The Zen of Technology & Scientific Discovery! (& Robots)

[Skot]

Speaking of William Shatner;

"I'm waiting for that feeling of contentment
That ease at night when you put your head down
And the rhythms slow to sleep
My head sways and eyes start awake
I'm there not halfway between sleep and death
But looking into eyes wide open trying to remember
What I might have done, should have done
At my age I need serenity I need peace
It hasn't happened yet
It hasn't happened yet
It hasn't happened yet"

Skot SatUrToday

[Jundo]

Okay, it is not the "flying car" that I thought we'd all have by now when I used to watch the Jetsons as a kid ... and it is not exactly affordable ... and it don't exactly look safe ... but it now goes to the top of my list of things I don't need but like anyway ...

https://youtu.be/1g9J_eXixz0

By chance, this video also came up today ... and I just think it cool ... it is no. 2 on my list of things I don't need but like ...

https://youtu.be/H1_OpWiyijU

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

So, all the planets we've found so far outside our solar system have still been inside our Milky Way galaxy ... so, this is something! ...

NASA discovers first possible planet outside our galaxy

Scientists may have detected signs of a planet transiting a star outside of the Milky Way, in what could be the first planet ever to be discovered outside our galaxy.

The possible exoplanet was discovered in the Whirlpool Galaxy -- the spiral galaxy Messier 51 (M51) -- by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, NASA said in a press release on Monday.

An exoplanet is a planet outside of our solar system that normally orbits a star other than our own sun in our galaxy. Until now, all other exoplanets have been found in the Milky Way, and most of them have been found less than 3,000 light-years from Earth.

This newly discovered possible exoplanet in the Whirlpool Galaxy would be about 28 million light-years away -- thousands of times farther away than those in the Milky Way.

"We are trying to open up a whole new arena for finding other worlds by searching for planet candidates at X-ray wavelengths, a strategy that makes it possible to discover them in other galaxies,"
https://us.cnn.com/2021/10/26/world/...scn/index.html

Gassho, J

STLah

[Amelia]

The child in me wants the hoverbike... The adult in me wants to live.

Gassho
Sat, lah

[Jundo]

The universe is like a big factory, and you and I and all of us come off the assembly line ... ... then delivered by Amazon??

Enormous 'shipyard' of ancient galaxies discovered 11 billion light-years away

A similar protocluster may have created our Milky Way.

Astronomers have discovered a massive "shipyard" where galaxies are built, similar to the one our Milky Way grew up in.

The giant structure, called a protocluster, contains more than 60 galaxies and is 11 billion light-years from Earth, so far away that scientists are observing a part of the universe that is only 3 billion years old.

Researchers released a paper on the protocluster named G237 in January, but its existence has now been confirmed by an international team of astronomers, who published their follow-up findings on Oct. 26 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

"You can think of galaxy protoclusters such as G237 as a galaxy shipyard in which massive galaxies are being assembled, only this structure existed at a time when the universe was 3 billion years old," study co-author Brenda Frye, an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, said in a statement. ... "The picture we have pieced together now is that of a successful galaxy shipyard, which is working at high efficiency to assemble galaxies and the stars within them and has an energy supply that is more sustainable," Frye said.

https://www.livescience.com/protoclu...g237-confirmed

But at the same time, think of all the things that had NOT to happen so that we could be here: One single asteroid on different course, one tiny virus other that it was, could have changed history and we would NOT be here either!

An asteroid barely missed Earth last week, and no one knew it was coming

An asteroid about the size of a refrigerator shot past Earth last week, and astronomers didn't know the object existed until hours after it was gone.

