• Announcements

    • Robin

      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
Sign in to follow this  
Pharaoh RutinTutin

Story Friday August 30, 2019

Recommended Posts

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Future generations might not be sure why the library contains movie starring some governor of California ...

Hopefully, they will not view Terminator as an instructional video.

Instructional for what?

Considering Terminator contains time travel, I think we can safely assume they will realize it's fiction. I mean, IF they have time travel, they would have great way to verify it, and if they won't, they would know noone before them had it either.

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Probabilistic observations are known to say little about individuals.

Yes, that's the point, often you want to view effects in the aggregate, such as building a bridge, or a network, or a McDonalds. You don't care if Fred specifically uses your thing you are making, you want users per day.

Yes.

Now the next step is realizing that in the event like the galaxy collision, our Sun  is Fred.

At this point, we can make estimates about how many stars will end up badly, but we have no idea how specifically our Sun will end.

1 hour ago, ijuin said:

Forecasting how future civilization will deal with these issues is a bit problematic, as just a few thousand years will be enough for technology to go into “indistinguishable from magic” territory. Even some of today’s tech is incomprehensible to people from a few centuries ago. 

Most of today's technology is incomprehensible to most of people living today. But yes: we have lot of sci-fi so we feel we know where the technology will go to, but ... we had lot of sci-fi around 1960 too. NOONE predicted smartphones. Noone predicted how computers will be everywhere. And that wasn't thousand years later. It was FORTY years later.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

There will be no starting from scratch in next million year. We used too much fossil fuels for that. Future civilization will find impossible to get from steam era. And their live will be too hard to care about past.

You don't need to advance beyond steam technology to conduct archaeology/paleontology/etc.

When I mentioned earlier in this thread the idea of future descendants of humanity doing research into the past, I wasn't limiting it to continuations of our own civilization. I didn't go into detail because I didn't think it was important to the point I was making, but I also meant to include possible civilizations hundreds or thousands of years in the future whose technological advancement is limited by the resources we used up, and possible civilizations millions of years in the future who are only a few thousand years or so out from the end of a second stone age (and the members of which bear as little resemblance to us as we do to Australopithecus afarensis).

Also, I use the term "descendants" loosely; I'm also including civilizations of sentient robots (though that would be more likely in a scenario where our civilization continued on for a while yet; it's questionable whether we have time to develop sentient AI before Climate Change reaches the point where civilization has to adapt or fall).

13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Didn't I already mentioned that? Yes, before that happens, we will need to solve several other major problems ... or die.

Yes, but then the conversation moved on without acknowledging it. I felt it was too important a point to let go like that. Sorry for not giving you credit for bringing it up first.

14 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Also, the concept of heat death is not entirely without controversies: there are lot of things we don't know about universe yet, and some of it has potential to affect the outcome.

However, assuming heat death: it's quite likely our legacy will be sort-of-preserved in such case. There will be no usable energy, but you don't need usable energy to preserve a monument. Maybe it wouldn't be from protons, if those are unstable ... maybe those ARE stable. It's quite likely the last recognizable structure in universe - or OF universe - will be of artificial origin, from our civilization or some other.

I'm not very familiar with the arguments against heat death; somehow I never even heard of them until I read the wikipedia article I linked above when composing my previous post. However, while the timeframe of events leading to heat death is uncertain, and whether the state of near uniformity represented by heat death is the true end of the universe or just the start of a new set of processes, the mechanisms that lead to heat death seem pretty straightforward and I'd be surprised to learn that wasn't the direction the universe was going to go in.

...If heat death is just the start of something new, I wonder if sentient beings could function in that post heat death world - or survive the transition. Definitely fodder for science fiction stories.

As for preserving a monument, all materials are capable of erosion - and while encounters with stray particles would be extremely rare in a near heat death setting, they would happen. Over a long enough time frame, any object could be broken down. An artificial structure probably will be the last structure remaining in the universe, but I don't think it could last forever. (Also, what's the point of a legacy if there's no one around to appreciate it?)

9 hours ago, ijuin said:

Forecasting how future civilization will deal with these issues is a bit problematic, as just a few thousand years will be enough for technology to go into “indistinguishable from magic” territory. Even some of today’s tech is incomprehensible to people from a few centuries ago. 

