I can't recall the name of the SF short story, but it had at its core the concept that Earth was passing thru regions of mysterious energies that could either suppress intellect or boost it. During one of these passages thru a "boosted" phase, one newly minted genius builds a rocket and flies out to scout ahead of Earth to find the boundary. He flies around until he feels stupider, then the autopilot reverses course and takes him back to where he was smarter. Thus he maps out what waits ahead for Earth.

The nagging part of this story is I forgot the ending, though I suspect it was that we were doomed to near-chimp-like intellect for some time to come if we stayed anchored to the planet and never left.

(Looks over at Q.A., arches eyebrow)


Anybody remember the title or author of this story?

Any Pie Left : Yes, I remember that as well. I think the cows got smart and didn't like being food.

http://www.amazon.com/Brain-Wave-Poul-Anderson/dp/0345218892/ref=cm_c r _pr_pb_t

I hate when I see a term like "domain wall" in a story, think "oh cool", then hit Wikipedia for more info only to be thumped in the head with a bunch of mathematical gobbledygook like "topological solitions" and "discrete symmetry"...

Any Pie Left: Anybody remember the title or author of this story?

No, but it reminds me of this.

Any Pie Left: I can't recall the name of the SF short story, but it had at its core the concept that Earth was passing thru regions of mysterious energies that could either suppress intellect or boost it. During one of these passages thru a "boosted" phase, one newly minted genius builds a rocket and flies out to scout ahead of Earth to find the boundary. He flies around until he feels stupider, then the autopilot reverses course and takes him back to where he was smarter. Thus he maps out what waits ahead for Earth.

The nagging part of this story is I forgot the ending, though I suspect it was that we were doomed to near-chimp-like intellect for some time to come if we stayed anchored to the planet and never left.

(Looks over at Q.A., arches eyebrow)


Anybody remember the title or author of this story?


I believe it was called "Brain wave", by Poul Anderson.

Could be wrong about the author, but I remember the story.

IIRC, the ending of Brain Wave had all the enhanced-intellect humans leaving Earth for good, with the brain-damaged and congenitally stupid staying behind to try and survive in a world with sentient animals.

ZAZ: it had at its core the concept that Earth was passing thru regions of mysterious energies that could either suppress intellect or boost it

Similar concepts, not the story you are looking for, in

The Cosmic Rape by Theodore Sturgeon
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

I'm getting a very Vinge vibe from this article as well.

Wenchmaster: Any Pie Left: I can't recall the name of the SF short story, but it had at its core the concept that Earth was passing thru regions of mysterious energies that could either suppress intellect or boost it. During one of these passages thru a "boosted" phase, one newly minted genius builds a rocket and flies out to scout ahead of Earth to find the boundary. He flies around until he feels stupider, then the autopilot reverses course and takes him back to where he was smarter. Thus he maps out what waits ahead for Earth.

The nagging part of this story is I forgot the ending, though I suspect it was that we were doomed to near-chimp-like intellect for some time to come if we stayed anchored to the planet and never left.

(Looks over at Q.A., arches eyebrow)


Anybody remember the title or author of this story?


I believe it was called "Brain wave", by Poul Anderson.

Could be wrong about the author, but I remember the story.

That's the one. It's old. I remember reading it in the late 1960s, and even then it had been around for a while.

Wenchmaster: IIRC, the ending of Brain Wave had all the enhanced-intellect humans leaving Earth for good, with the brain-damaged and congenitally stupid staying behind to try and survive in a world with sentient animals.

dbirchall: Let me know when we get out of Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, wouldja?

Everybody knows that people from the plural sectors shouldn't travel through hyperspace!

Any Pie Left: He flies around until he feels stupider,

I'm pretty sure that's what the Internet has done to me.

The cool SF story I remember was by Weis & Hickman. Different areas of space had different rules of physics. So at earth, you have electromagnetism and e=mc2, but if you flew a spaceship out Pluto way, you pass into a region where everything works by magic. The cool part was that the regions moved around, so you'd have whole worlds where the rules of reality suddenly change and half the populace doesn't need guns because they just figured out how to shoot fireballs from their eyes and lightning from their arse.

