Reaper

The problem, Mokele, is that he claims himself to be a scientist. So presumably he already knows all that And yet, the real scientists on this site can't understand what the hell he's talking about...

Aren't PM's supposed to be, well, private? How much of an idiot do you have to be to not understand that we demanded citations for your rather extraordinary claims. Especially claims that run counter to common knowledge....

I should also say this, while 19th century scientists and engineers certainly had debates on what technologies were possible and/or commercially viable, I'm pretty certain that there were no disagreements on the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

I've got one for you too: Its called "take a hint", just in case you've never did so before...

Even though I have already posted a few threads earlier today, I thought it would be appropriate to post the official I'm Back thread. So here it is; I'm Back! After a 6 month hiatus. During that time I have been pursuing other interests and as such decided that I needed a break from all forums for a while. Over this summer I completed an internship, and pursued a new hobby known as youtubing (I don't have any videos of my own yet, just collaborated on a few...) and help run a game server (i.e. for ZombiePanic Source, the greatest FPS ever, until I get tired of it...). As well, I ascended among the ranks of my college chess club and am now it's vice president; we've already organized tournaments and lectures this semester so far. In the background I focused a lot more on my studies, and I feel like I'm much more knowledgeable and wiser about the world than before . So, been looking around the forum. Doesn't seem like much has changed, other than maybe more posts and some better topics, and some new members being more active... But otherwise still the same old rivalries and debates going around.

Good grief! You mean to tell me that this stupidity is still going on? After 621 posts and 7 months?.

What does any of this have anything to do with special relativity? Answering that question does not in any way eliminate the burden of proof on you.

It's okay. I'm back now, so I can thin it out a little . Ah, I see, that would make a huge difference then. I was just under the impression that marriage was technically already a civil union, but given the ritualistic and religious connections it has, terming it a civil union would certainly eliminate the stigma of any couple of any sexual orientation come together. At the very least it would, in theory, eliminate the ability to arbitrarily place bans on same sex couples, so in this sense I do agree with you.

You really believe so? I was actually being sarcastic in the thread... Hmmm..... http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=define%3Apolitical+correctness Seems like the very definition of the word contradicts your statement above

What's the difference though? They practically mean the same thing, except one of the terms is more tied to religion than the other. If this term is to be adopted instead as to satisfy the bigoted among us, then why not just simply call all marriages civil unions instead? It's just simply another slide further toward extreme political correctness from what I see...

[emphasis mine] I guess that was the root of your problem then. Intuition counts for zilch in physics, and mathematics for that matter.

Part of that contribution includes giving you the ability to post your nonsense all over the net. If special and general relativity weren't true, then the internet is not possible . It is evident that you lack appreciation for the theories proposed, tested, and confirmed by scientists. Science is not really a philosophy. In fact, the distinction between them was made quite clear as far back as the Age of Enlightenment, when science got started.

That's not so bad. I once joined a Star Wars/sci-fi forum where they were so paranoid that they decided not to allow new members who used aol/yahoo/gmail based emails! Needless to say, the atmosphere was very hostile and I decided not to post there anymore after a few hours. I'll bet it can . But that's off topic No problem. I think one of the main problems is that even when it is clear that the OP is a troll, or someone who clearly won't listen, they are still allowed to post the same trash. Hopefully, these ideas will "encourage" the crackpots, retards, and trolls among us to correct their ways . =============================== Dude! Mike C just got pwned. Good job SFN, two thumbs up for the mods!

I like this idea better. I think once its been established that the OP in question is a crackpot/troll and will not argue properly, then you should start hitting the delete button, or the lock button. Or both if you would prefer.

So, what exactly is the problem here? As Sayonara pointed out earlier, a Dyson Sphere is enormous. Even if we do assume that this hypothetical civilization has found a way to mass produce antimatter bombs, you are still talking about a preposterous amount of antimatter need to actually do any serious damage to the sphere. And that's assuming all of the energy of the blast goes into attacking the structure. Perhaps a brief introduction to "How to Destroy the Earth" will demonstrate just how difficult destroying superstructures will be.... Perhaps you did not take heed to Clarke's three laws, especially the third one: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". The point is, IF a Dyson Sphere is technically possible, it sure as hell won't be built with our current understading of science, or engineering; it will be built according to their understanding. You also have to understand that a lot of what we do today was considered impossible just merely 100 years ago. Certainly, much of our technology is based on science that was not known by 19th century scientists. For example, it was once said that mankind would never get to the moon because of the perposterious amount of gunpowder necessary to do so. Needless to say, we did it in 1969, based entirely on science and technology that was unavailable to earlier generations. Anything that a Type II or a Type III civilization can do will most certainly be so much further ahead of us in terms of knowledge of what is possible and what is not. And they will certainly do things that we would consider hugely impossible. Of course, that is the point of the Kardashev scale; since we cannot guess at what "magical" technologies they might possess, we can certainly look at the energy demands of such a civilization, since as the more advanced (technologically, politically, socially, etc) a civ is, the greater their energy demands. HOW they can meet those demands is the point of this thread. There is no reason to expect that it is technically impossible to build a Dyson Sphere at all, maybe impossible to us, but probably not to a civilization like the one you see in Star Wars, or the one in Asimov's Foundation novels, or Larry Niven's Ring World civilization. Basically, one of the aims of this thread is to speculate on how long, and in which ways, and how likely, we can go from this society, to being able to build something more like this, or this, or this

meh, I'm sure that this site has encountered worse crackpots, trolls, and idiots then either New Science or MotorDaddy. And, well, this site hasn't fallen to pieces yet....

