[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]on edge wrote:
You are being too modest. Advanced topics in physics really are much harder to grasp than advanced topics in biology, chemistry and computer science.
[/quote]
I don’t know, man. My fiance is a biologist and when she talks about her research I am completely lost. I usually just zone out and think about or stare at her boobs.
[/quote]
LOL
[quote]Consul wrote:
So, Dr. Matt, which authors do you recommend for the non-physicist who would like to find out more about physics? [/quote]
Paul Davies is excellent at presenting physics for the layperson. Would recommend About Time (time & Einstein’s legacy), Other Worlds (quantum realm), and God and the New Physics (overall) and even his How to Build a Time Machine is both excellent and firmly tongue-in-cheek.
[quote]chillain wrote:
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]chillain wrote:
[quote]yolo84 wrote:
Does anyone think humans will colonize planets say one thousand years from now (or much sooner) or do you guys think we will always live on Earth, bar say maybe a few hundred or thousand people dotted around on a couple of planets?[/quote]
Well you know we can’t always live here on Earth, that we will eventually have to leave.
And despite being a (likely) optimist in this regard, I’ll still say less-than-zero chance of interstellar travel in next thousand years (or less).
[/quote]
Less than zero chance? How’s that work?[/quote]
Our current limitations re: energy, propulsion, shielding, and the fact that our bodies literally start to disintegrate outside of a gravity field… well, that all gets combined with the unfathomable interstellar distances and likely terraforming requirements before we even get there and so on…
(ie. too many HUGE problems to solve in the next thousand years, and don’t forget, I’m an optimist here)[/quote]
Oh, I know what you meant. But “nearly 0” is a much better choice than “less than 0”.
Thanks for the suggestions, Dr. Matt and chillain.
Obviously, I appreciate that understanding this stuff at a decent level is not achievable without the prerequisite education, but it’s nice to learn new things 
I am a peer leader for fields and waves for engineering students, currently doing research in inorganic chemistry and enjoy philosophy of science pertaining to certain topics in physics in my spare time(as relates to this this topic) even though I am getting my BS in biochemistry even though I have all the credits ready for a BS in chemistry. My younger bro is getting his BS in Physics as well.
[quote]chillain wrote:
Our current limitations re: energy, propulsion, shielding, and the fact that our bodies literally start to disintegrate outside of a gravity field… well, that all gets combined with the unfathomable interstellar distances and likely terraforming requirements before we even get there and so on…
(ie. too many HUGE problems to solve in the next thousand years, and don’t forget, I’m an optimist here)
[/quote]
a thousand years is a very long time.
regarding the human body, as on edge poated, AI is surely going to have a big impact on humanity, probably sooner rather than later as well.
[quote]on edge wrote:
I think the most likely way for humans to colonize other worlds would be to develop AI technology to the point AI’s could journey for hundreds of years to another world then prepare it for human life. The AI’s would then need to raise test tube babies and be able to love, educate and otherwise prepare them. The challenges of terraforming another world or genetically modifying humans to live on another world would be staggering but probably more surmountable than living humans making the journey and doing all that.[/quote]
Yeah, but if that was a likely scenario and if there were other intelligent life forms in this here galaxy, this would already have homesteaded the whole galaxy.
Google von Neumann probe, I kid you not.
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
Doc, what do you think of CTMU and Christopher Langan?[/quote]
Not much. His intellectual abilities have been greatly exaggerated and, even though he claims that his IQ is “between 195 and 210,” he has never, to my knowledge, provided a single test result stating that and has refused to take another one. He is a smart kid and did skip several grades in school, but some of his professors from his college days said that he was a very bright kid, but was a very poor student. He would be disruptive in class, and would refuse to ever accept that he was wrong.
He has claimed that he dropped out of college because he wound up teaching his professors more then they taught him (he actually ran out of money to cover his tuition), and that he taught himself “advanced mathematics” and physics and can do “advanced calculations” in his head, yet despite his ability to understand mathematics and physics at a level BEYOND what his professors could, he has yet to produce any real advancements in those fields, which tends to lead me to call bullshit on those claims. I know of several people, who are very accomplished in the field of mathematics, who have challenged him to demonstrate his mathematical abilities and his usual reply is “you wouldn’t understand it so why should I bother.”
His only notable work, CTMU, is not a valid scientific theory (it has been taken apart by scientists in various fields, a quick google search should bring up more then a few), which is why he has never had it published, at least to my knowledge. He just wrote down a bunch of stuff using the most confusing and complex sentence structures he could come up with and his responses to criticisms usually amount to “you just don’t understand it.” He has produced not a single shred of actual evidence for his theory or a single testable hypothesis at all, which alone excludes it from being a scientific work, which is fine if he wanted to push it as a philosophical work, but is claiming it is a valid scientific hypothesis.
