Month: April 2015

The definition of the science fiction genre

Charlie Stross has an interesting post up on the distinction between science fiction and fantasy.  He looks at a question I haven't thought about in a while: Not too long ago, someone in the twittersphere asked, "Whatever happened to psi? It used to be all the rage in science fiction." The answer, essentially, was that … Continue reading The definition of the science fiction genre →

The problems with ensuring humanity’s survival with space colonies

Stephen Hawking, as he has done before, expresses a common sentiment, that we need to colonize space in order to survive. Humans should go and live in space within the next 1,000 years, or it will die out, Stephen Hawking has warned. "We must continue to go into space for the future of humanity," Mr … Continue reading The problems with ensuring humanity’s survival with space colonies →

G-HAT (Glimpsing Heat from Alien Technologies)

For those interested in the post about finding advanced civilizations in other galaxies by their heat emissions, Paul Gilster at Centauri Dreams has a write up about the study, including links to additional material as well as the actual paper. I found that this part clarified the seeming contradiction in the Science Daily article. The currently reported work … Continue reading G-HAT (Glimpsing Heat from Alien Technologies) →

Einstein, Schrodinger, and the reluctance to give up hard determinism

Ethan Siegel on his Starts With a Bang blog has an interesting review of Paul Halpern's new book on Einstein and Schrodinger, and their refusal to allow the implications of quantum physics to dissuade them from idea that the universe is strictly deterministic.  It's an interesting post and one that I recommend reading in full. … Continue reading Einstein, Schrodinger, and the reluctance to give up hard determinism →

Searching for advanced civilizations in other galaxies: 50 possible candidates found?

At first, this article seems like a bit of a downer: Search for advanced civilizations beyond Earth finds nothing obvious in 100,000 galaxies -- ScienceDaily. After searching 100,000 galaxies for signs of highly advanced life, a team of scientists has found no evidence of advanced civilizations there. The idea behind the research is that, if … Continue reading Searching for advanced civilizations in other galaxies: 50 possible candidates found? →

Dark energy may be less energetic than previously thought

This is interesting.  Astronomers discovered dark energy, the energy causing the rate of expansion rate of the universe to speed up, by looking at large numbers of Type 1a supernovae. Type 1a supernovae are white dwarfs (collapsed stars after their fusion has gone out) that explode.  What causes a previously stable white dwarf to explode? … Continue reading Dark energy may be less energetic than previously thought →

Greg Egan’s Amalgam is close to the most likely interstellar civilization

The other day, I did a post engaging in speculation on, assuming we don't discover a completely new physics, what I thought an interstellar civilization might look like.  In summary: Given special relativity, travel faster than the speed of light is impossible.  This has been verified by innumerable experiments, and nothing in nature has been observed to … Continue reading Greg Egan’s Amalgam is close to the most likely interstellar civilization →