While we can't predict what exactly the technology of the future will be, to the extent science has given us an accurate view of how the world works we can place limits on what is and isn't possible.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
10 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Instructional for what?

Considering Terminator contains time travel, I think we can safely assume they will realize it's fiction. I mean, IF they have time travel, they would have great way to verify it, and if they won't, they would know noone before them had it either.

Was it that obtuse? It was an off-hand remark that the future no longer quite human cyborgs of days to come may view it and think, "Skynet makes a good point." That's not much of a stretch, really. We recently had a KKK rally within 40 or so miles of where I live, and I don't think I was alone in thinking there are some factions who are more trouble than they are worth.

It's like that Chinese curse, "May you live in really stupid times."  (Yes, I know that's not how it goes. It seems more fitting, at the moment.)

 

10 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Yes.

Now the next step is realizing that in the event like the galaxy collision, our Sun  is Fred.

At this point, we can make estimates about how many stars will end up badly, but we have no idea how specifically our Sun will end.

You keep circling around the obvious. You don't know if Fred is going to cross your bridge, send a packet through your network, use your McDonalds, or crash into your central black hole, but you do know the general odds he will, as an aggregate element. Which is where I started.

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
8 hours ago, ChronosCat said:
22 hours ago, hkmaly said:

There will be no starting from scratch in next million year. We used too much fossil fuels for that. Future civilization will find impossible to get from steam era. And their live will be too hard to care about past.

You don't need to advance beyond steam technology to conduct archaeology/paleontology/etc.

True. However, you need to advance beyond steam technology to UNDERSTAND the stuff from our civilization they will find.

8 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

When I mentioned earlier in this thread the idea of future descendants of humanity doing research into the past, I wasn't limiting it to continuations of our own civilization. I didn't go into detail because I didn't think it was important to the point I was making, but I also meant to include possible civilizations hundreds or thousands of years in the future whose technological advancement is limited by the resources we used up, and possible civilizations millions of years in the future who are only a few thousand years or so out from the end of a second stone age (and the members of which bear as little resemblance to us as we do to Australopithecus afarensis).

In that case yes. However, civilization which had it's own stone age after our civilization ended would be as alien to us as actual aliens, even if there would be genetic relation.

8 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Also, I use the term "descendants" loosely; I'm also including civilizations of sentient robots (though that would be more likely in a scenario where our civilization continued on for a while yet; it's questionable whether we have time to develop sentient AI before Climate Change reaches the point where civilization has to adapt or fall).

I still think our civilization is capable of adapting to climate change. Of course, important part of that adaptation will be to shot all the politicians who claim to be trying to revert climate change, which I don't believe we are capable of doing (also, already too late for that).

8 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

I'm not very familiar with the arguments against heat death; somehow I never even heard of them until I read the wikipedia article I linked above when composing my previous post. However, while the timeframe of events leading to heat death is uncertain, and whether the state of near uniformity represented by heat death is the true end of the universe or just the start of a new set of processes, the mechanisms that lead to heat death seem pretty straightforward and I'd be surprised to learn that wasn't the direction the universe was going to go in.

...If heat death is just the start of something new, I wonder if sentient beings could function in that post heat death world - or survive the transition. Definitely fodder for science fiction stories.

Well, I'm not that much familiar with them either. However, it's true that we don't know enough physics to be so sure about the heat death ... the concept of entropy itself, no matter how basic it seems now, can become as outdated in future as the concept of absolute time is now.

And, well ... physicists tend to not deal with such concepts even when they admit they believe, but ... what if soul exists and is truly immortal? What if the afterlive is part of physical reality and we just didn't found how yet?

8 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

As for preserving a monument, all materials are capable of erosion - and while encounters with stray particles would be extremely rare in a near heat death setting, they would happen. Over a long enough time frame, any object could be broken down. An artificial structure probably will be the last structure remaining in the universe, but I don't think it could last forever. (Also, what's the point of a legacy if there's no one around to appreciate it?)

Yes, stray particles, especially ones with enough energy to cause erosion, will be EXTREMELY rare in near heat date setting. And if the expansion of universe will be fast enough, the structure might remain literally forever because all remaining particles will be too slow to alter it. (Imagine, instead of solid object, an expanding cloud of particles twice as dense as it's surroundings, with specific shape. Such structure might be extremely resistant to change, although it's density will get lower and lower ...)