It was a great series, but too bad they tried to turn it into another tabletop RPG like Dragonlance. The whole thing got caught up in some kind of legal battle and the end of the series never got written.

How high do you have to get before you can become a theoretical physicist?

Vegan Meat Popsicle: I hate when I see a term like "domain wall" in a story, think "oh cool", then hit Wikipedia for more info only to be thumped in the head with a bunch of mathematical gobbledygook like "topological solitions" and "discrete symmetry"...

Any Pie Left: Anybody remember the title or author of this story?

No, but it reminds me of this.

Daaaayum.

punt

Any Pie Left: I can't recall the name of the SF short story, but it had at its core the concept that Earth was passing thru regions of mysterious energies that could either suppress intellect or boost it. During one of these passages thru a "boosted" phase, one newly minted genius builds a rocket and flies out to scout ahead of Earth to find the boundary. He flies around until he feels stupider, then the autopilot reverses course and takes him back to where he was smarter. Thus he maps out what waits ahead for Earth.

The nagging part of this story is I forgot the ending, though I suspect it was that we were doomed to near-chimp-like intellect for some time to come if we stayed anchored to the planet and never left.

(Looks over at Q.A., arches eyebrow)

Anybody remember the title or author of this story?

No, but I remember a short story where everyone one on earth suddenly starts having weird coincidences. Little weird things like someone mentions a certain name and 5 people call you with that name -- basically someone mentions something innocuous or something commonplace happens and bizarre coincidences start occurring relating to that one random event or word. Like the "plate of shrimp" story in Repo Man.

Scientists finally theorize that "coincidence" and chance are variable in different areas of the universe and the solar system must be entering one these "heightened coincidence" areas.

Can't remember the ending exactly, but it went something like this: The story ends with someone using a metaphor for "dead" in a sentence in a public speech to millions -- and half of them unexpectedly drop dead.

So thread jack,

I've been inquiring all my friends who America's greatest scientist is/was. All the greats I think about are European, Einstein, Oppenheimer, hawking, and then the really old ones like newton Kepler and so forth, but American?

Is it truly richard feynam, and because he like playing drums and going to strip clubs, we get Sagan and Neil Tyson degrassi instead?

Don't get me wrong I love those guys, but has any American matched feynam?

I need someone smarter than me and closer to the industry to answer that question, could it be dr Watson mapping the human genome, was he even American?

/???

In all seriousness, does anyone in cosmology really take this dark matter /dark energy crap seriously?

I mean, nobody knows what they are or what they're made of, nor can anyone prove their existence by experiment.

Isn't it all kind of luminiferous-aether-y?

JolobinSmokin: So thread jack,

I've been inquiring all my friends who America's greatest scientist is/was. All the greats I think about are European, Einstein, Oppenheimer, hawking, and then the really old ones like newton Kepler and so forth, but American?

Is it truly richard feynam, and because he like playing drums and going to strip clubs, we get Sagan and Neil Tyson degrassi instead?

Don't get me wrong I love those guys, but has any American matched feynam?

I need someone smarter than me and closer to the industry to answer that question, could it be dr Watson mapping the human genome, was he even American?

/???

Off the top of my head, there's Linus Pauling, though his later-years obsession with vitamin C seems a little cranky. There's Murray Gell-Mann, arguably a more important theoretical physicist than Feynman (I'm not qualified to actually make that argument one way or another). Ernest Lawrence. Andrew Wiles..nope, British. Donald Knuth? Edwin Hubble. The guy who invented the transistor...Shockley? Just a few names, I'm sure the power of Fark can find more nominees.

Suckmaster Burstingfoam: In all seriousness, does anyone in cosmology really take this dark matter /dark energy crap seriously?

I mean, nobody knows what they are or what they're made of, nor can anyone prove their existence by experiment.

Isn't it all kind of luminiferous-aether-y?

More like phlogiston, I think.

JolobinSmokin :

Bucky Fuller comes to mind.

Edison.

And Robert Goddard.

The Wrights approached flight as scientists would.

Suckmaster Burstingfoam: In all seriousness, does anyone in cosmology really take this dark matter /dark energy crap seriously?

