I'm simply blown away...

[Jice Virago]

I don't think you are retarded, but your moronic behavior is all the more reprehensable because it is intentional. Unlike actual retarded people, you act like you do on purpose.

[Winnow]

I really don't think I did anything too extreme on this thread. kyoucan got a little over excited about my Cold Fusion reference and then it was on, otherwise the thread would have died down.

my quote:

It's a story to keep an eye on for sure but it would be nice to see some double and triple checks before we see this on a Time Magazine cover.

Doesn't seem so bad to me.

[Jice Virago]

So you blocked all the Kyou flaming out of your mind already?

Seriously, the frustration with you (at least for me) does not stem from you being stupid, its you being intentionally obtuse when it befits your self centered agenda. Its a lot more irritating watching an intelligent person hang their dick in the punch bowl than watching an actual moron do the same thing. Hence, you irritate me way more than someone like, say Cartalas, could ever aspire to. Top it off with the fact that I can basically predict what you will say before you even respond, because I know how your personality operates (having constant exposure to people like you), and you might begin to grasp my severe aversion to you. You are the antithesis of every personal ethos I have. Its one thing to be hypocritical, its entirely another to embrace it and wear it like a crown.

[kyoukan]

I'm pretty sure he's just stupid.

Also a 179 IQ would be so completely off the scale you'd be able to move physical objects with the power of your intellect.The highest ever on record is 210 and that score is controversial.

He cannot even successfully lie about not being stupid.

[Winnow]

I'm pretty sure he's just stupid.

Also a 179 IQ would be so completely off the scale you'd be able to move physical objects with the power of your intellect.The highest ever on record is 210 and that score is controversial.

He cannot even successfully lie about not being stupid.

Jeeze you're an idiot. You can't even get a number right. Moron. No wonder you get all excited over a few numbers thrown around. If you can't get a number right from a few posts up, stay the fuck away from the science lab mister wizard!

[Zaelath]

I'm pretty sure he's just stupid.

Also a 179 IQ would be so completely off the scale you'd be able to move physical objects with the power of your intellect.The highest ever on record is 210 and that score is controversial.

He cannot even successfully lie about not being stupid.

We don't measure above 145 because it starts to get outside the bounds of reasonable extrapolation.

[Leonaerd]

Am I the only one who thinks Winnow was right to doubt the original, relativity-busting claims, prior to peer-review? Why so pissed, Kyou & Jice? I must have missed something in the dialogue.

[Wulfran]

Its OK, and in fact I think doubting claims without peer review should be encouraged to an extent, but outright dimissing them as impossibilities without the process being complete (either proving or debunking the claims) is just as bad. Couple in Winnows pretentious attitude... and hostility is a natural result.

[Lynks]

Where did he outright dismiss them?

It's a story to keep an eye on for sure but it would be nice to see some double and triple checks before we see this on a Time Magazine cover.

It's nice to get excited about things but one experiment, in one testing facility isn't going to cut it for me. Even Michio Kaku has doubts. If someone of his stature can have doubts, I sure as fuck can join him in waiting for confirmation.

The main point addressed is that it probably shouldn't be headline news yet. As some other physicists suggested, they could have went a different route with letting peers review their work before going all Hollywood.

All I see is him saying we should hold back and wait for confirmation from others before we throw a big fucking parade.

[Leonaerd]

[Winnow]

Quantum Trapping:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws6AAhTw7RA&hd=1

Cool science stuff! The video is incorrectly titled levitation but it's the only HD video I could find.

[masteen]

Continued testing with tighter statistical controls seems to confirm FTL neutrinos.

As always, testing will continue, but amazing stuff.

Also, some other eggheads seem to have found a clue why there is so much more matter than anti-matter: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/scienc ... t-15734668

[kyoukan]

cue winnow shitting all over the scientific peer review and then ejaculating all over some physics student somewhere with his half ass explanation "disproving" it.

[Winnow]

from that article:

It is necessary here to note that since distance from source to detector and time offsets necessary to determine the travel time of neutrinos have not been remeasured, the related systematics (estimated as well as -possibly- underestimated ones) are unchanged. The measurement therefore is only a "partial" confirmation of the earlier result: it is consistent with it, but could be just as wrong as the other.

looks conclusive! They haven't remeasure exactly what was brought into question.

