Stephen Hawking 1942 - 2018

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by fuzzy1, Mar 14, 2018.

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  1. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    I'm suspecting that our very concept of "time" is artificially constrained by how we perceive it. Physics may well have broader uses of it.

    E.g. why does time always move in just one direction? Possibly because that it is only way we can perceive it, that continual forward march is an artifact of how we experience it. Overall physics might not have that restriction.

    I believe Hawking (or someone) was also looking at breaking time off the real number axis, allowing it to move into the complex number domain. Something we electrical engineers have long done for some electrical and other properties.
     
    #41 fuzzy1, Mar 17, 2018
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  2. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Everything is on the table. One much smarter than me described time as a most persistent illusion, but had not enough time to de-illusionify it.

    If we aspire towards 'interstellar', re figuring time could help. Re figuring space could help. But neither is known around here, most sadly. Yet we will try because that's what we do.

    So, launch 'exo' probes towards closest star. No other reason. Unlikely that any ET would notice our effort, but if they did, they'd find it to be 'preliminary'.

    Radio and what-not telescopes continue to sniff, but what are the chances that any ET sends a detectable flux exactly at us?

    ==
    I think space-faring civilizations may be few because time or space compressions seem tough, high-energy-requiring nuts to crack. Even if having done so, Earth presents itself as the place for those to come and announce themselves...well why, exactly?
     
    #42 tochatihu, Mar 17, 2018
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  3. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    I'll quite agree on the former, and must admit to being totally clueless on the later. I'm not one of those smarter folks, so took a different career path with a much better likelihood of being profitable.
     
    #43 fuzzy1, Mar 18, 2018
  4. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    One thousand will be chosen at random from applications to attend Hawking's "Service of Thanksgiving"

    Professor Stephen Hawking Interment at Westminster Abbey Public Ballot

    With a very short deadline, so if you are not flexible in your occupancy of time:D, be quick.

    The only apparent rules are that you must have been born between 1918 and 2038. Currently at least 18 years of age, or 12, if part of a school group.
     
    #44 tochatihu, May 13, 2018
  5. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    dang, i'm tied up that day.
     
    #45 bisco, May 13, 2018
  6. RCO

    RCO Senior Member

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    You were bound to say that! :ROFLMAO:
     
    #46 RCO, May 14, 2018
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  7. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    #47 tochatihu, Oct 25, 2018
  8. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    ...per the movie Gattica?
     
    #48 wjtracy, Oct 26, 2018
  9. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    I see similarities as well. Gattaca has been praised for high scientific accuracy. I suppose that is mostly on the genetics side. Movie's space-exploration aspects were (I'd say) typically goofy. Borrowing another character's genetics was also an interesting revision of Cyrano De Bergerac.
     
    #49 tochatihu, Oct 26, 2018
  10. KennyGS

    KennyGS Senior Member

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    On the discussion of developing superhumans... I am most intrigued by the idea that artificial intelligence might reach a point of "being," where a computer could develop a self identity and even it's own characteristics and personality (ref. Stanley Kubrick's "Hal").

    This could then be taken further with the idea of placing a human's mind into a machine (robot), which would potentially allow a person to exist forever. One advantage of this would be to allow a person to survive space travel over a large distance. At the very least, a person's mind could be anywhere that a host is available for them to exist.

    Some freaky stuff... :eek:
     
    #50 KennyGS, Oct 27, 2018
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