The Random Science Thread

Vin Diesel will strap one of these to his ride in Fast 9. Book it.

 

But the question of our speed limit only applies while gravity pull is in effect. So in and around atmospheres. It wouldn't even effect the majority of the trip, unless the ship is going at a speed at which molecular bonds start to break down or something, so as long as we travel slower than light theoretically. Most of the acceleration and deceleration would be in space and we shouldn't feel it. If I understand what you're saying here.

 

Barns put into words what my brain barely comprehends.

I figured the laws would be different outside of the atmosphere no?

And as for 20 years to Mars, that's still remarkable.

 

For long trips, acceleration only needs to be great at the beginning. After that you could just gradually accelerate. It doesnt matter what speed you are traveling at if you are maintaining constant speed since you are moving with the ship at the same speed, so you dont feel like you are moving at all. If there is no acceleration between two reference points (they are both moving at the same speed and direction), those two points are not moving relative to each other. There's been talk about these theoretical generational ships where they can amass insane speeds but at slow rates (acceleration).

Mars is 54.6million km away from earth at its closest point so the average speed you need to maintain to get there in 70 days would be 9.02km/s or 32,500km/hr. If you accelerated at say 10m/s^2 (which is easily tolerable its 1G on Earth), it would take you about 15 mins to get to that speed from 0. After that you could just maintain speed which takes almost no effort in space because there's no drag or gravity to slow you down. Someone correct my amateur math and reasoning if I'm totally wrong.

 

This blew my mind

I'm still trying to wrap my head around all the connotations if this is true

"This new equation might finally unite the two biggest theories in physics, claims physicist
Linking general relativity and quantum mechanics with wormholes.


BEC CREW
18 AUG 2016
a new equation that suggests the key to finally connecting the two could be found in bizarre spacetime tunnels called wormholes.

The equation is deceptively simple: ER = EPR.

It’s not made up of numerical values, but instead represents the names of some key players in theoretical physics.

On the left side of the equation, the ER stands for Einstein and Nathan Rosen,and refers to a 1935 paper they wrote together describing wormholes, known technically as Einstein-Rosen bridges.

On the right side of the equation, EPR stands for Einstein, Rosen and Boris Podolsky, who co-wrote another paper that year describing quantum entanglement.

Back in 2013, physicist Leonard Susskind from Stanford University and Juan Maldacena from the Institute for Advance Study at Princeton suggested that the two papers could be describing pretty much the same thing - something that no one else in the field had previously considered, including Einstein himself.

Now Susskind is back to discuss the implications if he’s in fact right.

But first, let’s look at the individual parts of this equation.

First implied by Einstein’s theory of general relativity, wormholes are like tunnels between two places in the Universe.

In theory, if you fell in one side of a wormhole, you’d appear on the other side almost instantaneously, even if it happened to be on the exact opposite side of the Universe.

But wormholes aren’t just portals to another place in the Universe, they’re portals between two times in the Universe. Like Carl Sagan once said, "You might emerge somewhere else in space, some when-else in time."

Quantum entanglement, on the other hand, describes the way that two particles can interact in such a way that they become inexorably linked, and essentially 'share' an existence.

This means that whatever happens to one particle will directly and instantaneously affect the other - even if it’s light-years away.

Okay, now let’s combine the two.

In his new paper, Susskind proposes a scenario where hypothetical Alice and Bob each take a bunch of entangled particles - Alice takes one member of each pair, and Bob takes the other, and they fly off in opposite directions of the Universe in their hypothetical hypersonic jets.

Once in their separate positions, Alice and Bob smash their particles together with such great force, they create two separate black holes.

The result, says Susskind, is two entangled black holes on opposite sides of the Universe, linked in the middle by a giant wormhole.

"If ER = EPR is right, a wormhole will link those black holes; entanglement, therefore, can be described using the geometry of wormholes," says Tom Siegfried over at Science News.

"Even more remarkable ... is the possibility that two entangled subatomic particles alone are themselves somehow connected by a sort of quantum wormhole," Siegfried adds.

"Since wormholes are contortions of spacetime geometry - described by Einstein’s gravitational equations - identifying them with quantum entanglement would forge a link between gravity and quantum mechanics."

Is Susskind right? It's impossible to say just yet, because while he's published his paper on pre-press website arXiv.org to be openly scrutinised by his peers, it's yet to go through the formal peer-review process.

But, as Siegfried reports, Susskind isn't the only one going down this path. Earlier this year, a team of Caltech physicists came up with a similar hypothesis when they attempted to show how changes in quantum states can be linked to curves in spacetime geometry.

In a blog post describing the hypothesis, one of the team, Sean M. Carroll, says the most natural relationship between energy and spacetime curvature in this scenario is given by Einstein’s equation for general relativity.

"The claim, in its most dramatic-sounding form, is that gravity (spacetime curvature caused by energy/momentum) isn’t hard to obtain in quantum mechanics - it’s automatic! Or at least, the most natural thing to expect," he says.

We'll have to wait and see if ER = EPR or something closely related bears out, but it's certainly food for thought, and Susskind for one thinks he's on to something here.