[Winnow]

Ignoring the interviewer, this is an interesting video piece on some other research going on in CERN:

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2011 ... rticle.cnn

(CNN) -- Scientists say they have found hints of the existence of the Higgs boson, a never-before-seen subatomic particle long thought to be a fundamental building block of the universe.

In a highly anticipated press conference, researchers announced that two independent experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva have turned up signs of the so-called "God particle."

While the experiments haven't yet turned up enough data to confirm the Higgs boson's existence, experts say finding the elusive particle would rank as one of the top scientific achievements of the past 50 years.

What is the Higgs boson?

The Standard Model of particle physics lays out the basics of how elementary particles and forces interact in the universe. But the theory crucially fails to explain how particles actually get their mass.

Particles, or bits of matter, range in size and can be larger or smaller than atoms. Electrons, protons and neutrons, for instance, are the subatomic particles that make up an atom.

Scientists believe that the Higgs boson is the particle that gives all matter its mass.

Experts know that elementary particles like quarks and electrons are the foundation upon which all matter in the universe is built. They believe the elusive Higgs boson gives the particles mass and fills in one of the key holes in modern physics.
Higgs boson is the last missing piece of our current understanding of the most fundamental nature of the universe.
Physicist Martin Archer

How does the Higgs boson work?

The Higgs boson is part of a theory first proposed by physicist Peter Higgs and others in the 1960s to explain how particles obtain mass.

The theory proposes that a so-called Higgs energy field exists everywhere in the universe. As particles zoom around in this field, they interact with and attract Higgs bosons, which cluster around the particles in varying numbers.

Imagine the universe like a party. Relatively unknown guests at the party can pass quickly through the room unnoticed; more popular guests will attract groups of people (the Higgs bosons) who will then slow their movement through the room.

The speed of particles moving through the Higgs field works much in the same way. Certain particles will attract larger clusters of Higgs bosons -- and the more Higgs bosons a particle attracts, the greater its mass will be.

Why is finding the Higgs boson so important?

While finding the Higgs boson won't tell us everything we need to know about how the universe works, it will fill in a huge hole in the Standard Model that has existed for more than 50 years, according to experts.

"The Higgs boson is the last missing piece of our current understanding of the most fundamental nature of the universe," Martin Archer, a physicist at Imperial College in London, told CNN.

"Only now with the LHC [Large Hadron Collider] are we able to really tick that box off and say 'This is how the universe works, or at least we think it does'."

"It's not the be all and end all -- but in terms of what can we say practically about the world and how the world is, it actually tells us a lot."

Gordon Kane, director of the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics, added that finding evidence of the Higgs boson would be a "very wonderful success of science and of people for four centuries."

Why is the Higgs boson called the "God particle?"

The popular nickname for the elusive particle was created for the title of a book by Nobel Prize winning physicist Leon Lederman -- reportedly against his will, as Lederman has said he wanted to call it the "Goddamn Particle" because "nobody could find the thing."

"'God particle' is a nickname I don't really like," says Archer. "It's nothing to do with religion -- the only (theoretical) similarity is you're seeing something that's a field that's everywhere, in all spaces."

How are scientists searching for the Higgs boson?

For the past year scientists have searched for the Higgs boson by smashing protons together at high energy in the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.
If we don't see [Higgs], it means the universe is more complicated than we thought.
Physicist Martin Archer

Inside the LHC, which is located 328 feet underground in a 17-mile tunnel and is the most powerful particle accelerator ever built, high speed proton collisions generate a range of even smaller particles that scientists sift through in search of a signal in the data suggesting the existence of the Higgs boson.

"You're just hoping that somewhere in these collisions that you see something ... some sort of a statistical bump," says Archer.

Scientists: 'God particle' proof closer than ever

If Higgs bosons exist, they are elusive, popping up and then disappearing again quickly. It means, says Archer, that scientists at the LHC will only be able to observe their decaying remnants.

It has taken years for scientists to narrow down the range of mass in which they believed the Higgs boson could exist -- but during the past year a statistical bump suggests they're on the right track.

