.

>>2500267
>What we SHOULDN'T do is spend billions of dollars and millions of man-hours sending three chucklefucks to Mars to prance around for two hours and then come back. That's a PR stunt, not science.

What. They can't even do that. They would have to stay or two years creating the propellant required for the return journey, and also their quick transfer window would've closed.

>>2500278
I want to be alive long enough to witness a star colliding with another as the Andromeda galaxy merges into the Milky Way.

>>2500065

As far as I'm concerned the importance of space exploration is not even open for discussion. In the long run finding other habitable planets and colonizing them is the only way to avoid humanity's extinction. A cosmic projectile could hit us at any given moment and there is absolutely no rescue plan for such an event. People who can't see this are blind and unable to see the bigger picture behind their petty everyday problems.

Just look at the fucking media. NASA collides a projectile on the moon to find water, which could be essential for a possible permanent base on the moon, and all the headlines read "NASA BOMBS MOON; TAXPAYERS MONEY WASTED".

I usually tell people about the benefits of learning about our origins to protect ourselves and progress as a species. Lately though, I've been more inclined to just punch them in the crotch. I'm getting extremely fed up with people not understanding something as basic as "Not all research has immidiate practical benefits".

>>2500329
>NASA BOMBS MOON; TAXPAYERS MONEY WASTED
Fucking lol'd. Did you actually see an article that said something like this before? I feel like raging.

>>2500310
And just how disappointed would you be if that didn't happen, hmm? 3 billion years and every single bastard star misses.

>>2500299

That's even stupider. Imagine the effort it would take to mount a mission to Mars that lasted so long. It takes a lot of shit to keep a few people alive for two years, especially on FUCKING MARS.

It might be marginally more efficient to make the mission one-way. The Russians planned something like that back during the space race. But that would be hella bad PR. In any case it wouldn't really serve much of a purpose anyway. For the resources it would take to put men on Mars we could send 10 or 20 unmanned probes and get back thousands of times the data.

>>2500259

For us personally, no, it is not a problem.
For us as a species, and for the sake of life on Earth, the only known form of life (to us) that exists, it is a pretty big fucking problem unless, as >>2500278 pointed out, the sun expands before then. (It will still be a problem eventually, because presumably we would solve that problem by moving to another star within our same galaxy.)

However, >>2500278 doesn't seem to know about the fact that the center of each galaxy is a supermassive black hole. They are dormant most of the time, having sucked up anything that isn't far enough away from the event horizon. However, when two galaxies collide, you're trowing two stable systems worth of forces together. This means that:
A. the black holes will have more matter which falls into them.
B. Orbits will get fucked up. Do you know how many things on earth depend on this regular elliptical movement? JUST ABOUT GODDAMNED EVERYTHING.
C. Let's say we get flung out into space. No sun? Potentially no moon? WHAT THE FUCK?! Everything would die faster than you could say a joke.

So, you see, sirs, these are problems worth being concerned over, so long as you are interested in the human species, or Earth's particular example of life, beyond your own death.

>>2500367

The mass of the supermassive black holes at the centres of our galaxies make up a tiny tiny fraction of the overall mass of the universe. Even combined they would barely affect us. Unless by some chance we ended up being flung directly at their event horizons then we'll be fine.
Also, if we are flung out of the galaxies the sun and moon are coming with us. The whole solar system would be flung out, not just earth. Everything within the solar system would remain the same.

>>2500267

If you go to Mars, you're stuck there for 18 months before the launch window comes up for a return trip. Anyone we send there is going to have to do a lot more than prance around for a couple of hours.

>>2500310

It's exceedingly unlikely that any of the stars will collide, even given how many there are. The space between stars is simply too great compared to their size.

>>2500406

Change universe to galaxy.

>>2500343

I saw a load of articles around the time they did it. I think the daily show or colbert picked up a few clips from 'outraged' commentators. And I know there was at least one serious article claiming that it was a weapons test. Bullshit flew high back then.

Humanity is doomed. Everyone wants to stay here, eat McDonalds and watch television and pretend that political shit is at all important.

Humanity is small time, and will always be small time, until it starts getting rowdy in space.

Colonization of Mars is small time too, but it's less small time. We need to start building massive ships that can carry people to other systems, or build ships that will be permanent habitats.

For that we need a lot of automation, stonger AI, mining and fabrication facilities on the moon, which means workers too, and a means to get them to the moon and keep them alive.

People aren't about to give up their weed to take shit seriously and just do work that is good for man-kind.

I fucking hate humanity.

>>2500406
>>2500411

Changes in the relations of celestial bodies to one another will change somewhere. Definitely. I'd still say that it's possible for one of those changes to occur near enough to our solar system to affect it.

