251–260 of 264 posts
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It's an interesting idea, but I find characters developed on the surface of a neutron star will end up being implausibly flat, lacking any depth. (badum tish)
I see what you did there... Also, the book does describe a character's apprehension at climbing to the dizzying heights of a few millimeters off the surface.
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You think Mars is boring?? I think it's exciting. The more evidence we find that life may have existed there, the less valid our mythical creation stories of earth as the special only recipient of God's hand. Mythology is fun but it's given too much power in certain societies, while science and truth are devalued in turn.
You might be interested in this line of reasoning, why finding life on Mars might in fact be counter to the long-term survival of humans. https://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf
The act of finding out if there is life or not will probably raise survival chances on net, compared to never looking.
Much like passively looking for the monster in the dark room. The monster is either there or it is not, but if you see it you have better chances than if you don't (barring some specific contrived scenarios).
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There definitely is a place for Aldrin Cyclers, not soon, but eventually. It’s not to save on fuel, but to provide safer and healthier accommodations for the trip. How it will likely work is passengers will take a Starship to orbit. It will be refueled in LEO, then accelerate to Mars injection velocity to match orbit with a passing Cycler. It will dock with the Cycler, passengers will switch to the Cycler for the dur…
In the end you save a lot on fuel - you don't need to bring along shielding, life support equipment for the duration of the trip (only expendables and replacement parts). The trajectory adjustments may be small enough that Hall thrusters, or even just reorienting solar panels or inactive radiators get enough light pressure to make it work. If we are OK with spending a little more propellant, the cycler can be put on…
But Cyclers won’t save much fuel. Starships (or their descendants) still have to accelerate and decelerate the same, and still need almost as much shielding (a solar flare during descent once you’ve left the cycler is still deadly). Most of the starship mass isn’t radiation shielding, it’s reentry shielding, tankage, engines, etc.
But once we get to the Cycler stage I think fuel costs will be low on our lists of concerns anyways.
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Material Safety: None. The End. > Contains no other components or impurities which will influence the classification of the product. In the unlikely event you survive adding something, you won’t make it any better. You certainly can’t make it worse. > Unsuitable extinguishing media: Water, Foam, Halons > Specific methods: Move away from the container and cool with water from a protected position. Um. > May react viol…
Similar fun would likely be the safety sheet for FOOF (Dioxygen diflouride), a compound that you can't really get to room temperature without said compound tearing itself and it's container apart. I do recall it reacts "vigourosly" (I believe the paper I read on this used those specific words) with Chlorine triflouride at 90K (-180C, -300F).
—also Lowe
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You really shouldn't put that 0.15 on the end. The numbers weren't that accurate to begin with so it gives the false impression that those digits mean something. I hope it doesn't feel like I'm picking on you but I can't help myself saying something because this is a pet peeve of mine. Rounding appropriately is taught in physics class at school but I think most people don't learn that or think it doesn't apply outsid…
Or perhaps one should not assume anything about accuracy just from the numeric presentation of the value and when the accuracy is relevant, it should be mentioned explicitly (or looked for in the original source). Numeric presentation is just too vague way to represent such complex issue as accuracy. Not rounding values after conversion has an advantage that it does not change the meaning of the claim, while rounding…
Writing 2 extra decimal places is assuming the original values also have 2 decimal places with zeros in them.
It's reasonable to assume the digits the author gave are correct and there are no other unwritten zeros after them. Even if the scientists really did measure 110.00 - 155.00 K, the author of the source document decided to remove that information and we don't know what it "really" was so we shouldn't guess.
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Or perhaps one should not assume anything about accuracy just from the numeric presentation of the value and when the accuracy is relevant, it should be mentioned explicitly (or looked for in the original source). Numeric presentation is just too vague way to represent such complex issue as accuracy. Not rounding values after conversion has an advantage that it does not change the meaning of the claim, while rounding…
We have to assume something about the accuracy otherwise there might as well not be any numbers at all! What if it was +/- 100 K ? Writing 2 extra decimal places is assuming the original values also have 2 decimal places with zeros in them. It's reasonable to assume the digits the author gave are correct and there are no other unwritten zeros after them. Even if the scientists really did measure 110.00 - 155.00 K, th…
As long as you have at least one digit of precision, scientific notation is unambiguous as to the number of significant figures.
Nitpicking, I know, but to call it "Planet Ceres" in the title is more than a bit wrong. This is a dwarf planet at best and is also often classified as a really big asteroid (the only one in the asteroid belt that's rounded by its own gravity). If even the much larger Pluto can't get the "Planet" title, Ceres hardly deserves to be called that in a headline from a major newspaper.
I suppose the question is whether "dwarf" is a modifier to "planet" or whether "dwarf planet" is a compound word that cannot be split without losing meaning. I would lean toward the former -- if there was not room in the headline for "Dwarf planet Ceres", referring to it as "Planet Ceres" still adds information and clarifies helpfully. "Ceres" may not be familiar enough to most readers for them to instantly think, "O…
https://solarstory.net/planets/
EDIT: (Ceres) It is now considered as a "dwarf" planet, but is still labeled as an asteroid
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I suppose the question is whether "dwarf" is a modifier to "planet" or whether "dwarf planet" is a compound word that cannot be split without losing meaning. I would lean toward the former -- if there was not room in the headline for "Dwarf planet Ceres", referring to it as "Planet Ceres" still adds information and clarifies helpfully. "Ceres" may not be familiar enough to most readers for them to instantly think, "O…
No, dwarf planet is a classification and NOT a modifier: https://solarstory.net/planets/ EDIT: (Ceres) It is now considered as a "dwarf" planet, but is still labeled as an asteroid
From the Dwarf Planets section: "These planets are Pluto, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake."
(Not commenting on whether this is correct in this comment, just what the link says).
Nitpicking, I know, but to call it "Planet Ceres" in the title is more than a bit wrong. This is a dwarf planet at best and is also often classified as a really big asteroid (the only one in the asteroid belt that's rounded by its own gravity). If even the much larger Pluto can't get the "Planet" title, Ceres hardly deserves to be called that in a headline from a major newspaper.
I suppose the question is whether "dwarf" is a modifier to "planet" or whether "dwarf planet" is a compound word that cannot be split without losing meaning. I would lean toward the former -- if there was not room in the headline for "Dwarf planet Ceres", referring to it as "Planet Ceres" still adds information and clarifies helpfully. "Ceres" may not be familiar enough to most readers for them to instantly think, "O…
Alan Stern, who coined the term "dwarf planet," initially wanted it to be under the umbrella of planet as a distinct subtype. [2]
The International Astronomical Union (IAU), however, believed that what we call a dwarf planet — it was referred to as a planetoid — should not be considered a type of planet.
The IAU later held a session where they decided to use the term dwarf planets in place of planetoids, however they decided that a dwarf planet is not a type of planet.
It's semantically inconsistent, but that's where we stand right now per the IAU.
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Euler_di... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet
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No, dwarf planet is a classification and NOT a modifier: https://solarstory.net/planets/ EDIT: (Ceres) It is now considered as a "dwarf" planet, but is still labeled as an asteroid
Just an FYI, your link uses dwarf planet as a modifier. From the Dwarf Planets section: "These planets are Pluto, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake." (Not commenting on whether this is correct in this comment, just what the link says).