All in all, he comes off as a fairly smart guy who is very full of himself and exaggerates his own abilities in order to feed some superiority complex he has.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]on edge wrote:
I think the most likely way for humans to colonize other worlds would be to develop AI technology to the point AI’s could journey for hundreds of years to another world then prepare it for human life. The AI’s would then need to raise test tube babies and be able to love, educate and otherwise prepare them. The challenges of terraforming another world or genetically modifying humans to live on another world would be staggering but probably more surmountable than living humans making the journey and doing all that.[/quote]
Yeah, but if that was a likely scenario and if there were other intelligent life forms in this here galaxy, this would already have homesteaded the whole galaxy.
Google von Neumann probe, I kid you not. [/quote]
While it’s possible we’re not the only intelligent life in the universe, it’s also possible we’re the most intelligent life in the universe. You also really can’t rely on the reasoning of “if it were possible, someone else would have done it before”. We may end up being the first to homestead the galaxy, even if another lifeform has the technology and capability to do so. The reasoning just doesn’t add up.
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
Doc, what do you think of CTMU and Christopher Langan?[/quote]
Not much. His intellectual abilities have been greatly exaggerated and, even though he claims that his IQ is “between 195 and 210,” he has never, to my knowledge, provided a single test result stating that and has refused to take another one. He is a smart kid and did skip several grades in school, but some of his professors from his college days said that he was a very bright kid, but was a very poor student. He would be disruptive in class, and would refuse to ever accept that he was wrong.
He has claimed that he dropped out of college because he wound up teaching his professors more then they taught him (he actually ran out of money to cover his tuition), and that he taught himself “advanced mathematics” and physics and can do “advanced calculations” in his head, yet despite his ability to understand mathematics and physics at a level BEYOND what his professors could, he has yet to produce any real advancements in those fields, which tends to lead me to call bullshit on those claims. I know of several people, who are very accomplished in the field of mathematics, who have challenged him to demonstrate his mathematical abilities and his usual reply is “you wouldn’t understand it so why should I bother.”
[/quote]
Well the thing is, no matter how clever someone is, its is up to him to sell it to us poor shlubs.
If he cant, he does not come close to being clever enough.
Meaning, if someone can not phrase his discoveries in simple enough terms, he probably does not understand them himself.
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
Doc, what do you think of CTMU and Christopher Langan?[/quote]
Not much. His intellectual abilities have been greatly exaggerated and, even though he claims that his IQ is “between 195 and 210,” he has never, to my knowledge, provided a single test result stating that and has refused to take another one. He is a smart kid and did skip several grades in school, but some of his professors from his college days said that he was a very bright kid, but was a very poor student. He would be disruptive in class, and would refuse to ever accept that he was wrong.
He has claimed that he dropped out of college because he wound up teaching his professors more then they taught him (he actually ran out of money to cover his tuition), and that he taught himself “advanced mathematics” and physics and can do “advanced calculations” in his head, yet despite his ability to understand mathematics and physics at a level BEYOND what his professors could, he has yet to produce any real advancements in those fields, which tends to lead me to call bullshit on those claims. I know of several people, who are very accomplished in the field of mathematics, who have challenged him to demonstrate his mathematical abilities and his usual reply is “you wouldn’t understand it so why should I bother.”
His only notable work, CTMU, is not a valid scientific theory (it has been taken apart by scientists in various fields, a quick google search should bring up more then a few), which is why he has never had it published, at least to my knowledge. He just wrote down a bunch of stuff using the most confusing and complex sentence structures he could come up with and his responses to criticisms usually amount to “you just don’t understand it.” He has produced not a single shred of actual evidence for his theory or a single testable hypothesis at all, which alone excludes it from being a scientific work, which is fine if he wanted to push it as a philosophical work, but is claiming it is a valid scientific hypothesis.
All in all, he comes off as a fairly smart guy who is very full of himself and exaggerates his own abilities in order to feed some superiority complex he has.[/quote]
That’s all pretty disappointing lol. I just started reading his stuff as of a few minutes ago.
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]on edge wrote:
I think the most likely way for humans to colonize other worlds would be to develop AI technology to the point AI’s could journey for hundreds of years to another world then prepare it for human life. The AI’s would then need to raise test tube babies and be able to love, educate and otherwise prepare them. The challenges of terraforming another world or genetically modifying humans to live on another world would be staggering but probably more surmountable than living humans making the journey and doing all that.[/quote]
Yeah, but if that was a likely scenario and if there were other intelligent life forms in this here galaxy, this would already have homesteaded the whole galaxy.
Google von Neumann probe, I kid you not. [/quote]
While it’s possible we’re not the only intelligent life in the universe, it’s also possible we’re the most intelligent life in the universe. You also really can’t rely on the reasoning of “if it were possible, someone else would have done it before”. We may end up being the first to homestead the galaxy, even if another lifeform has the technology and capability to do so. The reasoning just doesn’t add up.[/quote]
If just one, just one alien civilization has had the same idea they would have settled this galaxy in 20 million years, i.e, nothing if their probes made around 1% of the speed of light,
Of course I am pulling this all from memory but I believe its in the ballpark.
Could we be the first?
Yes.