Alternatively, if our solar system is "flung out' into space, it will not be "flung" as though you throw a biscuit across a room, and the whole thing stays intact. it is going to take a lot more force to move the sun than it is going to take to move the earth, for example. And if the same amount of force is applied, wont the earth go farther than the sun? Which would change the relations between the bodies in our solar system?

>>2500454
>People aren't about to give up their weed to take shit seriously and just do work that is good for man-kind.
Ahem.

I'm sick of this narrow-mindedness.

Just look at the birth of mathematics. All spawned by astronomers looking up and trying to describe the universe. Mathematics owes its existence to space exploration. I'd say it was a worthwile endeavour; what we learn about the universe today finds applications on Earth tomorrow.

Is space exploration useless? No.

I think we should be spending more time and money on R&D rather than exploration at the moment since technologically we're not even close to advance enough to truly explore anything.

>>2500483
Speaking of which, have we had any further discussions about this technocracy idea?

I just finished Mass Effect 2, loved it. Do I think the human species will ever have that kind of space travel (excluding mass relays)? no.

I think space exploration is important, a modest budget should suffice. I think we're wasting a shit-ton of money on other stuff, like questionable wars.

Overall, we should be spending more money on educating our young people, especially in math and science. Our public education system sucks balls (U.S.) you can get out of high school without any math beyond algebra 2 and precalc and with barely any science. By educating our 'future generation' - how cheesy can I be? - then we can get good fresh brains working on all our science-y stuff.

>>2500495
>since technologically we're not even close to advance enough to truly explore anything.

What the fuck are you smoking

>>2500483

What are you implying?

>>2500520

Reality.

>>2500513
Unsure. I haven't been on as frequently as I would've liked, and interest seems to have simmered down a little since the idea of serious planning not commencing until ~2020 became more widespread

>>2500533
I am implying to formation of a nation for scientists, engineers and educated folk alike around 2039 based as closely to http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna5.htm/ as possible.

>>2500515

This shit needs to be important to all of society, not just taught in school.

>>2500555

Ah, I see. Count me in, but I won't be heading to Tasmania if everyone's a weak faggot like me. I'm too smart for that shit.

Also, isn't all land that is any good already claimed? It would make more sense to take Antarctica.

>>2500479

It could very well fuck up orbits. I'm just saying that it's unlikely that we'll see actual stellar collisions.

>>2500583
>Count me in, but I won't be heading to Tasmania if everyone's a weak faggot like me. I'm too smart for that shit.

Manual labour will be practically non-existent and the large portion of the blueprints and planning will be done before actual building commences.

>Also, isn't all land that is any good already claimed?
What 'claim' does the government of Australia have over that land? Their ancestors slaughtered all the indigneous people on Tasmania and then just planted a flag and said 'this is ours now!'

So, uh, we'll do the same thing, with no violence and offers of a trading relationship which is beneficial for both countries.

>It would make more sense to take Antarctica.
Very few people would want to move to even Western Antarctica, including me.

Idorts
On any practical level it doesn't matter if we cut NASA funding to zero for the next 10 000 years, invest in theoretical sciences, medicine and world economy THEN we can worry about the sky falling.

>>2500603
>Manual labour will be practically non-existent and the large portion of the blueprints and planning will be done before actual building commences.
Oh wow. You faggots will never accomplish anything if you're afraid of work.

>>2500603

If we are to be a space faring race we should get use to not liking our environment. Anyhow, if robots are involved, what does it matter. It will be reasonably livable inside.

I hear everyone in this thread talk about the need for advancement in mathematics and science in education, but I would like to propose a problem to this ideal: Not everyone likes math or science. Granted, most people on this board do, but most people on this board do not represent the majority of humanity. Instead of forcing people to learn subjects they do not care about, perhaps we should start specializing our school programs. By this, I mean we should take a hint from the Europeans in how we do our education. Instead of forcing someone who does not like math to take advanced mathematics, they should instead take something related to their future career.

In this way, people who are not good at mathematics, and who would prefer to opt out of ADVANCED math and science programs, should be able to do so. General everyday population uses basic maths, not advanced maths like calc. The fact is that not everyone is great at math and science. Some people excel in languages while others excel at math. I'm not advocating that if you're good at English, you should only stick to English, no; however, forcing people to learn tricky subjects in a subject can have negative effects.

People are generally lazy, if given the choice. It's a natural fact about humanity, one in which is debatable, but a belief that I hold. If people are allowed to choose their path careers, know that they'll excel at it, why should we force them to take math, science, languages, history, etc, that they may not be particular good at or interested in?