"To me it seems obvious that if ER = EPR is true, it is a very big deal, and it must affect the foundations and interpretation of quantum mechanics," he writes, adding that if he's right, "quantum mechanics and gravity are far more tightly related than we (or at least I) had ever imagined"."

http://www.sciencealert.com/this-ne...wo-biggest-theories-in-physics-says-physicist

 

But you just said I was wrong, but this is what I was talking about minus the math.

 

The point is the acceleration is well within tolerable limits. It's not an issue.

 

It's ok. I thought I was misunderstanding things too.

 

"
NASA Just Confirmed That Earth Has A New “Mini-Moon”
IN BRIEF
NASA findings show that there is a quasi-moon that's been orbiting the Earth for almost a century.

One is the loneliest number, especially if you’re a moon circling the Earth (Earth is rather far away, after all). But just as you are about to lose hope and accept your solitary fate, NASA announces there could be a new ‘mini-moon’ come to keep you company.

Sure, it is smaller than you and goes around the Earthamazingly irregularly, but still, two of anything is (usually) always better than one.

It turns out that the second “moon” is asteroid 2016 HO3, and it is currently locked into “a little dance” with Earth, and it has been dancing for a century. The rock’s orbit is highly elliptical, causing it to go a wee bit off tangent—between 38 and 100 times the distance of our planet’s primary moon—and bob up and down across Earth’s orbital plane.

HO3 is tilted by about 8° and it circles the Sun for 365.93 days, which is slightly longer than Earth’s 365.24 day-long year.



Because of its tilted and elliptical orbit, sometimes it is a bit closer to the Sun and moving a slightly faster than Earth. Other times, it is a bit farther out and moving a bit more slowly, though it never gets closer than about 14 million kilometers from Earth or farther than about 40 million kilometers.

NASA says it’s larger than 120 feet (36.5 metres) across, but no more than 300 feet (91 metres) wide, and will orbit for many more centuries to come.

Astronomers first found out about 2016 HO3 on April 27 with the Pan-STARRS 1 asteroid survey telescope in Haleakala, Hawaii.
"

http://futurism.com/nasa-just-confirmed-that-earth-has-a-new-mini-moon/

 

"
Not a Drill: SETI Is Investigating a Possible Extraterrestrial Signal From Deep Space
If the signal is truly from an alien world, it’s one far more advanced than ours
By Robin Seemangal • 08/29/16 11:02am
Paul Gilster broke the story after the researchers quietly circulated a paper announcing the detection of “a strong signal in the direction of HD164595.”

The mysterious star’s designation is HD164595, and it’s considered to be sun-like in nature with a nearly identical metallic composition to our own star. So far, a single Neptune-like (but warmer) planet has been discovered in its orbit—HD 164595 b. But as Gilster explained, “There could, of course, be other planets still undetected in this system.”


Decorated Italian SETI researcher and mathematician Claudio Maccone along with Russia’s Nikolai Bursov of the Special Astrophysical Observatory are the principal scientists working on the apparent discovery. They claim that “permanent monitoring of this target is needed.”


The RATAN-600 Radio Telescope in Russia. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

“The signal conceivably fits the profile for an intentional transmission from an extraterrestrial source,” said Alan Boyle, author of The Case for Pluto who reported the story for Geekwire. “In any case, the blip is interesting enough to merit discussion by those who specialize in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.”

The signal’s strength indicates that if it in fact came from a isotropic beacon, the power source would have to be built by a Kardashev Type II civilization. (The Kardashev scale is used to determine the progress of a civilization’s technological development by measuring how much energy was used to transmit an interstellar message.) An ‘Isotropic’ beacon means a communication source emitting a signal with equal power in all directions while promoting signal strength throughout travel.

In his acclaimed work “Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations,” Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev explained that a Type II civilization would be able to harness the energy of their entire host star. The most common hypothetical example of this would be a Dyson Sphere—which is a massive artificial structure that could completely encapsulate a star and transfer the energy to a nearby planet.


A cut-away diagram of an idealized Dyson shell, a variant on Dyson’s original concept.(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Basically, if the signal was beamed out into the galaxy without aim or direction, that would require an enormous amount of power to actually be detected. But what if the signal was beamed specifically at our solar system? Well, that would require less energy and could indicate the presence of a Kardashev Type I civilization—meaning that it could be a highly technological, contemporary society that harnesses the solar energy emitted by its local star, much like our planet does with solar panels. This particular civilization’s social structure is theorized to be completely globalized and interconnected.

“The signal is provocative enough that the RATAN-600 researchers are calling for permanent monitoring of this target,” said Gilster. And that’s exactly what is transpiring. As of last night, the SETI institute is diverting its Allen Telescope Array in northern California to investigate while their counterparts at METI International (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) will use Panama’s Boquete Optical Observatory.

The detection of the mysterious signal and the ensuing investigations will be discussed at the IAA SETI Permanent Committee during the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, on September 27—the same day and location where Elon Musk will reveal his plans to colonize Mars. The Observer will be following up on both these stories from the Congress.

Robin Seemangal focuses on NASA and advocacy for space exploration. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, where he currently resides. Find him on Instagram for more space-related content: @nova_road.
"

http://observer.com/2016/08/not-a-d...ible-extraterrestrial-signal-from-deep-space/