221–230 of 272 posts
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the universe is really powered by processes that dissipate energy across a gradient to fuel a structured, very low entropy state. By 10^(10^50) years that'll be long over.
which is exactly his point...
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One should maintain some perspective: Coral reefs have gone through enormous variations in extent and location, and near extinction, many times since 500 million years ago. Not even the last Ice Age or CO2 levels 10x higher than what we have today managed to cause the extinction of coral.
How does this near extinction compare to previous ones?
We have scientific observation of corals, and of coral reefs, that goes back just a few decades. We also have their fossil record of the last 500 million years, including huge climate changes and the documented extinction/rise of various coral subspecies. And then we have people who claim to know with dogmatic certainty that corals are massively dying right now, that they cannot adapt to any climate change -- regardless of the full scientific context.
If we know so much as to make such gloomy, specific predictions -- please show me detailed scientific documentation of the diurnal cycle of corals and their symbionts, with exact minute-by-minute measurement of the day-and-night changes in the photosynthesis, the amount of CO2 in the water, and the productivity of each coral and symbiont. Then provide the same for each day across seasonal changes in water temperature, abundance of sunlight, and CO2 fluctuations. After that, can you indicate this: what are the specific concentration of atmospheric CO2, global sea levels, and ocean temperatures that you will accept as the standard to declare there is no risk of extinction? can these numbers ever change over time and corals would continue to thrive?
The actual science directly contradicts the alarmist speculation spread by unscientific media reports and professional purveyors of modern eschatology.
My all-time favorite wikipedia article, great to see it getting some attention. I find that along with providing great fodder for small-talk (among certain types), it causes me to experience a psychological effect analogous to the so-called "overview effect" experienced by astronauts. Attempting to conceive of one's place in cosmological time is great exercise.
My all-time favorite wikipedia article, great to see it getting some attention. I find that along with providing great fodder for small-talk (among certain types), it causes me to experience a psychological effect analogous to the so-called "overview effect" experienced by astronauts. Attempting to conceive of one's place in cosmological time is great exercise.
Made me remember a Carl Sagan quote. "We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever"
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Maybe some Boltzmann brains start out with rich fulfilling memories. And then a later (or earlier) Boltzmann brain happens to exist with a continuation of those memories. (Now I realize I'm just reciting a plot point from the excellent book Permutation City ...)
And likewise, maybe others start out in a state of unimaginable agony with a long memory of the same.
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Can you explain how the duration of a second affects the metre?
Not OP, but "The metre is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299 792 458 second" - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre
edit: I think it will lead to the same or more problems because everyone would have to change all time-related constants. Easier to add a second to the day constant (because the day constant is a subset of the seconds constant, but the seconds constant affects many more aspects than just the day constant).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_caesium#Caesium-13...
> The red supergiant star Antares will likely have exploded in a supernova. The explosion is expected to be easily visible in daylight. Wow, I'd love to be able to see that. Makes one sad about all the things they'll never get to experience.
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It will be easier to boost the Earth’s spin back to a 86,400-second day than to fix all the code.
It's been suggested that perhaps one way to find evidence of extrasolar life, would be to find exoplanets whose years are integer multiples of their rotational periods, i.e. they've done what you describe just to eliminate leap years and make their calendars easier.
My all-time favorite wikipedia article, great to see it getting some attention. I find that along with providing great fodder for small-talk (among certain types), it causes me to experience a psychological effect analogous to the so-called "overview effect" experienced by astronauts. Attempting to conceive of one's place in cosmological time is great exercise.
A setting that takes place a billion (!) years in Earth's future, after several civilizations have peaked and gone, each building upon the remains of the ones before it and then reshaping the planet yet again to it will, to the point that even the layers of accumulated detritus from the past seem unfathomably magical to future inhabitants (e.g. soil that can reshape itself, or windstorms made up of nanomachines that reshape anything they engulf.)
Consider how mines from wars that took place a hundred years ago are still killing people. [1] Imagine some nomads from a hundred years in the future accidentally coming upon these. After a point, technology simply becomes a feature of the terrain, and indistinguishable from nature (another example would be our selective-breeding and cultivations of animals and plants over centuries to develop new hybrids that are now commonplace.)
All of this really piques my interest in what this world will be like in a few thousand years.