Many of you will say this: Everyone should have a good understanding of how mathematics, language, history, etc, but yet when people learn these subjects to great degrees, do they ever actually put them to use? The resources and time is wasted by teaching someone who will never put the skills/knowledge to use. The knowledge of humanity is too vast for someone to comprehend anymore. Specialization in one's selected field should be the way.

I think particle physics and AI are more timely investments (A CERN-esqe facility would cost a mere fraction of the current Iraq/Afghanistan war budget), but no, NASA's budget doesn't deserve to be strangled. Even people with no college education, like my parents, recognize the inherent futility of things like war and politics. Conversely, they never miss a shuttle launch, and my Dad's been taking me out to deserts to look at stars since I was an infant.

Antarctica sounds like a good idea.
It'd be like living on one of Mars' poles. And we'd probably have to develop new technology for dealing with cold. Steel becomes brittle, so we will need something else.
And most planets that we're able to live on should be colder than earth.

>>2500667
Calculus isn't advanced. There are bartenders in Poland who can do Calculus in a single variable. I think everyone needs at least pre-calculus, if not basic calc (or calc for business).

>>2500667
Don't give me that anti-intellectual crap. There are monkeys who could do an engineering degree at a state school. We need to stop blowing very basic subjects, like calculus, out of proportion.

This shit is NOT hard.

Okay, the one sentance to shut those pesky little vermin creep up: The more we fund it, the sooner it will matter.

Anything below that is an extremely dangerous slippery slope that I'm not about to allow humanity slide down.

>>2500697
>>2500686
My point stands. Not everyone uses calculus, algebra, and even simple fractions on an everyday basis. The higher the math, the less likely it is to be used. Not because people can't learn it, but because the math becomes more specialized to a certain area(s). Again, people should focus on their careers/goals, rather than focus on a great number of things, for which have nothing to do with their subject of interest. Math is important, but only some of it for the majority of the general populous. Agree or disagree, you try picking ten random people off the street, and ask them if they use algebra or calc. in their everyday lives.

HOW CAN YOU SAY SPACE USELESS WHEN NO SPACE NOWHERE TO PUT YOUR STUFF HAHA YOU DUMB

>>2500728
Really though, how many of this poor souls who can't even do calculus know what they want to do with their lives? Most people change their careers on multiple occasions, so I don't see how specializing early would work. It would just breed further resentment towards "the system".

>>2500247
A lot of incredible tech has come out of space exploration.

GPS for example.

Not to mention learning about Mars and other planets/galaxies/etc. helps us to better understand and put our own existence into context.

>>2500764
You make a good point, and one that I did not consider.

>>2500743
Wait, so Quantum Electrodynamics is the top?

The truth of the matter is that the things we need to explore are simply too far away.

A human will never go light speed. Cannot go light speed. And the closest habitable planet (or so they say) is... how many light years away?

I mean, yeah, it's just not gonna happen. It's cool observing it all from afar, but we're never going to get close to it. We can't. Unless we find a way to live forever.

>>2500259
>it won't happen in our lifetime
>it doesn't matter

>>2500454
Hey, man. You can have your weed and explore space too, let's not get rash.

>>2500267
This guy got it completely right. Robotic exploration is so much better and cheaper!! Though I would be in favor of one last manned mission to send myself to the moon.

>>2500891
Ahem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

>>2501224
He never said he smoked weed.

>>2501311
http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/

Ten seconds of Google.

>>2501311
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Personal_life_and_beliefs
>Sagan was a user and advocate of marijuana. Under the pseudonym "Mr. X", he contributed an essay about smoking cannabis to the 1971 book Marihuana Reconsidered.[46][47] The essay explained that marijuana use had helped to inspire some of Sagan's works and enhance sensual and intellectual experiences. After Sagan's death, his friend Lester Grinspoon disclosed this information to Sagan's biographer, Keay Davidson. The publishing of the biography, Carl Sagan: A Life, in 1999 brought media attention to this aspect of Sagan's life.[48][49][50]

http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/mr_x.html
>I find that most of the insights I achieve when high are into social issues, an area of creative scholarship very different from the one I am generally known for. I can remember one occasion, taking a shower with my wife while high, in which I had an idea on the origins and invalidities of racism in terms of gaussian distribution curves. It was a point obvious in a way, but rarely talked about. I drew the curves in soap on the shower wall, and went to write the idea down. One idea led to another, and at the end of about an hour of extremely hard work I found I had written eleven short essays on a wide range of social, political, philosophical, and human biological topics. Because of problems of space, I can't go into the details of these essays, but from all external signs, such as public reactions and expert commentary, they seem to contain valid insights. I have used them in university commencement addresses, public lectures, and in my books.

>>2501311

>>2501330
Statement retracted.

>>2501348
Thank you for being a gentleman about it.