And if you think there is no point of legacy with noone around to appreciate it, you don't have enough ego to go into politics.

8 hours ago, ChronosCat said:
18 hours ago, ijuin said:

Forecasting how future civilization will deal with these issues is a bit problematic, as just a few thousand years will be enough for technology to go into “indistinguishable from magic” territory. Even some of today’s tech is incomprehensible to people from a few centuries ago. 

While we can't predict what exactly the technology of the future will be, to the extent science has given us an accurate view of how the world works we can place limits on what is and isn't possible.

Are you talking about the science theories not even hundred years old and still not completely understood? "Impossible" is strong word. Flying machine heavier than air was though to be impossible. There were scientific arguments for people not possibly surviving traveling at speeds over 40km/h.

5 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Instructional for what?

Considering Terminator contains time travel, I think we can safely assume they will realize it's fiction. I mean, IF they have time travel, they would have great way to verify it, and if they won't, they would know noone before them had it either.

Was it that obtuse? It was an off-hand remark that the future no longer quite human cyborgs of days to come may view it and think, "Skynet makes a good point." That's not much of a stretch, really. We recently had a KKK rally within 40 or so miles of where I live, and I don't think I was alone in thinking there are some factions who are more trouble than they are worth.

Considering Skynet FAILED in the movie - and for good reason, it was doing mistakes five year old would realize - it's not really good instructional movie. If you are capable of time travel and know that your enemy is living in specific city, you don't send robot to shot him. You will BLOW THE CITY UP. T-800 is powered by nuclear power cells. There is no reason why he couldn't have a nuclear bomb installed in abdomen.

Such "terroristic" attack would certainly HASTEN the creation and activation of Skynet.

5 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

ow the next step is realizing that in the event like the galaxy collision, our Sun  is Fred.

At this point, we can make estimates about how many stars will end up badly, but we have no idea how specifically our Sun will end.

You keep circling around the obvious. You don't know if Fred is going to cross your bridge, send a packet through your network, use your McDonalds, or crash into your central black hole, but you do know the general odds he will, as an aggregate element. Which is where I started.

Yes, that's true. I just feel it's not that important, considering there ARE variables making our chances very different from general ... variables we are likely to know - and, possibly, ALTER - millions of years before the collision.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Considering Skynet FAILED in the movie - and for good reason, it was doing mistakes five year old would realize - it's not really good instructional movie. If you are capable of time travel and know that your enemy is living in specific city, you don't send robot to shot him. You will BLOW THE CITY UP. T-800 is powered by nuclear power cells. There is no reason why he couldn't have a nuclear bomb installed in abdomen.

It would have been a shorter movie, for sure.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Considering Skynet FAILED in the movie - and for good reason, it was doing mistakes five year old would realize - it's not really good instructional movie. If you are capable of time travel and know that your enemy is living in specific city, you don't send robot to shot him. You will BLOW THE CITY UP. T-800 is powered by nuclear power cells. There is no reason why he couldn't have a nuclear bomb installed in abdomen.

It would have been a shorter movie, for sure.

Oh, sure.

More Accurate

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The W54 is the smallest nuclear explosive believed to be viable, with a cylindrical physics package roughly 275 mm in diameter and 400 mm in length sans casing, shielding, and electrical supply. These are the so-called "suitcase nukes" produced by the USA. Would a T-800 necessarily have sufficient internal space to mount one without removing critical systems?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, ijuin said:

The W54 is the smallest nuclear explosive believed to be viable, with a cylindrical physics package roughly 275 mm in diameter and 400 mm in length sans casing, shielding, and electrical supply. These are the so-called "suitcase nukes" produced by the USA. Would a T-800 necessarily have sufficient internal space to mount one without removing critical systems?

The installation of even the tinyest A-bomb would mean the only critical systems are "recognize when within five miles of target" and "activate".

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, ijuin said:

The W54 is the smallest nuclear explosive believed to be viable, with a cylindrical physics package roughly 275 mm in diameter and 400 mm in length sans casing, shielding, and electrical supply. These are the so-called "suitcase nukes" produced by the USA. Would a T-800 necessarily have sufficient internal space to mount one without removing critical systems?

