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Mysterious Martian “Cauliflower” May Be the Latest Hint of Alien Life

smithsonianmag.com

31–40 of 84 posts

Re: Mysterious Martian “Cauliflower” May Be the Latest Hint of Alien Life

#31

Sci-fi scenario: We find evidence of microbial life from billions of years ago, when Mars was briefly a warm, wet place. Decades hence, a researcher realizes that Mars still has microbial life, but that it has evolved as its environment has, so it's as arid and rarefied as its present atmosphere, wispy and almost not there. Sadly, she realizes that human activity has already doomed it to extinction.

Alternative dystopian scenario: we eventually find evidence of (sometimes extinct) life on all planets and moons that had encountered specific chemical conditions for a long enough period of time. We realize en masse (more than we realize now) that life isn't a unique snowflake, but simply a geological process, not that far removed from rocks and volcanoes. The realization causes a broad spiritual/existential crisis and irreversibly changes human culture, mostly for the worse.

Re: Mysterious Martian “Cauliflower” May Be the Latest Hint of Alien Life

#35
post #22

For those without intuition on Fahrenheit degrees; (-13,113)°F = (-25,45)°C.

You might want to use a dot for those non-Germans over here.

I think dash would be more intuitive to represent a range here.

Your comment about Germans intrigued me so I googled it. If you were referring to a comma as a digit separator, there's about 70 countries that use the comma as a decimal point: most of Europe, Africa, and South America, many more than just Germans :)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark#Countries_using...

Re: Mysterious Martian “Cauliflower” May Be the Latest Hint of Alien Life

#36
post #22

For those without intuition on Fahrenheit degrees; (-13,113)°F = (-25,45)°C.

You might want to use a dot for those non-Germans over here.

I thought most of Europe used commas. They do in Holland.

Re: Mysterious Martian “Cauliflower” May Be the Latest Hint of Alien Life

#37

Sci-fi scenario: We find evidence of microbial life from billions of years ago, when Mars was briefly a warm, wet place. Decades hence, a researcher realizes that Mars still has microbial life, but that it has evolved as its environment has, so it's as arid and rarefied as its present atmosphere, wispy and almost not there. Sadly, she realizes that human activity has already doomed it to extinction.

Alternative dystopian scenario: we eventually find evidence of (sometimes extinct) life on all planets and moons that had encountered specific chemical conditions for a long enough period of time. We realize en masse (more than we realize now) that life isn't a unique snowflake, but simply a geological process, not that far removed from rocks and volcanoes. The realization causes a broad spiritual/existential crisis…

I don't think you'd have to assume that's a dystopian scenario. The Copernican Revolution and associated existential crises -- that we're not in a privileged location at the center of the universe -- changed human culture mostly for the good.

Re: Mysterious Martian “Cauliflower” May Be the Latest Hint of Alien Life

#38
post #22

For those without intuition on Fahrenheit degrees; (-13,113)°F = (-25,45)°C.

You might want to use a dot for those non-Germans over here.

I'm pretty sure more countries in the world use a decimal comma than a decimal point. Certainly more than use Fahrenheit, anyway.

Re: Mysterious Martian “Cauliflower” May Be the Latest Hint of Alien Life

#39
post #22

For those without intuition on Fahrenheit degrees; (-13,113)°F = (-25,45)°C.

You might want to use a dot for those non-Germans over here.

Is a digital numeric approximation of a real number called "floating comma" in those countries? Or "floating full stop" in the UK?

Re: Mysterious Martian “Cauliflower” May Be the Latest Hint of Alien Life

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to use a dot for those non-Germans over here.

It's a temperature range. You see there four integers.

Indeed, I think brackets would be more explicit than parenthesis.
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