Science and Futurism

Jolly_Green_Giant

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That was an extremely well done video!

Not only did they guy nail the physics of it, but he can draw too!
There were a few that have tried, but to me this helped me the most. A short video like this is enough to make anyone go on a few hour long youtube binge to learn more.
 
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Jolly_Green_Giant

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I spent my entire life only knowing that pluto was small cold and far away and may or may not be a planet depending on who you're talking to. This was some awesome info summarizing the New Horizons mission.

 
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Jolly_Green_Giant

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An older video but an intro to one of the most fascinating photographs I have ever seen. The Hubble deep field picture is something truly extraordinary. The idea that I can look up into the night sky, and in an area no bigger than the tip of my finger at arms length, exist an insane amount of galaxies stretching back to the dawn of time. Trying to wrap my head around the distances in our solar system is one thing and distances to objects in the Milky Way another. But galaxies beyond galaxies beyond galaxies? Billions of them? WHAT???


 
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Vavrik

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An older video but an intro to one of the most fascinating photographs I have ever seen. The Hubble deep field picture is something truly extraordinary. The idea that I can look up into the night sky, and in an area no bigger than the tip of my finger at arms length, exist an insane amount of galaxies stretching back to the dawn of time. Trying to wrap my head around the distances in our solar system is one thing and distances to objects in the Milky Way another. But galaxies beyond galaxies beyond galaxies? Billions of them? WHAT???
Hundreds of billions of them. The current estimate is there are 100 billion or so in the visible universe alone, which is either very large or very small compared with the true size of the universe - something we will likely never be able to know. Don't try to wrap your head around it too quickly, the distances and numbers are vast, on a scale that the human mind cannot relate to very well, and the properties of the universe are simply - weird.
 

Bruttle

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This video is one of my favorites. It shows the relative size and distance between planets in a functional way.



On the subject of the future though, I feel we are primed for a new revolution. The discovery of fossil fuels catapulted human civilization to industry. The discovery of the transistor and silicone based microchips have taken us to even greater heights. The problem with both of these though, is neither of them address the main limitation that binds our progress as a planet.

That is the creation and storage of energy. The unfathomable amount of energy found in even one atom dwarfs our entire electrical output as it currently sits. This is combined with the rather pitiful ability we have to store energy. Yes, we have enough energy to supply our devices. The big stuff though, the stuff that we are currently theorizing about, requires far more energy and energy storage to even properly test.

We need to find a way of generating exponentially more energy than we can with fossil fuels (which is still our main source of power). To do that, we just need to unlock the power that is hidden just out of our current reach. Once we do, we can finally take the next step in our technological evolution. We will finally have the energy resources to begin practically testing the limits of our current theories. It will usher in a new era of technology as drastic as those generated by fossil fuels and silicone microchips.

To that end, our current potential successes in hydrogen fusion are promising. It may not be the destination, but it is a major step in the right direction.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPpYQFtyO98
 

Jolly_Green_Giant

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This video is one of my favorites. It shows the relative size and distance between planets in a functional way.



On the subject of the future though, I feel we are primed for a new revolution. The discovery of fossil fuels catapulted human civilization to industry. The discovery of the transistor and silicone based microchips have taken us to even greater heights. The problem with both of these though, is neither of them address the main limitation that binds our progress as a planet.

That is the creation and storage of energy. The unfathomable amount of energy found in even one atom dwarfs our entire electrical output as it currently sits. This is combined with the rather pitiful ability we have to store energy. Yes, we have enough energy to supply our devices. The big stuff though, the stuff that we are currently theorizing about, requires far more energy and energy storage to even properly test.

We need to find a way of generating exponentially more energy than we can with fossil fuels (which is still our main source of power). To do that, we just need to unlock the power that is hidden just out of our current reach. Once we do, we can finally take the next step in our technological evolution. We will finally have the energy resources to begin practically testing the limits of our current theories. It will usher in a new era of technology as drastic as those generated by fossil fuels and silicone microchips.

To that end, our current potential successes in hydrogen fusion are promising. It may not be the destination, but it is a major step in the right direction.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPpYQFtyO98



The first video is an excellent representation of our solar system to scale, putting into perspective for those having a hard time really understanding the vast distances involved with traveling in our own neighborhood.