Maybe not T-800, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, but what about model T-802, played by Eddie Murphy?

(Also, Skynet might have more advanced nuclear weapons. The T-800 nuclear power source is much smaller than what we consider viable nuclear reactors either.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, ijuin said:

The W54 is the smallest nuclear explosive believed to be viable, with a cylindrical physics package roughly 275 mm in diameter and 400 mm in length sans casing, shielding, and electrical supply. These are the so-called "suitcase nukes" produced by the USA. Would a T-800 necessarily have sufficient internal space to mount one without removing critical systems?

Remember, in the 3rd movie, the dual power sources were some kind of nuclear/fusion/antimatter. The novelization probably spells it out. The T-850 uses both to produce explosions, one time because it is damaged, and the second time to kill the T-X. It should then be easy for Skynet to create these such that they can intentionally be detached and detonated.

 

1 hour ago, Haylo said:

The installation of even the tinyest A-bomb would mean the only critical systems are "recognize when within five miles of target" and "activate".

A small nuke would not have a five mile blast radius. The article you linked cites a "two block area destroyed" for the 10 tons of TNT equivalent version.

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
24 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

A small nuke would not have a five mile blast radius. The article you linked cites a "two block area destroyed" for the 10 tons of TNT equivalent version.

Depends. It could be something like in the old The Travellers comic in classic White Dwarf gaming magazine.

"They finally invented the antimatter hand grenade. Now they only have to invent a soldier who can throw it for twenty-five miles."

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 9/7/2019 at 8:52 PM, hkmaly said:

Future generations might not be sure why the library contains movie starring some governor of California and suspect political reasons, but they will not want to create precedent which might later be used against movies added by them.

Bedtime For Bonzo is a Cinematic masterpiece and has earned its place in any cultural repository.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043325/

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Are you talking about the science theories not even hundred years old and still not completely understood? "Impossible" is strong word. Flying machine heavier than air was though to be impossible. There were scientific arguments for people not possibly surviving traveling at speeds over 40km/h.

Well, I did add the caveat, "to the extent science has given us an accurate view of how the world works".

I do tend to think that what science currently says is mostly right, though there are still some important unknowns. I would never say anything is definitely "impossible", but I do think we can say certain things are "unlikely to be possible".

Incidentally, I'm not sure which theories you're referring to, but the theory of General Relativity was 100 years old in 2015; and while Quantum Mechanics is a constantly developing scientific field, it had it's foundations in the 1900s-1920s.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 9/7/2019 at 6:52 PM, hkmaly said:

Punic wars are still relevant to us. It's being taught in school (then promptly forgotten). Historians are arguing about those. There will be movies about them ... which might take dramatic license to alter some historical facts and only historians will complain.

I have an alternate history in the early-mulling-over stages, where the turning point is when Hannibal of Carthage is about a day's march from Rome. Counterfactuals: he decides NOT to stop and rest his army, and a certain messenger does NOT get through to him. A short-term consequence: the Romans temporarily control a big chunk of the Iberian peninsula, but Carthage rules the Italian peninsula. A long-term consequence: Islam does not exist, and Christianity is at most a minor Jewish sect (probably doesn't exist either).
 

On 9/7/2019 at 6:52 PM, hkmaly said:

Also, the concept of heat death is not entirely without controversies: there are lot of things we don't know about universe yet, and some of it has potential to affect the outcome.

To a significant extent, the heat death of the universe has already happened. It's MUCH cooler than it was even a million years after the Big Bang.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
22 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

To a significant extent, the heat death of the universe has already happened. It's MUCH cooler than it was even a million years after the Big Bang.

I always did think that astrophysics are pretty cool. :demonicduck:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
7 hours ago, ChronosCat said:
23 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Are you talking about the science theories not even hundred years old and still not completely understood? "Impossible" is strong word. Flying machine heavier than air was though to be impossible. There were scientific arguments for people not possibly surviving traveling at speeds over 40km/h.

Well, I did add the caveat, "to the extent science has given us an accurate view of how the world works".

I do tend to think that what science currently says is mostly right, though there are still some important unknowns. I would never say anything is definitely "impossible", but I do think we can say certain things are "unlikely to be possible".