It's truly amazing! After 2 pages of refutations, never mind the months you've spent at hypography pushing this garbage, you still re-post the exact same thing! I don't think anyone here has anything more to add to this thread, if you didn't even bother to understand all the arguments we put forth, it's unlikely we will make any progress. Before we inevitably close this topic, just like what happens in all the other threads, I'm just simply going to yet again repeat what I said earlier: All in favor of locking this thread and/or letting it sink, say I *raises hand*. There is no more to discuss. http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~siegel/quack.html --->

But the matter around the solar system is also going at the same speed relative to the stars around the galactic core, so any corrections or maneuvering that has to be made will be relatively minor. In fact, it will probably be harder to build it then it will be to actually control it once it's built. So, I'm not sure why you don't like the Dyson swarm/sphere idea. And, you also have to keep in mind that any civilization, no matter how advanced, will always have the same basic wants and needs, of which include security, and I don't think the deuterium/fusion mobile civ will provide much in the way of that...

I think you are referring to a Dyson Sphere, not necessarily a civilization. The Kardashev Scale is nothing more than a framework and is based entirely on how much energy an advanced civilization would need to consume in order to do what it does/could possibly do, sort of thing. Granted, it's not the best scale, but if you have something better we would like to hear it. I do have objections to that claim. While I don't doubt we will have fusion power sometime in the future, I'm going to have to side with Sayonara here, in that it is probably not the wisest thing to do. Well, given that stars can provide virtually limitless amounts of energy (well, for as long as the star is alive), that might be one good reason for doing so. Second, being near a star system means that you can also ensure a steady flow of raw material necessary to maintain habitats and civilizations (i.e. iron, water, etc). According to Freeman Dyson, it's gonna be a million year long project . All we have to do is provide our descendants with the proper motivation .

Assuming we don't blow ourselves up first, how long do you think it will take for our civilization to reach a Type I, Type II, or Type III civilization (on the Kardashev Scale)? What type of technological capabilities would you expect such a civ to have, or have solved? What type of issues/problems do you think these civs will run into (anything ranging from technical to political ones...)? And, how do you think we will get our civilization to those milestones? This is intended to be a very open-ended discussion, so don't worry about details. I just want to hear your honest opinions.

Well, on the topic of measuring distances using supernova, that is actually a relatively recent thing. It's only been around for about 10 or so years. Because supernovas are so rare, the only way you can detect them is by taking a picture of a large portion of the sky, and then a couple of weeks or so later to take another picture of that same portion and then compare the photos and/or spectral analysis, etc. The technology to do this has since improved from it's first inception, but the method is still the same. So, I doubt you can get the measurements that much better unless you improve the resolution of such photos, or limit yourself to certain types of objects. Determining distances across interstellar and intergalactic space tends to be very tricky in general, because of the vast size of the universe and also the vast size of the objects in general too. An object like a galactic cluster is HUGE, which I'm sure most of us know. In the case of the tables on the Virgo Cluster in that link, we don't know what galaxy that supernova was from, and where it came from is important because if it happened at the far side (relative to us) of the cluster then the uncertainty could be larger then usual. It's the same with any other method, whether it be Cepheids, nebula, nova, etc. The reason supernova's are good is because, as it has been mentioned before, they are more or less all the same brightness. The best and most accurate way to measure distances across the universe is to use a parallax, but that only works for stars close to Earth, not for galaxies and superclusters. Regardless, given the range at which supernova's can reliably determine distances and can be detected, it's uncertainty is inconsequential for the most part, and they are very reliable cosmic candles. And the fact that supernova's can sometimes have a significant uncertainty at times does not invalidate the Big Bang Theory or the fact that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. This pretty much smashes Mike C's objections. And to top it all off, all you really need is the galaxy's velocity in order to determine how fast the expansion of the Universe is accelerating, so I don't know what he's trying to get at.

The tables provided on that link apply to distance. That same table also shows the range for which they can be reliably used. Supernova a1's have the furthest range of any of them, so given it's uncertainly it's actually a very good and a very reliable cosmic yardstick. I would imagine that the reason that the uncertainty was high in that case is because the Virgo Cluster is so close and supernova events are rare. How far something is and how fast the universe is expanding are two different things, and as such the way they are determined is different. In any event, this still doesn't make your theory any more credible or your position any more tenable. Sorry, try again.

Pretty much. All you've done was flung this rubbish at us without providing any credible defense of your arguments and mangled the math, and then when we point out it's flaws and errors you immediately cry conspiracy . Are you going to put up now? Or will we have to be forced to throw all of your threads into the trash can?

After all the criticism and rebuttals thrown at him, this is the best Mike C could come up with. This quote made my day.