"Now they're starting to get a bump, the scientists should be able to get that result more and more," says Archer.

What if scientists don't find the Higgs boson?

The general consensus among physics academics is that the Higgs field and boson exists, according to Archer.

"It just makes sense within the framework that we've got everything set up in, given that everything else that we can describe and we can see seems to be described in this simple way," says Archer.

Nearly every scientist believes that the Large Hadron Collider will either prove or disprove the existence of the Higgs boson once and for all -- so if the LHC doesn't find it, it doesn't exist, experts say.

Martin Archer believes a failure to find the Higgs boson would be even more exciting than discovering the elusive particle.

"If we don't see it, it actually means that the universe at the most fundamental level is more complicated than we thought," says Archer, "and therefore maybe the way we've been attacking physics isn't right."

[Leonaerd]

loose cable, anyone?

what we know about modern physics just got tossed out the window, and in 50 nanoseconds the universe just got exponentially smaller. you don't think it should be news? even in the united states? it's the most important news since electricity was discovered. it might even be more important than that. when you think about it on a cosmic scale, all the rules are gone and it is a whole new game. in five centuries we could be laughing about how quaint modern theorists were just like we laugh about people who thought that the world was a giant plateau being carried on the back of a huge cosmic turtle.

[Winnow]

Best thread evah!

A Loose Cable Caused Those ‘Faster-Than-Light’ Particles

We know that Einstein always has the last laugh, but this is hilarious: the faster-than-light particles that could have wrecked his relativity theory are no more. It was a mistake in the test results caused by a loose cable.

Didn't anyone from the Genius Bar tell them about the first rule of tech support? Check your cables first! Oh, scientists!

Researchers at CERN have found out that a bad fiber-optics link between a GPS unit and a computer was causing the 60 nanosecond timing discrepancy that was driving everyone mad. Once they realized this, the cable was tightened and the difference was gone. Yes, the faster-than-light neutrinos are not real (at least, we haven't detected them if they exist) and the Universe can breathe once again and keep destroying galactic wonders.

Apparently, the 60 nanosecond difference comes from the time it took to the data to travel through the cable, which fully accounts for the unexplainable 60 nanosecond neutrino speedup.

So much for my neutrino time warping dino egg breakfast

[Spang]

I'm simply blown away.

[Wulfran]

Well, the excitement was fun while it lasted. It beat the fuck out of political bickering and the gloom and doom of most news.

Next time, hopefully they can calm down long enough to verify their findings before they rush to the media.

[Winnow]

This stuff is even cooler than faster than light neutrinos:

http://the-gadgeteer.com/2012/03/26/kee ... -neverwet/

Neverwet!

http://youtu.be/7is6r6zXFDc


I hope they hurry the fuck up with this as well:

The Miracle Drug That Could Kill All Cancers

http://gizmodo.com/5896683/the-miracle- ... ll-cancers

Even if it halted the growth and didn't cure it would rock.

[Siji]

I hope they hurry the fuck up with this as well:

The Miracle Drug That Could Kill All Cancers

http://www.burzynskimovie.com/

Wish granted. Unless of course you assume having a possible cancer cure in the 70's wasn't fast enough.

[Winnow]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 00030.html

Physicists working at the European Center for Nuclear Research in Switzerland concluded once and for all that neutrinos are definitely not faster than the speed of light, preserving Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity that was challenged by earlier experiments. --RedOrbit.com, June 11

Light beat back a challenge from neutrinos in Virginia, other battleground states and the rest of the universe, winning by 0.00000006 of a vote with 94% of the cosmos reporting.

"Today we have shown that life forms, be it on Earth or on Kepler 22b, want light, pure and simple, not a radical overturning of all we hold dear," a hoarse but elated light said to trillions of supporters, if you count the silicon-based ones. As chants of "Ein-stein! Ein-stein! Ein-stein!" rang out in the mild Southern evening and the frigid reaches of intergalactic space, light said the result showed that "most folks, whether three-eyed or two-, are hungry for illumination and cooperation, not partisan bickering and gridlock."

Neutrinos conceded shortly after the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, released its final statement on the matter, and on matter.