It was a close call (from a cosmic perspective); the space rock's trajectory on Oct. 24 carried it over Antarctica within 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers) of Earth — closer than some satellites — making it the third-closest asteroid to approach the planet without actually hitting it, CNET reported. ... But with a diameter of just 6.6 feet (2 meters), UA1 was too small to pose a threat. Even if it had struck Earth, most of its rocky body would have burned away in the atmosphere before it could hit the ground, CNET reported.
https://www.livescience.com/surprise-asteroid-flyby

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

I am writing a book entitled "BUILDING the FUTURE BUDDHA: The Kōan of Robots, Genetic Engineering and Travel to the Stars," in which I posit what Zen and Buddhism may be like in the future. When folks read my book ... hopefully sometime in the near future ... I hope that they remember this article, and that maybe I am not so crazy! The author is one of the UK's most respected scientists ...

Martin Rees -- Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, University of Cambridge

Lord Martin Rees is Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge. He holds the honorary title of Astronomer Royal.

He writes ...

Human technological civilization only dates back millennia (at most) – and it may be only one or two more centuries before humans, made up of organic materials such as carbon, are overtaken or transcended by inorganic intelligence, such as AI. Computer processing power is already increasing exponentially, meaning AI in the future may be able to use vastly more data than it does today. It seems to follow that it could then get exponentially smarter, surpassing human general intelligence.

Perhaps a starting point would be to enhance ourselves with genetic modification in combination with technology – creating cyborgs with partly organic and partly inorganic parts. This could be a transition to fully artificial intelligence.

AI may even be able to evolve, creating better and better versions of itself on a faster-than-Darwinian timescale for billions of years. Organic human-level intelligence would then be just a brief interlude in our “human history” before the machines take over. So if alien intelligence had evolved similarly, we’d be most unlikely to “catch” it in the brief sliver of time when it was still embodied in biological form. If we were to detect extraterrestrial life, it would be far more likely to be electronic than flesh and blood – and it may not even reside on planets.

...

... Post-human intelligences may also be able to build computers with enormous processing power. Humans are already able to model some quite complex phenomenon, such as the climate. More intelligent civilizations, however, may be able to simulate living things – with actual consciousnesses – or even entire worlds or universes. ... How do we know that we aren’t living in such a simulation created by technologically superior aliens? Maybe we are no more than a bit of entertainment for some supreme being who is running such a model? Indeed, if life is destined to be able to create technologically advanced civilizations that can make computer programs, there may be more simulated universes our there than real ones out there – making it conceivable that we are in one of them.

This conjecture may sound outlandish, but it is all based on our current understanding of physics and cosmology. We should, however, surely be open-minded about the possibility that there’s much we don’t understand.

https://www.livescience.com/extrater...not-biological

My book asks what Buddhism might have to say, and be like, then in similar scenarios ...

Gassho, J

STLah

[Kaishin]

Interesting...yes what would Buddhism be without humans? And would our planet perhaps be better off without these problematic homo sapiens? Of course the Mahayana literature is full of what could be considered extraterrestrial, superpowered beings. Maybe they were on to something

-stlah

[Jundo]

Well, sometimes finding out that there is something we have wrong is as important as being right ...

The problem with the Big Bang theory

However, in 1980, physicist Alan Guth proposed an extension to the theory that could reconcile some of the inconsistencies between theory and observation, including the unexpected uniformity. His extension is called cosmic inflation theory and it claims that in the first moments of the birth of the universe it expanded faster than the speed of light. In a tiny fraction of a second, the visible universe grew from the size of an atom to a sphere roughly a light year across.

Subsequent astronomers invented variations of inflation, of varying degrees of complexity, but they all predict that the early universe expanded at unfathomable speeds.

The principle of inflation has long been considered an important component of the modern scientific theory of how the universe began, but it has never been experimentally confirmed -- so it remains a speculative idea.

... Inflation theory predicts that the microwaves of the CMB should be polarized. Just like ordinary light, microwaves are just wiggling electric and magnetic fields and if the wiggles are oriented in specific directions, the result is polarization. The CMB can be polarized in two ways: B-modes, which are swirly patterns, and E-modes, which are more of a straight-line pattern. And, if inflation theory is correct, we'd expect to see some mix of B-modes and E-modes, while if it isn't correct -- in other words, if the expansion of the universe did not happen as quickly as the theory suggests -- researchers should only see E-modes. This is because B-modes are caused by gravitational waves that would have shaken the early universe and would have been locked into our universe by inflation. Without inflation, we'd not see those primordial gravitational waves -- the evidence for them would have dissipated away.

