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New research reveals the strongest solar event ever detected, in 12350 BC

phys.org

51–60 of 149 posts

Re: New research reveals the strongest solar event ever detected, in 12350 BC

#51
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There won't be any effect. Solar flares do NOT affect the devices on the ground. All the fast-moving charged particles are completely absorbed in the upper atmosphere. And to give you some perspective, the most energetic flares can produce 10^-3 W/m^2 flux at the Earth's orbit. The flares do affect the geomagnetic field. And a changing magnetic field induces current, but it becomes non-negligible only for very long c…

The panic about these is way out of proportion with the real risks. Modern systems have all sorts of over-voltage protection, and we no longer use "telegraph wires" directly connected to vulnerable electronics like speakers and amplifiers. All modern telecommunications are over fibre or radio links.

How much do wire distance, intended voltage matter? All the power electronics are almost certainly protected by caps, but are big office ethernet runs long enough to cause issues? What about coax cables? It seems like with how many more cables we have now, that one of them probably has a design that would cause notable inconvenience.

Re: New research reveals the strongest solar event ever detected, in 12350 BC

#52

I hope it doesn't take so long to happen again that we have nobody around who remembers how to fix what it breaks. If so it'll be back to the stone ages for humanity.

You think that the farther in the future you go, the less likely it is that any existing population will know how to fix what breaks? That strikes me as oddly pessimistic, and frankly unlikely.

Well big tech wants to replace all the white collar jobs with their bullshit ChatGPT wrappers, so it wouldn't be surprising if actual skill vanishes.

Re: New research reveals the strongest solar event ever detected, in 12350 BC

#54
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent my whole life only breathing through half a nostril on a good day. About 10 years ago I got surgery and Sublingual Immunotherapy drops, and the results have been life changing. I sleep better, my mind is clearer, I feel like an entirely new person. I am not exaggerating when I say that I still occasionally think about how nice it is to be able to breathe clearly.

Oxygen is a hell of a drug. I use nose strips, and I'm addicted now too.

I tried nose strips but I don't like disposables. I now use silicone nostril openers - two little tubes attached at the base that you stick up your nose. It came as a set of 4 sizes so a bit of waste there, but one size fit me and one size fit my wife.

Re: New research reveals the strongest solar event ever detected, in 12350 BC

#55
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would this effect computers and everyday electrical devices? If we detected something like this heading towards us would we have to turn everything off for the day/week? That's just not possible though is it, can't just turn off nuclear power plants for the day.

There won't be any effect. Solar flares do NOT affect the devices on the ground. All the fast-moving charged particles are completely absorbed in the upper atmosphere. And to give you some perspective, the most energetic flares can produce 10^-3 W/m^2 flux at the Earth's orbit. The flares do affect the geomagnetic field. And a changing magnetic field induces current, but it becomes non-negligible only for very long c…

> But locally? You won't see anything unusual.

Not necessarily?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-event_upset

Some Miyake events are also thought have lasted a year or longer. I think there could be a very bad time if an event like this lasted a year?

Re: New research reveals the strongest solar event ever detected, in 12350 BC

#56

> This event establishes a new worst-case scenario This person’s definition of “worst-case scenario” is much different than mine. We don’t know with certainty what the universe will throw at us. We just do the very best we sensibly can. Why should we assume that the worst thing that could happen to us happened within the past 20K years?

I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say, even from a semantic standpoint.

I think they're quibbling with the fact that this isn't technically the worst case scenario, but merely the worst known, historical case.

Re: New research reveals the strongest solar event ever detected, in 12350 BC

#58
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There won't be any effect. Solar flares do NOT affect the devices on the ground. All the fast-moving charged particles are completely absorbed in the upper atmosphere. And to give you some perspective, the most energetic flares can produce 10^-3 W/m^2 flux at the Earth's orbit. The flares do affect the geomagnetic field. And a changing magnetic field induces current, but it becomes non-negligible only for very long c…

The panic about these is way out of proportion with the real risks. Modern systems have all sorts of over-voltage protection, and we no longer use "telegraph wires" directly connected to vulnerable electronics like speakers and amplifiers. All modern telecommunications are over fibre or radio links.

What about ground to satellite communication?

Re: New research reveals the strongest solar event ever detected, in 12350 BC

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The panic about these is way out of proportion with the real risks. Modern systems have all sorts of over-voltage protection, and we no longer use "telegraph wires" directly connected to vulnerable electronics like speakers and amplifiers. All modern telecommunications are over fibre or radio links.

What about ground to satellite communication?

That would be radio links. Not many satellites connected to the ground by copper cable.

Re: New research reveals the strongest solar event ever detected, in 12350 BC

#60
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think that the farther in the future you go, the less likely it is that any existing population will know how to fix what breaks? That strikes me as oddly pessimistic, and frankly unlikely.

Well big tech wants to replace all the white collar jobs with their bullshit ChatGPT wrappers, so it wouldn't be surprising if actual skill vanishes.

Isn't that a bit pessimistic? Assuming machine natural language understanding and general reasoning improves dramatically (which seems possible, based on recent history), it is likely that (given that we still have the data) at some point in the future anyone will have the ability to acquire these skills, or that machine agents will be skilled enough to guide human or other types of agents to do things.
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