"We have just texted light to congratulate it on its hard-fought victory," neutrinos told a solemn crowd, which instantly erupted in boos. "No, no," said neutrinos, zipping back from an identical speech on the moon and holding up the closest thing to a hand. "No, no. That's not who we are. We are gracious in defeat. But this isn't over."

The battle in Virginia, as on Venus, was heavily influenced by outside money, with $6.5 million spent by pro-neutrino groups to unseat light, $5.8 million by pro-light groups to defend it, and 47 zillion valuons by other multicellular organisms to influence the outcome in either direction and, in some cases, in both, as quantum physicists tried to explain.

A withering barrage of television, print, Web and slightly creepy telepathic advertising sought to tie photons to President Barack Obama or neutrinos to anarchy. "Don't let light blind you to the facts," a deep male voice intoned in one, under footage of the headquarters of Solyndra LLC. "The fact is, its policies are bankrupt. It's time to say: Take me to your leader."

Neutrinos, while not Mormon or anything, are unusual, and some observers ascribed their defeat to fear of the unknown. "For a lot of people, you look at them [neutrinos] and their weak interactions, and your reflexive response is 'Yecch,' whether it's warranted or not," said Patricia Fallon, a professor of political science at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "You want to see some real mass in a candidate. I'm not saying it's right, but it's a factor."

The bitter race divided friends, neighbors and families. "Me and my sister had a standing date for beer and darts at the roadhouse every Thursday," said Jennifer Cherny, 48, an acupuncturist in Gainesville, Fla. "Not anymore. She started in with the neutrinos, I reacted like you'd expect, and now she's screening my calls. 'Heliocentric,' she called me."

[Winnow]

I'm on a space kick today. I posted this image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on another thread.



Just to boggle the mind, that's not a map of the galaxies we see in the sky. That's a patch of the sky that's one 24-millionth of the entire view from earth. 8,700 galaxies have been identified from this single small area. Take 24 million of these images and you have the entire view from earth.



Now take into consideration the view from Hubble before and after the manned mission to correct its optics.

Consider 8,700 galaxies, times 24 million (208,800,000,0000) and you have 208+ billion galaxies and multiply that by the estimated 100,000,000,000 average size of a galaxy and you have 2.088e+22 (that's a lot of stars) Estimates of the number of galaxies now range in the trillions but we cans actually SEE ourselves already potentially over 200 billion.

Also posted earlier, what just 40,000 galaxies look like in 3D:

http://youtu.be/08LBltePDZw?hd=1

(as one of the comments there suggests from a very rough estimate, you're moving at 1,262,304,000,000,000 times the speed of light in that video and that's just 40K galaxies. Evn at that speed, you couldn't cruise through all the galaxies in your lifetime.

That's just with what we can see, and we know that our government has much better optics:

http://www.space.com/16000-spy-satellit ... -nasa.html

The United States' spy satellite agency is giving NASA two spare space telescopes free of charge, each potentially more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA officials announced today (June 4).

The two spy satellite telescopes were originally built to fly space-based surveillance missions for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), but will be repurposed by NASA for astronomical research instead. Their donation to NASA was revealed in a surprise announcement.

We all know the incredible amount of money spent on black ops in the U.S. I'm at least glad our government didn't feel it necessary to hide it and gave (two) telescopes potentially better than Hubble to NASA. It just makes you wonder what else is out there.

The known universe keeps growing. There's no chance of Hubble taking 24 million deep field view images to complete a full picture of what we can see even for the moment. Without being able to see deeper into space, I always imagine, and can see no reason why the known universe could possibly be as insignificant as a single galaxy, or even star, in a field of just as many more self contained universes out there.

I don't see a purpose to life, our existence, beyond the curiosity to keep discovering and exploring. Natural instincts promote protection of our lives and those close to us, procreation, and extension of life, but really, taking into consideration time spans and the size of the universe, those things don't matter. Fundamentally, at its very core, the only reason to exist is to survive as a species and explore. When it comes down to it, you should enjoy the extremely short time you live, the even shorter prime of your life, and find some way to promote the advancement of our knowledge of the micro and macro universe, by either being a scientist, or supporting scientists.