I mean, nobody knows what they are or what they're made of, nor can anyone prove their existence by experiment.

Isn't it all kind of luminiferous-aether-y?

I read a LOT of layman-oriented stuff on cosmology. And I've got a pretty good nose for detecting bullshiat, and for reading between the lines. I'm beginning to get the impression that some of the people writing these books are throwing together string, baling wire, gum and duct tape in an effort to reduce the possibility of a First Cause to zero.

To avoid having to deal with the issue, they create invisible, omnipresent, and extremely powerful forces and entities that they really can't prove exist (gee, does THAT sound familiar?), except to say "Well, uh, those have to exist for the theory to work."

That, IMHO, is not good science.

Suckmaster Burstingfoam: In all seriousness, does anyone in cosmology really take this dark matter /dark energy crap seriously?

I mean, nobody knows what they are or what they're made of, nor can anyone prove their existence by experiment.

Isn't it all kind of luminiferous-aether-y?

Yeah, there are a few people who take these things seriously.

Any Pie Left: I can't recall the name of the SF short story, but it had at its core the concept that Earth was passing thru regions of mysterious energies that could either suppress intellect or boost it. During one of these passages thru a "boosted" phase, one newly minted genius builds a rocket and flies out to scout ahead of Earth to find the boundary. He flies around until he feels stupider, then the autopilot reverses course and takes him back to where he was smarter. Thus he maps out what waits ahead for Earth.

The nagging part of this story is I forgot the ending, though I suspect it was that we were doomed to near-chimp-like intellect for some time to come if we stayed anchored to the planet and never left.

(Looks over at Q.A., arches eyebrow)

Anybody remember the title or author of this story?

Flowers for Aphelion?

log_jammin: simplicimus: The problem is these mathematically derived concepts are not empirically verifiable (yet). That leads to a certain skepticism.

skepticism is great. The problem is, in this country too many people have this idea that Bob the sanitation guy's opinion on quantum mechanics is just as valid as the opinion of a scientist with a PhD in the field. That's how you get the type of "skepticism" where a guy who reads "a LOT of layman-oriented stuff on cosmology" comes to the conclusion that scientists just make stuff up in order to "avoid having to deal with the issue", whatever that means. It's that very mindset that gives us creationists and the people who let them get away with it.

As Deepak Chopra taught us, quantum mechanics means anything can happen at any time for no reason.

Just Another OC Homeless Guy: Suckmaster Burstingfoam: In all seriousness, does anyone in cosmology really take this dark matter /dark energy crap seriously?

I mean, nobody knows what they are or what they're made of, nor can anyone prove their existence by experiment.

Isn't it all kind of luminiferous-aether-y?

I read a LOT of layman-oriented stuff on cosmology. And I've got a pretty good nose for detecting bullshiat, and for reading between the lines. I'm beginning to get the impression that some of the people writing these books are throwing together string, baling wire, gum and duct tape in an effort to reduce the possibility of a First Cause to zero.

To avoid having to deal with the issue, they create invisible, omnipresent, and extremely powerful forces and entities that they really can't prove exist (gee, does THAT sound familiar?), except to say "Well, uh, those have to exist for the theory to work."

That, IMHO, is not good science.

Of course nobody anywhere is saying that invisible dark matter definitely exists, in fact there are several competing ideas. Dark matter just happens to be the one that fits best right now.

i.e. stfu and deal with it or come up with a theory on your own that explains the galaxy's rotational velocity.

log_jammin: The All-Powerful Atheismo: As Deepak Chopra taught us, quantum mechanics means anything can happen at any time for no reason.

exactly. that's why just now when you typed "Log_jammin you are my hero and you rock so hard!!!" it was displayed on my screen as "As Deepak Chopra taught us, quantum mechanics means anything can happen at any time for no reason."

damn you quantum mechanics!!!

Don't be fatuous, log_jammin.

Actually I think it's butterscotch pudding

dbirchall: Quite a lot of experiments have yielded results indicating that space is expanding, and (in more recent experiments) that the expansion is accelerating.