>>2501354
I had heard he was an advocate of legalizing marijuana, so it was obvious that he had done it before, but I had never heard him admit to using it. I guess I was partially correct in that he never admitted to using mary jane while he was alive, but I was unaware than he wrote an anonymous article about his use which was revealed to be him after his death.

I'm glad you guys informed me.

All of the high school fags in this thread have to shut the FUCK up.

http://fora.tv/2010/03/30/Lord_Martin_Rees_Life_and_the_Cosmos#fullprogram

I don't know where he says it, but we'll be unharmed; so much so that we won't even be able to tell if we're in a galactic collision.

>>2501295
>>2501295

>However, if certain quantum inequalities conjectured by Ford and Roman hold, then the energy requirements for some warp drives may be absurdly gigantic, e.g. the energy equivalent of 1067 grams might be required

If the government spent way too much on it, I would be worried, but they don't.

The numbers might be billions of dollars, which makes you think of poor people living with a dollar a day. But really, that's not much money in this context. The war is way too fucking expensive and it is all about killing people, so why the fuck would I be worried about space exploration funding? And the war is just one example.

Space exploration is fucking great.

>>2501426
>Chris Van Den Broeck, in 1999, has tried to address the potential issues.[10] By contracting the 3+1 dimensional surface area of the 'bubble' being transported by the drive, while at the same time expanding the 3 dimensional volume contained inside, Van Den Broeck was able to reduce the total energy needed to transport small atoms to less than 3 solar masses. Later, by slightly modifying the Van Den Broeck metric, Krasnikov reduced the necessary total amount of negative energy to a few milligrams.

>>2501295

I'm talking probable reality, not some crazy shit that can't remotely be tested a la "wormholes" or "bending spacetime".

>>2500743
According to this, physics, in general, is a very very low tier field of study. Good job with that.

>>2501438
it would be impossible to generate the bubble without being able to force the exotic matter to move at locally FTL speeds, which would require the existence of tachyons. Some methods have been suggested which would avoid the problem of tachyonic motion, but would probably generate a naked singularity at the front of the bubble.

>>2501311

>>2500184
earth exploration and space exploration go hand-in-hand technologies and theories developed for use here can be applied in space, and vice versa. The two are almost never mutually exclusive.

Well, if I have a given sum of money and the choice is to either do something that is considered good for mankind (such as helping nigger in africa to breed or w/e) or do something that could benefit humankinds understanding of our universe, the choice is simple.

Humans in general fucking suck ass, it just happens to be that scientists are a tad better than all the other fucking low-lives that populate the vast majority of the earth.

That stuff on Alcubierre drive is amazing to read.

IN THE HISTORY OF SPACE TRAVEL LIKE 518 PEOPLE HAVE EVER GONE TO SPACE AND NO ONE HAS LIVED THERE PERMANENTLY.

ROUGHLY 150 NEW PEOPLE ARE ADDED TO THE WORLD'S POPULATION EVERY MINUTE.

SPACE TRAVEL AIN'T GONNA SAVE SHIT.

>>2503265

let ppl die, that only hinders the overpopulation

>>2503332

>Implying space travel cannot improve.

>>2503471
>implying it will improve anytime soon.

>>2503483
>implying it isn't improving constantly and hasn't been since von Braun first thought it would be pretty neat to ride an explosion

Next time government questions the validity of giving NASA a few billion dollars, keep this in mind:

We just spent more than $1 trillion on bailouts. I don't know a single person that benefited from this $1 trillion.

$1 trillion would fund NASA for 75 years. Everyone benefits from science.

Science > Bailouts

Our direction is off.

Satellite communications have done more for civilization than hauling us fragile fleshbags to the moon, now apparently we want to waste more money sending someone to mars. Sure, as a result of the moon landings we advanced science a little, but wouldn't we advance science more for the same resources if we invested in things which gave higher returns?

Apparently we will be sending someone to mars next, I believe that instead we should be sending robots to the moon to mine precious metals or building a giant mirrors (a reflective fabric held in position by rotating) in space for solar panels on the earth or something.

>>2501461
>naked singularity

Everyone ITT needs to read Richard Gott's theorum ( for lack of a better word ) about the connection of space exploration to our survival as a species. 'To ensure our long-term survival, we need to get a colony up and running on Mars within 46 years. ( of 1993 )'

tl;dr were screwed.

>>2503746
Please. Any time within the next couple centuries isn't much worse. What are the odds of a planet-destroying catastrophe that will actually wipe out mankind before then? Not even a nuclear war can pull off the total extinction of homo sapiens. It would take a huge asteroid, or similar.

>>2500270
What? All youve proved is that it doesn't take intelligence to make money. Fuck off and die on your pile of dimes.

"rich" people are a way bigger problem than the space program will evert be.