Two more quotes from Carl Sagan:

Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.

What does it mean for a civilization to be a million years old? We have had radio telescopes and spaceships for a few decades; our technical civilisation is a few hundred years old ... an advanced civilization millions of years old is as much beyond us as we are beyond a bush baby or a macaque.

[Winnow]

Back in September, plans for a NASA-built warp drive were revealed, bringing with them the possibility of exploring parts of the universe previously deemed unreachable. In an extensive interview with io9, Harold White, the physicist behind the project, explains how "faster-than-light" travel might be possible. Instead of propelling the ship forward at faster-than-light speeds, the warp drive moves space time around the object. The catch? It'll need a whole heap of energy to move an actual spacecraft — more than is available with current technology. The potential for space travel is huge, though: we could reach Alpha Centauri, 4.4 light years away, in just two weeks. For now, White's team is only focused on small-scale research inside the lab, but we'll be keeping a close eye on its progress.

what we know about modern physics just got tossed out the window, the universe just got exponentially smaller. you don't think it should be news? even in the united states? it's the most important news since electricity was discovered. it might even be more important than that. when you think about it on a cosmic scale, all the rules are gone and it is a whole new game. in five centuries we could be laughing about how quaint modern theorists were just like we laugh about people who thought that the world was a giant plateau being carried on the back of a huge cosmic turtle.

Wake up people! our world is changing! I no longer want Dino Eggs for breakfast. I want Alpha Centauri stew!

[Asheran Mojomaster]

Back in September, plans for a NASA-built warp drive were revealed, bringing with them the possibility of exploring parts of the universe previously deemed unreachable. In an extensive interview with io9, Harold White, the physicist behind the project, explains how "faster-than-light" travel might be possible. Instead of propelling the ship forward at faster-than-light speeds, the warp drive moves space time around the object. The catch? It'll need a whole heap of energy to move an actual spacecraft — more than is available with current technology. The potential for space travel is huge, though: we could reach Alpha Centauri, 4.4 light years away, in just two weeks. For now, White's team is only focused on small-scale research inside the lab, but we'll be keeping a close eye on its progress.

what we know about modern physics just got tossed out the window, the universe just got exponentially smaller. you don't think it should be news? even in the united states? it's the most important news since electricity was discovered. it might even be more important than that. when you think about it on a cosmic scale, all the rules are gone and it is a whole new game. in five centuries we could be laughing about how quaint modern theorists were just like we laugh about people who thought that the world was a giant plateau being carried on the back of a huge cosmic turtle.

Wake up people! our world is changing! I no longer want Dino Eggs for breakfast. I want Alpha Centauri stew!

That has been known for years. The new revelation about it is that it will take less energy than previously thought, so we may eventually be able to achieve it. Previously they thought it would take an amount of energy similar to turning the entire planet of Jupiter into energy.

It is awesome how it would work though. It would not actually break the speed of light or cause any problems with current physics. In fact, the ship itself would not even move. It would warp space time, and space itself would move, carrying the ship with it.

[Siji]

It is awesome how it would work though. It would not actually break the speed of light or cause any problems with current physics. In fact, the ship itself would not even move. It would warp space time, and space itself would move, carrying the ship with it.

Since it would have been built by the lowest costing contractor submission, it'll just end up creating a black hole and swallowing the Earth. Do not try to bend the universe, that is impossible; instead realize there is no universe.

[Funkmasterr]

It is awesome how it would work though. It would not actually break the speed of light or cause any problems with current physics. In fact, the ship itself would not even move. It would warp space time, and space itself would move, carrying the ship with it.

Since it would have been built by the lowest costing contractor submission, it'll just end up creating a black hole and swallowing the Earth. Do not try to bend the universe, that is impossible; instead realize there is no universe.

A newer mini series to watch is The Elegant Universe. It's based on Brian Greene's book. It's 3-1 hour episodes, and is about string theory, which I am very interested in. It's just a real surface level intro to it, but its a good series. His books ho into way more detail, and I'd definitely recommend any of them.

[Winnow]

A newer mini series to watch is The Elegant Universe. It's based on Brian Greene's book. It's 3-1 hour episodes, and is about string theory, which I am very interested in. It's just a real surface level intro to it, but its a good series. His books ho into way more detail, and I'd definitely recommend any of them.

