- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 3144
Now this is an idea I've been tossing around for a while, and as it seems a bit premature to patent it it does seem to explain a few things.
The idea is this: A Quantum Interstellar Relay. As that probably doesn't help you, allow me to explain. Using the principles of Quantum Entanglement a beacon or relay is set up at a point equidistant between two stars. Probably this would be near a star that happens to be close to midpoint between earth and the star or quadrant we wished to be communicating with, the star serving to provide a ready source of energy for the beacon.
Now if you've watched any science fiction you're probably aware of the trope where communications are hampered by the speed of light - distant colonies and spacemen waiting years for messages from earth. The quantum relay would solve this. From the midway point or beacon/relay two or more streams of entangled particles are directed both at Earth and at the colonies. While the initial stream of entangled photons or particles would take X number of light years to reach both the colonists and Earth, communications between them afterwards will be near instant - changes in the entangled quanta beam arriving at earth will be exactly mirrored to the colonists/spacemen, software could be used to decrypt images, video, holograms, or even just text. Instant communication (I expect that it won't be instant, the point nearest to "equidistant" that we find might be a few light-minutes or hours away from "center", but it sure as heck beats waiting years...).
This is an easy solution, and as far as I can tell, reasonable. The galaxy and even universe could eventually be populated with these relays or beacons, a communication network of sorts, that would allow for (relatively) instant communications between all the stars, without the wait or restrictions imposed by the speed of light.
Taking this one step further, lets look at SETI, scanning the sky for radio signals that might indicate intelligent life somewhere else in the Galaxy. This might not be the best way to go about it. On Earth, we've used radio loosely for less than 100 years, and detecting those signals that have leaked into space would be a major task. With the increased advent of Satellite communications very few of our signals have been "leaking" into space, and our electromagnetic "footprint" has become almost invisible.
What advanced civilization would choose, given the limitations of time and energy, to communicate via radio waves? I'm guessing none. For the fifty or hundred years that they represented the zenith of technology, maybe; but once they've moved on they'll probably choose the more instant methods suggested by quantum entanglement. Which suggests that instead of radio waves, we should be probably looking for entangled photons, or other, more instant, signatures of intelligent life, and hope that somewhere out there there's a beacon or relay directed at us...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2846
And so presuming that perhaps not everyone is familiar with the myth of Oedipus the King, I'll direct you here for a brief summary of the plot.
Now there are a variety of interpretations as to Oedipus's tragic flaw - his pride, his ignorance of his own background, his disregard for the prophesy of the oracle.
But I'd like to propose a slightly different interpretation - not mine own, and I can't recall who precisely shared it with me, but it begins with the riddle posed by the Sphinx: "Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?", to which Oedipus answered: "Man—who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then uses a walking stick in old age.".
Now Oedipus's answer is, strictly speaking, correct, but he errs in his answer by saying "Man" - the answer should be "Myself". And in answering it in the general - as opposed to the specific, he is distancing himself from his own humanity, in a way placing himself above it. The Sphinx, riddle answered, has no choice but to destroy herself, and Oedipus is free to proceed, but in his refusal to acknowledge his own humanity, mortality and place in the world he fulfills the prophesy in the most heinous way possible - Pride, therefore, is the undoing of Oedipus.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 4422
An interesting idea I stumbled upon first while listening to Radiolab, Gladstone's Color Theory, which suggests that language is directly correlated to our ability to experience certain stimuli...
For example, we've all heard the lie that the first nations who watched Columbus's ships break the horizon before arriving at the New World did not perceive them because they had no concept or understanding of ship. And Centaurs seem clearly to be a misreading of early accounts of people witnessing others on horseback, a concept they didn't have and so communicated through this hybridization of truth.
Gladstone analyzes the colors used in Homer's "The Odyssey" to argue that as the ancients didn't have a word for the color blue, to them it didn't exist. And there is surprising anthropological evidence to support his theory...
Read more here: (Daily Mail, Popular easy to read content): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2976405/Could-ancestors-blue-Ancient-civilisations-didn-t-perceive-colour-didn-t-word-say-scientists.html
And listen to the original Radiolab Podcast here: http://www.radiolab.org/story/211213-sky-isnt-blue/
And, for the more literate and involved in this, try the Wikipedia article (*Warning: Lots of Jargon): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_color_naming_debate
In essence, how language both describes and limits our experience of the world, curious...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2776
4000 Years of picturing Space, Cosmigraphics is a collection of images that reflect not only our understanding of space and the universe but society as well. Imagine how our silly our illustrations and understandings will appear to those who follow us in 4000 years...
This, for it's abstract qualities...
And this, because, well, just look at it...the caption beneath: (Latin inscription from Ecclesiastes): 'The number of fools is infinite.'.
Brilliant. More images below, buy Michael Bensons book on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/1419713876/
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2249
{embed:youtube:N0vO5zc73qk}