Are discoveries about black holes legit?
Isn't it still the case that they have not been experimentally confirmed to exist, and all talk of discoveries is just conceptual?
A dozen black holes may lie at the centre of our galaxy
11–20 of 89 posts
Re: A dozen black holes may lie at the centre of our galaxy
#12Are discoveries about black holes legit? Isn't it still the case that they have not been experimentally confirmed to exist, and all talk of discoveries is just conceptual?
We have recorded a video[1] of the black hole at the center of our galaxy.
Re: A dozen black holes may lie at the centre of our galaxy
#13Let me try an optimistic thought experiment. Roughly around the end of the Napoleonic era, call it 1815, 9/10ths of humans lives in what we would call abject poverty. today it is reversed and only 1/10th does. (This is still a travesty, but it is objectively better) In that period we have seen incredible technological, political and economic improvements. But it's not clear if we will continue to see them "we might h…
People have been saying "we might have invented everything" for hundreds of years.
I like the "invention wavefront" analogy, but I unfortunately can't remember where I learnt it.
Imagine the high-dimensional space of all possible things that can be invented. In the "centre" of the space is a hypersphere containing everything that has been invented to date. Every new invention is invented by "poking outwards" in one small place on the boundary of this hypersphere (hyperglobule) so that the hyperglobule now contains something that it didn't contain before. All inventions that could possibly be invented right now exist on the surface of the hyperglobule. Think of this as the "invention wavefront". Notice that as the globule expands, the wavefront becomes larger, not smaller. What this means is that as more things get invented, more new inventions become possible (intuitively: you can't invent better brakes for a car until you've invented a car, and so on).
"We might have invented everything" would imply that the space of all possible inventions is bounded, and we're running up against the edges of the box. But I don't see any reason it should be bounded.
Re: A dozen black holes may lie at the centre of our galaxy
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It looks like a good two centuries to come. ... if it wasn't for - potential ecosystem collapses due to disappearing bee (pollination), insect (food) and coral populations - rising global instability due to climate refugees - the upcoming end of the antibiotics era - ...
If only we didn't waste all of the antibiotics on non-human animals. Such a bad use of brilliant biotechnology.
Or freely prescribe them for small ailments (looking at China here)
Re: A dozen black holes may lie at the centre of our galaxy
#15Are discoveries about black holes legit? Isn't it still the case that they have not been experimentally confirmed to exist, and all talk of discoveries is just conceptual?
We have recorded a video[1] of the black hole at the center of our galaxy. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7xl_zjz0o8
Amazing video!
Re: A dozen black holes may lie at the centre of our galaxy
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It looks like a good two centuries to come. ... if it wasn't for - potential ecosystem collapses due to disappearing bee (pollination), insect (food) and coral populations - rising global instability due to climate refugees - the upcoming end of the antibiotics era - ...
If only we didn't waste all of the antibiotics on non-human animals. Such a bad use of brilliant biotechnology.
>If only we didn't waste all of the antibiotics on non-human animals.
This is the one thing that makes me want to turn vegetarian.
we waste antibiotics on cattle. regardless those same cattle become reservoirs where new diseases that could kill us are incubated, because they are mammals like is.
It would be very difficult for a plant disease to jump to us.
Re: A dozen black holes may lie at the centre of our galaxy
#17Are discoveries about black holes legit? Isn't it still the case that they have not been experimentally confirmed to exist, and all talk of discoveries is just conceptual?
No, they definitely exists, for example:
Re: A dozen black holes may lie at the centre of our galaxy
#18Let me try an optimistic thought experiment. Roughly around the end of the Napoleonic era, call it 1815, 9/10ths of humans lives in what we would call abject poverty. today it is reversed and only 1/10th does. (This is still a travesty, but it is objectively better) In that period we have seen incredible technological, political and economic improvements. But it's not clear if we will continue to see them "we might h…
"This century has been so rich in discovery and so packed with technical innovation that it is tempting to believe that there can never be another like it. That conceit betrays the poverty of our collective imagination."
John Maddox (former editor of Nature, 1998)
Re: A dozen black holes may lie at the centre of our galaxy
#19Let me try an optimistic thought experiment. Roughly around the end of the Napoleonic era, call it 1815, 9/10ths of humans lives in what we would call abject poverty. today it is reversed and only 1/10th does. (This is still a travesty, but it is objectively better) In that period we have seen incredible technological, political and economic improvements. But it's not clear if we will continue to see them "we might h…
I'd like to believe you are right and, without any ability to estimate where we are on what seems like an exponential curve, hope that things are evolving towards the positive at an ever increasing pace.
Interesting you should mention monkey brains, because my monkey brain also recoils at this optimism when it understands that most brains are still monkey brains, and I don't trust monkeys that create an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction which can totally wipe out all trace of the things you are rightly passionate about. The evidence is scarce that other than the obvious technological progress there has been any other progress but even that being so, I'm cautiously optimistic that the battle between monkey mind and enlightened mind will eventually be won by the latter rather than monkeys collectively going the way of the dinosaurs.
>I am probably stealing from people cleverer than i whom I cannot remember to reference or am too dumb to reference
Don't remember which book it was, but I remember reading a book where there was a phrase on a page before the first chapter, "All creativity is subconscious plagiarism" :-) Of course this generality can be logically refuted but it's probably something we all do to a degree.
Re: A dozen black holes may lie at the centre of our galaxy
#20Are discoveries about black holes legit? Isn't it still the case that they have not been experimentally confirmed to exist, and all talk of discoveries is just conceptual?
We have recorded a video[1] of the black hole at the center of our galaxy. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7xl_zjz0o8
That’s incredible! Definitely love to see / hear more about this if anyone has any pointers?