Ill check out the series.

Another decent book is, The Whole Shebang: A state of the Universe(s) by Timothy Ferris although it's getting a little dated as well. It's well written for non astrophysicist comprehension.

I have all of these books on my Nexus 7:

[Show]

* Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing - Adam Greenfield
* The World Without Us - Alan Weisman
* Wicked Plants - Amy Stewart
* How God Changes Your Brain - Andrew Newberg, M. D., Mark Robert Waldman
* The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard, Ariane Conrad
* The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle -Barbara Strauch
* Bad Science - Ben Goldacre
* Summer World: A Season of Bounty - Bernd Heinrich
* Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival - Bernd Heinrich
* A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
* Seeing Further: The Story of Science & the Royal Society - Bill Bryson
* The Most Human Human: What Talking With Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive - Brian Christian
* Wonders of the Universe - Brian Cox, Andrew Cohen
* Why Does E=mc2? - Brian Cox, Jeffrey Robert Forshaw
* The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos - Brian Greene
* The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene
* Total Recall - C. Gordon Bell, Jim Gemmell
* The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan
* Cosmos - Carl Sagan
* Pale Blue Dot - Carl Sagan
* A Planet of Viruses - Carl Zimmer
* Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn - Cathy N. Davidson
* The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Or, the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life - Charles Darwin
* Sun in a Bottle - Charles Seife
* Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence - Christian Parenti
* The Fallen Sky - Christopher Cokinos
* Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking - Christopher Hadnagy
* Moonshot: The Inside Story of Mankind's Greatest Adventure - Dan Parry
* The Discoverers - Daniel Joseph Boorstin
* Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love - Dava Sobel
* Longitude - Dava Sobel
* A More Perfect Heaven - Dava Sobel
* The Illustrated Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time - Dava Sobel, William J. H. Andrewes
* The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World - David Deutsch
* Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral - David Dobbs
* The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions - David Quammen
* Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature - David Quammen
* Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - David R. Montgomery
* I Am a Strange Loop - Douglas R. Hofstadter
* The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World - Edward Dolnick
* The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating - Elisabeth Tova Bailey
* Darwin Slept Here - Eric N. Simons
* Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages - Frances Gies, Joseph Gies
* The Pleasure Instinct: Why We Crave Adventure, Chocolate, Pheromones, and Music - Gene Wallenstein
* Why Aren't We Saving the Planet? - Geoffrey Beattie
* The Next Decade: What the World Will Look Like - George Friedman
* Gut Feelings - Gerd Gigerenzer
* A World Without Ice - H. N. Pollack
* Sweetness and Light: The Mysterious History of the Honeybee - Hattie Ellis
* The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes From a Climate-Changed Planet - Heidi Cullen
* Engineers of Dreams: Great Bridge Builders and the Spanning of America - Henry Petroski
* The Evolution of Useful Things - Henry Petroski
* The Battery - Henry Schlesinger
* Insectopedia - Hugh Raffles
* The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World - Iain McGilchrist
* Ecological Intelligence: Rediscovering Ourselves in Nature - Ian McCallum
* Extraterrestrial Civilizations - Isaac Asimov
* The Day the Universe Changed - James Burke
* Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman - James Gleick
* Chaos - James Gleick
* Eels: An Exploration, From New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World's Most Mysterious Fish - James Prosek
* No Bone Unturned: Inside the World of a Top Forensic Scientist and His Work on America's Most Notorious Crimes and Disasters - Jeff Benedict
* Why Evolution Is True - Jerry A. Coyne
* The Book of Nothing - John D. Barrow
* The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History - John M. Barry
* Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English - John McWhorter
* The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed - John Vaillant
* Breakthrough!: How the 10 Greatest Discoveries in Medicine Saved Millions and Changed * Our View of the World - Jon Queijo
* Proust Was a Neuroscientist - Jonah Lehrer
* How We Decide - Jonah Lehrer
* Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality - Jonathan Weiner
* Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks - Juliet Eilperin
* Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion Dollar Cyber Crime Underground - Kevin Poulsen
* The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future - Laurence C. Smith
