UDLS

[gfish]

I've been remiss in posting my Undistinguished Lecture Series presentations here.

2008-02-29: Navigation Techniques That Don't Rely on General Relativity -- How We Got Around Before GPS.
Our ancestors managed, more or less, to get around for thousands of years without the amazing convenience of GPS. How did they do it? We'll look at a range of Polynesian and Viking techniques as well as the basics of full celestial navigation.
[This one I did in innovative Crayolavision. They're all handdrawn in crayon on construction paper, with very little text. I never got around to annotating them, so I'm not sure how useful they will be by themselves. Enjoy!]

2008-05-30: Fermi's Paradox
There are more stars in the universe than our puny meatbrains can possibly comprehend. Likewise, the universe is ridiculously old. So why wasn't the galaxy filled with advanced civilizations millions of years before we came down out of the trees? SETI hasn't turned up the slightest scrap of evidence for anyone else zipping around out there after almost 50 years of looking. What might this ominous silence mean for us here on Earth? (Hint: Nothing good.)
[This was thrown together at the last minute when the originally scheduled speaker backed out. It could have used some more polishing. Again, they're a bit low on text. My preferred style just doesn't lend itself to slides that stand alone.]

Comments

[gfish.livejournal.com]

It doesn't have to be communication that we detect, though. The very fact that they aren't already here -- weren't here for millions of years before we ever evolved -- is troubling. It would only take a million years to colonize the entire galaxy using very slow (.05c) transportation, with 1000 years to build a new technological civilization at the far end before sending out another colony. That's NOTHING compared to the age of the universe. So, either we're amazingly rare, or something is preventing technological civilization from spreading.

...this is the kind of stuff that was included in the speaking component.

[arjache.livejournal.com]

Dang, that's disturbing. Although, to nitpick, it seems like you'd be unlikely to get habitable planets until the advent of Pop I stars, which is a lot more recent in history. That'd still be plenty of time for colonization, though, so...dang.

[tfabris.livejournal.com]

> very slow (.05c)

Um....
186,000 = c in miles per second, approx, (I don't happen to know its speed in KM)
0.05 = fishy's multiplier, makes 0.5C be...
9,300 = miles per second
33,480,000 = miles per hour
53,880,837 = kilometers per hour (I think)

58,000 = kilometers per hour = the fastest man-made object ever to leave Earth's orbit.


"You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means."

Honestly, I think the thing that keeps technology from spreading across the universe is the frail nature of life and the transitory nature of knowledge. Even if you could travel at relativistic speeds, it means the life has to survive for decades in a tiny tin can to get anywhere. In order to thrive for that length of time, life needs planet-sized ecosystems.

Strap a big enough engine to a small planet, sure, we could colonize the universe...

[bakeme.livejournal.com]

i agree. we've seen too much star trek. the universe, the galaxy, shit even the solar system, is really, really, goddamn big. short of achieving speeds at appreciable fractions of c, (and who knows what sorts of technological walls you'd run into getting to that point--we certainly don't) any trip anywhere would just take so goddamn long.

shrug.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

My point there being that it doesn't require magical FTL drives of any sort. Very good ecological control of a generational ship, a shit-ton of antimatter, but nothing we can't reasonable expect to have.

And, remember, there is no reason to think it will be biological creatures making the trip. Von Neumann machines make a lot more sense anywhere beyond LEO.

[solarbird]

Oh, I see. I think it's the spreading problem. I suspect that the power requirements are too high for non-essential-need driven interstellar travel. Obviously, I hope I'm wrong.

Either that, or dark matter consists of interstellar pac men chomping ur starships. ^_^