I suspect though that we are in for another narcissistic shock, like the earth not being the center of the universe and such.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]on edge wrote:
I think the most likely way for humans to colonize other worlds would be to develop AI technology to the point AI’s could journey for hundreds of years to another world then prepare it for human life. The AI’s would then need to raise test tube babies and be able to love, educate and otherwise prepare them. The challenges of terraforming another world or genetically modifying humans to live on another world would be staggering but probably more surmountable than living humans making the journey and doing all that.[/quote]
Yeah, but if that was a likely scenario and if there were other intelligent life forms in this here galaxy, this would already have homesteaded the whole galaxy.
Google von Neumann probe, I kid you not. [/quote]
While it’s possible we’re not the only intelligent life in the universe, it’s also possible we’re the most intelligent life in the universe. You also really can’t rely on the reasoning of “if it were possible, someone else would have done it before”. We may end up being the first to homestead the galaxy, even if another lifeform has the technology and capability to do so. The reasoning just doesn’t add up.[/quote]
If just one, just one alien civilization has had the same idea they would have settled this galaxy in 20 million years, i.e, nothing if their probes made around 1% of the speed of light,
Of course I am pulling this all from memory but I believe its in the ballpark.
Could we be the first?
Yes.
I suspect though that we are in for another narcissistic shock, like the earth not being the center of the universe and such.
[/quote]
Should add that the TOWWS
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
That’s all pretty disappointing lol. I just started reading his stuff as of a few minutes ago.[/quote]
Read it all anyway, spar.
At best, you’ll learn something new and trigger further study on your own.
And at worst, you’ll get some more practice at critical analysis.
[quote]chillain wrote:
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
That’s all pretty disappointing lol. I just started reading his stuff as of a few minutes ago.[/quote]
Read it all anyway, spar.
At best, you’ll learn something new and trigger further study on your own.
And at worst, you’ll get some more practice at critical analysis.
[/quote]
I’m reading the CTMU Q&A first. Already seen some things I’ve already thought deeply about and can build upon. He does seem to have a hard time keeping terse and focused though.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
I am a peer leader for fields and waves for engineering students, currently doing research in inorganic chemistry and enjoy philosophy of science pertaining to certain topics in physics in my spare time(as relates to this this topic) even though I am getting my BS in biochemistry even though I have all the credits ready for a BS in chemistry. My younger bro is getting his BS in Physics as well.[/quote]
Not to derail the thread, but what kind of research are you doing in inorganic chem?
[quote]chillain wrote:
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
That’s all pretty disappointing lol. I just started reading his stuff as of a few minutes ago.[/quote]
Read it all anyway, spar.
At best, you’ll learn something new and trigger further study on your own.
And at worst, you’ll get some more practice at critical analysis.
[/quote]
This. Read it and read the professional criticisms and read it again (the full CTMU is almost 60 pages if I remember correctly). Since you plan on pursuing a PhD, you need to get used to reading bad scientific articles as well as pseudo-scientific articles because you will see them very often, so getting used to it now and learning how to critically analyze papers will be key to your success.
His use of overly complex wording and sentence structure is a rookie mistake. He knew that his science was flawed and would never pass review so he thought that if he made it too complex sounding and hard to read people would just say fuck it and not read it or bother to tear it apart. The problem is that even if his IQ is 200 or so, that is not much higher then most top scientists, and there are several that can directly rival that and we are very capable and often do break down and dissect bad papers with overly complex wording like his a lot. It will become second nature to you in time.
[quote]AquaCruzer wrote:
[/quote]
hi
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]AquaCruzer wrote:
[/quote]
hi[/quote]
Hello to you too.
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]chillain wrote:
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
That’s all pretty disappointing lol. I just started reading his stuff as of a few minutes ago.[/quote]
Read it all anyway, spar.
At best, you’ll learn something new and trigger further study on your own.
And at worst, you’ll get some more practice at critical analysis.
[/quote]
This. Read it and read the professional criticisms and read it again (the full CTMU is almost 60 pages if I remember correctly). Since you plan on pursuing a PhD, you need to get used to reading bad scientific articles as well as pseudo-scientific articles because you will see them very often, so getting used to it now and learning how to critically analyze papers will be key to your success.
His use of overly complex wording and sentence structure is a rookie mistake. He knew that his science was flawed and would never pass review so he thought that if he made it too complex sounding and hard to read people would just say fuck it and not read it or bother to tear it apart. The problem is that even if his IQ is 200 or so, that is not much higher then most top scientists, and there are several that can directly rival that and we are very capable and often do break down and dissect bad papers with overly complex wording like his a lot. It will become second nature to you in time.
[/quote]
Yeah after the initial portion, it’s becoming a bit of a chore to digest the subject matter due to his writing style. It seems reminiscent of rambling. I can understand his points, but the bulk of his responses are superfluous and he seems to detail matters of lesser relevance a lot. That’s just the Q&A. Since the full CTMU is 60 pages, I’ll read it in bits so as not to displace time for other activities lol.
I really need to plan out how I’m going to manage the PhD pursuit. Double majoring in AE and physics seems like a strain (financially and physically). Plus I have other goals as well that I’m not willing to displace. Gonna really need to subdivide these goals and make a unified plan accounting for the “shit happens” variable. Don’t know if I’m cognitively capable of fixating on more than three goals max at a time.