Newton's theory of gravity is mostly right: it correctly predict basically anything we can personally experience ... but it doesn't predict black holes, even the big really important ones.

Most of today electronics needs to take theory of relativity into account ... and you probably have some flash memory around you. Those work only due to quantum tunneling.

What science currently says is mostly right, but the difference between mostly right and right can easily be difference between single planet and galactic empire.

8 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Incidentally, I'm not sure which theories you're referring to, but the theory of General Relativity was 100 years old in 2015; and while Quantum Mechanics is a constantly developing scientific field, it had it's foundations in the 1900s-1920s.

Quantum Mechanics. It may not be precise, but I'm counting from when the term itself was coined, which is 1920s (or if you want more exact time, was first used in Born's 1924 paper "Zur Quantenmechanik".[1])

The theory of General Relativity might be just as important, but is older. And, well, noone managed to put those two together yet ... that's also kinda important.

(Also, according to what we know about physics, it should be possible for naked singularity to exists ; General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are giving totally crazy prediction for such object ... and those are not even SAME predictions. I would say this point to some important gap in our knowledge.)

8 hours ago, Don Edwards said:
On 9/8/2019 at 2:52 AM, hkmaly said:

Also, the concept of heat death is not entirely without controversies: there are lot of things we don't know about universe yet, and some of it has potential to affect the outcome.

To a significant extent, the heat death of the universe has already happened. It's MUCH cooler than it was even a million years after the Big Bang.

It's classical issue with logarithmic scale, yeah ... we are barely at beginning and most of it seems already done. The universe's current temperature is now mere 3K, ignoring local differences. However, maybe it can be reverted? We managed to make our planet hotter, maybe we can replicate it with whole universe :)

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
22 hours ago, Haylo said:

The installation of even the tinyest A-bomb would mean the only critical systems are "recognize when within five miles of target" and "activate".

It would probably need some mobility in order to bring itself within range of its target, unless there was sufficient information on the target's location available such that the time machine could initially deposit it where the target would come to it. Since the T-800 was hunting down every Sarah Conner in the telephone directory one by one, it appears that it did NOT have information on her location more detailed than "somewhere in Los Angeles". Also, the whole point of using a T-800 instead of a non-humanoid model was for camoflage/stealth purposes.

20 hours ago, hkmaly said:

(Also, Skynet might have more advanced nuclear weapons. The T-800 nuclear power source is much smaller than what we consider viable nuclear reactors either.)

A nuclear power source is not the same thing as a nuclear bomb. To get the runaway reaction needed for a fission-driven explosion, you need at least the minimum critical mass (10 kilograms for plutonium-239, and about 25 kilograms for Uranium-235), or else enough neutron reflectors surrounding the core that the reflectors will add more mass than they save. Note that the mass of the W54 is barely 2.5 times the mass of the bare plutonium.

20 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Remember, in the 3rd movie, the dual power sources were some kind of nuclear/fusion/antimatter. The novelization probably spells it out. The T-850 uses both to produce explosions, one time because it is damaged, and the second time to kill the T-X. It should then be easy for Skynet to create these such that they can intentionally be detached and detonated.

The power cells were specifically described as hydrogen-fueled, so probably fusion. The explosion from them was enough to create a small mushroom cloud and a shockwave that buffeted their motor vehicle from a few hundred feet away (or for the second one, to demolish the T-X at point-blank range and wreck the airplane hangar, while not penetrating the heavy blast doors). That is an explosion on the order of a large conventional bomb, so a couple dozen of them would probably be needed for a kiloton-scale explosion.

14 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

To a significant extent, the heat death of the universe has already happened. It's MUCH cooler than it was even a million years after the Big Bang.

As old as the universe is compared to human lifespans, it's actually pretty young. The whole universe as far as we can tell is only three times as old as the Earth itself, and there's enough hydrogen available for stars to continue to burn for several trillion years--a thousand times as long as the universe has existed to date. And once the stars are gone, a moderately advanced interstellar civilization (no higher than 2.0 on the Kardashev scale, i.e. just barely capable of building Dyson Spheres) could generate enough energy by feeding the "useless" corpses of stars bit by bit into black holes that they could endure for thousands of times longer than that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, ijuin said:

Since the T-800 was hunting down every Sarah Conner in the telephone directory one by one, it appears that it did NOT have information on her location more detailed than "somewhere in Los Angeles".