Fusion power is absolutely promising, because like you said, a single atom holds a ridiculous amount of power and all we have to do is find out how to harness it. I posted a video on this by minutephysics on the efficency of black holes, which is said to be around 96%? It's not impossible so hopefully humans figure it out in a decent amount of time. With the rate at which processing power is growing and machine learning and AI are taking off, it's only a matter of time before we hit the next tech explosion and we might have computers figure it out for us. Maybe in our lifetime? We can hope.
 
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Jolly_Green_Giant

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Hundreds of billions of them. The current estimate is there are 100 billion or so in the visible universe alone, which is either very large or very small compared with the true size of the universe - something we will likely never be able to know. Don't try to wrap your head around it too quickly, the distances and numbers are vast, on a scale that the human mind cannot relate to very well, and the properties of the universe are simply - weird.

I was going to say trillions, because that would be up to date with our current findings. However, I have a hard time trying to comprehend even a billion galaxies. How often to we really use numbers in the billions for our day to day lives? I mean we get some awesome Trump memes out of it and talk about the global population in billions. We also maybe hear about billions being spent in government policy and budget and quarterly profits for big corporations. Even though we know what a billion of something is, the idea of 1 billion individual galaxies with trillions of stars in them each, the idea breaks down into the abstract and absurd. Now, lets ask someone to comprehend a trillion. Now two trillion. Now 3 trillion. I can conceptualize that amount, but I don't think I'll ever understand it any better than counting cheerios in my cereal.



CLICK ME
https://phys.org/news/2017-01-universe-trillion-galaxies.html
 
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Bambooza

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An older video but an intro to one of the most fascinating photographs I have ever seen. The Hubble deep field picture is something truly extraordinary. The idea that I can look up into the night sky, and in an area no bigger than the tip of my finger at arms length, exist an insane amount of galaxies stretching back to the dawn of time. Trying to wrap my head around the distances in our solar system is one thing and distances to objects in the Milky Way another. But galaxies beyond galaxies beyond galaxies? Billions of them? WHAT???



This is such an amazing reality. And at the same time sad. For as much as we talk about exploring other planets there currently is no way for us to really leave our solar system and go and visit these far away places.
 
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Jolly_Green_Giant

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This is such an amazing reality. And at the same time sad. For as much as we talk about exploring other planets there currently is no way for us to really leave our solar system and go and visit these far away places.

Yet.

We mold the universe to the human mind, which so far has left us wondering what the hell the other 95% of the universe is made of. I use 95% as an arbitrary number I hear frequently when talking about matter and antimatter so don't focus on the number so much as opposed to the principal message. We may not have the capacity to understand what's going on just yet but we are getting there and developing tools to help us. For example, the finding of the higgs boson was a crucial milestone in the human understanding of our objective reality because it confirmed a mathematical theory we couldn't quite make sense of at the time. It took the largest machine humankind has ever created to confirm its existence but damnit we did it. I can't get into why it's so important any more than I can sit here and explain that everything is actually an interaction of energy fields and nothing is actually solid in the way we think it would be. Everything we know is practically empty space, it's insane.

Before I get off on a tangent I'll get to the point. The more we learn, the stranger the universe becomes. We may not be able to see what a general A.I might, or we might need a few more breakthroughs and we could find a metaphorical god. I used to think these things were in the realm of science fiction, but it is completely possible we can manipulate space-time and observe alternate dimensions in the same way we can deduce what's behind us by seeing their shadow on the wall in front of us. Keep digging into what we already know, what we think we know, and what we don't. Learn to think critically and stop flaming the doubt in your mind and you will see we have an amazing future ahead of us. Time travel may never exist as we know it in works of Science-Fiction but I have read things that have suggested we can create time stasis chambers as large as 12 inches that can supposedly slow down time. Even that sounds insane to me but you can only hope it's true. With the tech explosion that will happen with the imminent explosive growth of the global space industry, now Is the time to place your mind in the stars and dream of a better future for us all. It might just come true.
 
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