Astronomers used a telescope facility called BICEP-3 (short for Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) to study the CMB and its polarization. The telescope's South Pole location, with its altitude of nearly two miles above sea level and incredibly dry air, is an ideal place to conduct this kind of research. BICEP-3 scientists combined their data with measurements at other facilities and found no indication of B-modes originating from the CMB. If B-modes are present in the CMB, they are very small.

So, does that mean that the theory of inflation must be thrown out? No, although the data has disproved some of the simpler theories of inflation, it isn't sensitive enough to rule out the more complex versions. Still, the failure to observe CMB B-modes is unsettling, causing some scientists to go back to the drawing board.

There are those who are discomfited when a scientific measurement draws into question a theory that is popular among researchers, but they shouldn't be. The self-correcting nature of science is actually its strongest asset.

Scientists are constantly double-checking their own ideas and, even if they don't, other scientists do it for them. The goal is to get at the truth. Indeed, a good scientist should never hold firmly to their ideas and should be open to changing their viewpoint as more data comes in. Slowly, but surely, scientific ideas are refined by this process, getting closer and closer to the truth.
https://us.cnn.com/2021/11/04/opinio...oln/index.html

Gassho, J

STLah

[Doshin]

The last paragraph says a lot.

Doshin
St

[Rich]

Satellite launch from Cape Canaveral recorded on my iPhone 2:22 length

https://youtu.be/R9-U1AoEyzE

Sat/lah

[Jundo]

Satellite launch from Cape Canaveral recorded on my iPhone 2:22 length

Sat/lah

At first, I thought ... how strange the NASA is now launching sideways!

Then I recalled that, from space, that angle is about right ... as would be any angle in fact ...



Among my most cherished experiences is witnessing 3 or 4 (they blend together) Space Shuttle launches, daytime and nighttime, when we were in Florida. Now, living in Tsukuba, home to the Japanese Space Program, we know lots of space people. Our friends at our house this last weekend were a couple, rocket and satellite engineers, who live here. She believes that UFOs really may be from other planets (because of their excellent engineers!)

Gassho, J

STLah

[Rich]

I have no idea why that ended sideways 🙃

Sat/lah

[Jundo]

A scene from the past, may we be better in the future ...

https://youtu.be/Q1FdSpTxBi8

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Be grateful for the land we walk on ... otherwise, we would have to be much better swimmers!

Earth's first continents, known as the cratons, emerged from the ocean between 3.3 billion and 3.2 billion years ago, a new study hints.

This pushes back previous estimates of when the cratons first rose from the water, as various studies suggested that large-scale craton emergence took place roughly 2.5 billion years ago.

"There was no uncertainty that continents were partly sticking out of water as early as 3.4 billion years ago," said Ilya Bindeman, a professor of geology at the University of Oregon, who was not involved in the new study. That's because scientists have found sedimentary rocks — which form from the broken-up bits of other rocks that have undergone erosion and weathering — that date back to that era. Such sedimentary rocks could only form once land broke through the surface of early Earth's oceans.
https://www.livescience.com/earth-fi...-cratons-study

Gassho, J

STLah

[Angel]

So, all the planets we've found so far outside our solar system have still been inside our Milky Way galaxy ... so, this is something! ...



Gassho, J

STLah

My first love was astronomy and by age four my knowledge was being referred to as encyclopedic - although perhaps today the phrase is Wikipedic... I first read this last month and marveled at the timing of this lover of astronomy's birth. The very first planet outside of our own solar system was discovered less than thirty years ago. Since then, and prior to this discovery, we had found 4,864 exoplanets. The most exciting aspect of this find - one not mentioned in the article, is that there is also strong evidence of water on the planet.

Angel - sat