Yeah. Now, how big is Los Angeles?

3 hours ago, ijuin said:

A nuclear power source is not the same thing as a nuclear bomb. To get the runaway reaction needed for a fission-driven explosion, you need at least the minimum critical mass (10 kilograms for plutonium-239, and about 25 kilograms for Uranium-235), or else enough neutron reflectors surrounding the core that the reflectors will add more mass than they save. Note that the mass of the W54 is barely 2.5 times the mass of the bare plutonium.

Not sure where you got those numbers. Wikipedie claims 52kg for Uranium-235, 10kg for Plutonium-239 ... and 2.73kg for Californium-252. Now again, why exactly should Skynet use plutonium and not something more effective?

(And I suspect there will be isotopes with even smaller critical mass if you don't care about shorter half-life.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
6 hours ago, ijuin said:

As old as the universe is compared to human lifespans, it's actually pretty young. The whole universe as far as we can tell is only three times as old as the Earth itself, and there's enough hydrogen available for stars to continue to burn for several trillion years--a thousand times as long as the universe has existed to date. And once the stars are gone, a moderately advanced interstellar civilization (no higher than 2.0 on the Kardashev scale, i.e. just barely capable of building Dyson Spheres) could generate enough energy by feeding the "useless" corpses of stars bit by bit into black holes that they could endure for thousands of times longer than that.

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack frost nipping at your nose ..."

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 9/9/2019 at 7:36 PM, hkmaly said:

What science currently says is mostly right, but the difference between mostly right and right can easily be difference between single planet and galactic empire.

Quantum Mechanics. It may not be precise, but I'm counting from when the term itself was coined, which is 1920s (or if you want more exact time, was first used in Born's 1924 paper "Zur Quantenmechanik".[1])

The theory of General Relativity might be just as important, but is older. And, well, noone managed to put those two together yet ... that's also kinda important.

(Also, according to what we know about physics, it should be possible for naked singularity to exists ; General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are giving totally crazy prediction for such object ... and those are not even SAME predictions. I would say this point to some important gap in our knowledge.)

The gap/inconsistency between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics is the biggest unknown (or at least the biggest known unknown) in all of science; hidden within it could be the secrets of faster than light travel, time travel, all sorts of technologies out of the softest of science fiction, and stuff we can't even imagine. On the other hand, it might turn out that a unified theory's only practical applications are a few technologies which are useful but hardly the stuff of galactic empires (like how the effects of Relativistic Time Dilation need to be taken into account for GPS to work). I'm enough of a pessimist that I find a result closer to the latter more likely (but I would be thrilled to be proved wrong).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
27 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

The gap/inconsistency between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics is the biggest unknown (or at least the biggest known unknown) in all of science

I would say that the identity of Dark matter might be worse. Unless they are part of the SAME unknown ...

28 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

hidden within it could be the secrets of faster than light travel, time travel, all sorts of technologies out of the softest of science fiction, and stuff we can't even imagine. On the other hand, it might turn out that a unified theory's only practical applications are a few technologies which are useful but hardly the stuff of galactic empires (like how the effects of Relativistic Time Dilation need to be taken into account for GPS to work). I'm enough of a pessimist that I find a result closer to the latter more likely (but I would be thrilled to be proved wrong).

Wormholes are already something at least theoretically possible according to General Relativity, AND allowing both FTL and time travel, at least in limited way. Only thing missing is how to build one.

But yes .... the advantage of pessimist is experiencing much more pleasant surprises.

Unrelated to the galactic empire, I totally expect there is some application of unified theory which everyone will end up having in pocket, just like it already happened with quantum tunneling.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

(like how the effects of Relativistic Time Dilation need to be taken into account for GPS to work)

Are you saying that if relativistic time dilation didn't happen we couldn't make a working GPS system?

(The one we have, as is, wouldn't work... but we wouldn't have built a system that takes relativistic time dilation into account if we didn't know about relativistic time dilation, and if it didn't happen we wouldn't know about it. Or would already have tested for it and said Nope!)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this