* The Physics of Star Trek - Lawrence Maxwell Krauss
* Drunkard's Walk - Leonard Mlodinow
* Knocking on Heaven's Door - Lisa Randall
* Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality - Manjit Kumar
* The Animal Manifesto: Six Reasons for Expanding Our Compassion Footprint - Marc Bekoff
* The Day We Found the Universe - Marcia Bartusiak
* Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You: A Guide to the Universe - Marcus Chown
* The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number - Mario Livio
* Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig
* Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe - Mark Voit
* Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love, and Language From the Insect World - Marlene Zuk
* Windswept: The Story of Wind and Weather - Marq de Villiers
* Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void - Mary Roach
* The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature - Matt Ridley
* Complexity: A Guided Tour - Melanie Mitchell
* Absolutely Small - Michael D. Fayer
* Human - Michael S. Gazzaniga
* The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer
* Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives - Michael Specter
* Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 - Michio Kaku
* How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming - Mike Brown
* Riding Rockets - Mike Mullane
* The American Plague - Molly Caldwell Crosby
* Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries - Neil deGrasse Tyson
* Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze?: And 114 Other Questions - New Scientist
* Why Can't Elephants Jump? - New Scientist
* Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All - Paul A. Offit
* The Great Disruption: How the Climate Crisis Will Transform the Global Economy - Paul Gilding
* Collider - Paul Halpern
* The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea - Philip Hoare
* Death From the Skies! - Philip Tate Phd., Philip C. Plait
* Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson - Rachel Carson, Linda Lear
* Strange New Worlds - Ray Jayawardhana
* The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
* The Greatest Show on Earth - Richard Dawkins
* Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder - Richard Dawkins
* The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science - Richard Holmes
* The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life - Richard J. Herrnstein, Charles A. Murray
* The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality - Richard Panek
* Paranormality: Why We See What Isn't There - Richard Wiseman
* Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human - Richard Wrangham
* Everything Is Going to Kill Everybody: The Terrifyingly Real Ways the World Wants You Dead - Robert Brockway
* Alice in Quantumland: An Allegory of Quantum Physics - Robert Gilmore
* The Theory of Almost Everything: The Standard Model, the Unsung Triumph of Modern Physics - Robert Oerter
* Rats: A Year With New York's Most Unwanted Inhabitants - Robert Sullivan
* The Logic of Lying - Robert Trivers
* Anatomy of an Epidemic - Robert Whitaker
* What Einstein Told His Barber: More Scientific Answers to Everyday Questions - Robert Wolke
* The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values - Sam Harris
* The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World From the Periodic Table of the Elements - Sam Kean
* From Eternity to Here - Sean Carroll
* The Mind and the Brain - Sharon Begley, Jeffrey M. Schwartz
* Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease - Sharon Moalem, Jonathan Prince
* Curious Folks Ask: 162 Real Answers on Amazing Inventions, Fascinating Products, and Medical Mysteries - Sherry Seethaler
* Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other - Sherry Turkle
* How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter - Sherwin B. Nuland
* Shape of Inner Space - Shing-tung Yau, Steve Nadi
* The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer - Siddhartha Mukherjee
* The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty - Simon Baron-Cohen
* When Science Goes Wrong - Simon Levay
* Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 - Simon Winchester
* Illustrated Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe - Stephen Hawking
* A Briefer History of Time - Stephen Hawking
* A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking, Grover Gardner
* The Grand Design - Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow
* Darwin's Island: The Galapagos in the Garden of England - Steve Jones
* The Ghost Map: A Street, an Epidemic and the Two Men Who Battle to Save Victorian London - Steven Johnson
* Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization - Steven Solomon
* Honeybee Democracy - Thomas D. Seeley
* The Ego Tunnel - Thomas Metzinger
* Coming of Age in the Milky Way - Timothy Ferris
* Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us) - Tom Vanderbilt

Which you can get here:

http://www.rlslog.net/ultimate-science- ... ction-p2p/

It's a nice collection of science ebooks but I prefer audiobooks. It includes the Sagan and Brian Greene books.

