/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.2273192]

Just saw Jupiter and its moons through a telescope for the first time, I pissed myself and cried manly tears.

Any similar moments of discovery?

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.2273216]

When I was 14 I got a new cheapshit telescope from my mother. I went out and I saw Mars' polar caps.

That pretty much decided what I wanted to do with my life.

[Anonymous No.2273283]

when I was in high school I got a telescope and saw Saturn and its rings.

I came.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.2273297]

Most of my "moments of discovery" don't come from stimuli, more like just idle musings. So I was there thinking about creepy Singularitarianism and it came to me that, ignoring Moore's Law and HURR DURR NERDTOPIA, the Universe, or at least on Earth's side, seems to be in a constant, progressive march towards complexity in information storage: Billions of years in which there was only information as atomic structures, then a few billion when there was information as DNA, then a few million years when information was stored in neural nets within animals, and a few thousand years with humans being the superior carriers, then books, then computers, then the Internet; ever-accelerating.

As if the Universe was a computer whose complexity was increasing, trying to reach the maximum amount of processes that any system of mass X and density Y can provide.

The Universe is a machine for turning Hydrogen into data.

I'm going to stick this somewhere into my novel and make it memorable.

[­ No.2273323]

>>2273297

I'd like to point out that not everything in the universe is ever increasing in complexity, even though it may appear to be so. The information in the genome of organisms subjected to evolution may decrease - they don't necessarily evolve to become something more complex.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.2273329]

>>2273323

Well, at least there is one dwindling path (Hey that's US) that does increase in complexity.

If not exponential, well, the best we can hope for is a log curve.

[Anonymous No.2273335]

>>2273216
Are you sure? I tried several times to magnify Mars but all I could see was a tiny red glowing dot. Sort of frustrating for me. No visible details at all. In spite of Jupiter was fine all the way. Or maybe I was just a way dumb and always magnified a red glowing star instead of Mars...

[Anonymous No.2273342]

>>2273335

The vicinity of other planets does vary, anon.

[­ No.2273360]

>>2273329

Some post-humanists call our 'progress' the road to a singularity of some sort, which you've undoubtedly heard of.

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

[Inurdaes !V1sPhobos. No.2273370]

>>2273335
I have very little light pollution where I live. Perhaps that's why?

If you're near/in a major city the heat coming off the concrete distorts the air slightly which wouldn't help either.

[Anonymous No.2273372]

I've had a lot of moments like this, OP. You probably will too. Every time I see something new, or learn something about the Universe, I jizz myself a little bit. I love it.

[Anonymous No.2273404]

>>2273192
look for saturn, OP
then we'll talk

[Anonymous No.2273410]

don't worry op when you get to be about 30 years old that feeling goes away and never comes back.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.2273415]

>>2273360

Yeah, it's possible. The "traditional Singularity" is. The nerdwank, Stross, "Singularity-fairy, whisk me away to nerdtopia, etc etc." Singularity, that isn't.

[Anonymous No.2273469]

Seeing M51 Whirlpool Galaxy for first time in my little 76mm reflector. Stayed out all night in freezing cold until sunrise because the sky was so clear. Managed to find all sorts of objects normally pretty difficult to view in such a small telescope.
Also same night seeing high altitude meteor fly across an amazing view of the Orion Nebula.
Love the night sky.