[Funkmasterr]

Nice. Yeah I haven't had much time to read with school and work, but I'm about to finish up Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene, it's a great book. He does a good job of conveying the info to non astros, but he doesn't dumb it down to the point that you don't really learn anything. There are plenty of notes at the back of the book where he'll go into the concepts further, the math behind what he's talking about, etc. He uses a lot of Simpsons analogies.

[Jice Virago]

I really need to get back into reading books on hard science again. Of course, the last book I read about Schroedingers Wave Theorem melting my brain might have put me off on them for a while. Books on astrophysics are always a good bit of brain candy, but I like to get into the nuts and bolts of physics while reading on the astro phenomena. There just has not been anyone that has spoken to me as much as Asimov on the subject in a long while.

[masteen]

I prefer my astronomy books to have lots of pictures. My brain at it's best was nowhere near astrophysicist-level, and I've subjected it to all sorts of misuse since then.

[Funkmasterr]

I really need to get back into reading books on hard science again. Of course, the last book I read about Schroedingers Wave Theorem melting my brain might have put me off on them for a while. Books on astrophysics are always a good bit of brain candy, but I like to get into the nuts and bolts of physics while reading on the astro phenomena. There just has not been anyone that has spoken to me as much as Asimov on the subject in a long while.

Never read any of his stuff (Asimov), any suggestions?

[Jice Virago]

Basically anything non fiction from him is going to be a great read. He had a really good way of putting complex physics concepts and astronomical phenomena into easily digestible annecdotes. He also did it without any real diving into philisophical bullshit, which is where Hawking tends to lose me.

[Xatrei]

A newer mini series to watch is The Elegant Universe. It's based on Brian Greene's book. It's 3-1 hour episodes, and is about string theory, which I am very interested in. It's just a real surface level intro to it, but its a good series. His books ho into way more detail, and I'd definitely recommend any of them.

That was a NOVA production in 2003. NOVA did a 4 part sequel for Greene's followup, "The Fabric of the Cosmos" last year. It's not as good in my opinion, but worth checking out.

[Funkmasterr]

Well shit, I'll have to take a look. The book is great by the way (fotc).

[Winnow]

Scientists confirm existence of new, super-heavy element 'ununpentium'

Swedish scientists have confirmed the existence of a new super-heavy element, temporarily dubbed ununpentium for its position at the 115th spot on the periodic table. First proposed by Russian scientists back in 2004, the new element was created by a Swedish team from Lund University. They fired a beam of calcium, which has 20 protons, into a piece of americium, which has 95 protons. For an entire second, ununpentium burst into existence, composed of 115 protons.

As to why this is important, the Christian Science Monitor writes that "scientists hope that by creating heavier and heavier elements, they will find a theoretical 'island of stability,' an undiscovered region in the periodic table where stable super-heavy elements with as yet unimagined practical uses might exist."

ununpentium...temporary name but it's still almost as cool as unobtainium.

[Winnow]

Of the 100's of billions of galaxies, what we see is a little pin point of stars in our own galaxy in the night sky.

A really starry sky seems vast -- but all we're looking at is our very local neighborhood. On the very best nights, we can see up to about 2,500 stars (roughly one hundred-millionth of the stars in our galaxy), and almost all of them are less than 1,000 light years away from us (or 1 percent of the diameter of the Milky Way).

Very good article:

The Fermi Paradox

As many stars as there are in our galaxy (100 - 400 billion), there are roughly an equal number of galaxies in the observable universe -- so for every star in the colossal Milky Way, there's a whole galaxy out there. All together, that comes out to the typically quoted range of between 1022²² and 1024²⁴ total stars, which means that for every grain of sand on Earth, there are 10,000 stars out there.

The science world isn't in total agreement about what percentage of those stars are "sun-like" (similar in size, temperature, and luminosity) -- opinions typically range from 5 percent to 20 percent. Going with the most conservative side of that (5 percent), and the lower end for the number of total stars (1022²²), gives us 500 quintillion, or 500 billion billion sun-like stars.

It turns out that when it comes to the fate of humankind, this question is very important. Depending on where The Great Filter occurs, we're left with three possible realities: We're rare, we're first, or we're fucked.

It's a lengthy article but interesting.