They're not experiments; better to call them measurements.  We measured the expansion of the universe and saw that it's diverging from our calculations based on theory.  If Dark Energy doesn't exist then the universe is violating Newton's First Law of Motion.  Anyone who thinks that is the case has a LOT of explaining to do.

A: "You got your theory in my observations!"
B: "No, you made your observations according to my theory!"

Jefferson Biatchmagnet: JolobinSmokin: So thread jack,

I've been inquiring all my friends who America's greatest scientist is/was. All the greats I think about are European, Einstein, Oppenheimer, hawking, and then the really old ones like newton Kepler and so forth, but American?

Is it truly richard feynam, and because he like playing drums and going to strip clubs, we get Sagan and Neil Tyson degrassi instead?

Don't get me wrong I love those guys, but has any American matched feynam?

I need someone smarter than me and closer to the industry to answer that question, could it be dr Watson mapping the human genome, was he even American?

/???

Off the top of my head, there's Linus Pauling, though his later-years obsession with vitamin C seems a little cranky. There's Murray Gell-Mann, arguably a more important theoretical physicist than Feynman (I'm not qualified to actually make that argument one way or another). Ernest Lawrence. Andrew Wiles..nope, British. Donald Knuth? Edwin Hubble. The guy who invented the transistor...Shockley? Just a few names, I'm sure the power of Fark can find more nominees.

Glenn Seaborg.
Robert Woodward, possibly the greatest organic chemist in the past 100 years. Directed the first (and, I think, only) total synthesis of vitamin B12.

Ivo Shandor: Suckmaster Burstingfoam: In all seriousness, does anyone in cosmology really take this dark matter /dark energy crap seriously?

I mean, nobody knows what they are or what they're made of, nor can anyone prove their existence by experiment.

Isn't it all kind of luminiferous-aether-y?

Yeah, there are a few people who take these things seriously.

[img545.imageshack.us image 640x355]

[img708.imageshack.us image 800x600]

[imgs.xkcd.com image 500x389]

Regarding galactic rotation, MOND is an alternate explanation that doesn't require a magical halo of indescribable dark matter pooped out of a cosmic unicorn's butt.

Regarding WMAP, it's very nice that it proved that the big bang happened, but doesn't prove an acceleration happening now that's caused by the indescribable dark energy being pooped out of another (or the same?) unicorn's butt.

log_jammin: Just Another OC Homeless Guy: I read a LOT of layman-oriented stuff on cosmology. And I've got a pretty good nose for detecting bullshiat, and for reading between the lines. I'm beginning to get the impression that some of the people writing these books are throwing together string, baling wire, gum and duct tape in an effort to reduce the possibility of a First Cause to zero.

To avoid having to deal with the issue, they create invisible, omnipresent, and extremely powerful forces and entities that they really can't prove exist (gee, does THAT sound familiar?), except to say "Well, uh, those have to exist for the theory to work."

That, IMHO, is not good science.


have you explored the possibility that instead of them making things up to avoid "the issue", that perhaps you just don't understand what they're talking about? because that would seem to be much more likely.

Actually, that has always been my first thought. I'm a layman in most of science, not to mention highly mathematical science like quantum physics, cosmology and string theory. But, OTOH, it is fairly easy to understand the concepts behind e=mc² and - after several years - Einstein's Special and General theories of relativity. OTOH, speaking of Einstein:


To which I would add the addendum "...or you're confusing yourself with your own bullshiat." As an example of a reasonably intelligent and educated human being, at some point, after reading 20 or so books on cosmology by various authors, I am inexorably drawn to the conclusion that much of it is based on a "house of cards" model.

This is actually similar to intellectual gyrations about religious belief. Can't remember the exact Dawkins quote right now, but it would be similar to a theologian answering criticism about religious belief by adding another layer of bullshiat to the model. for example:
Q: "You say God is all powerful, all knowing, and all good; why, therefore, is there evil in the world? How could a God with those attributes allow evil to exist?"
A: (Answer predicated on the religious hierarchy's continued need for donations) "Ahhhh.... ahhhhhh...... so Men could prove their devotion to God by suffering and by helping the Church struggle against evil."

IOW, a house of cards where higher and higher levels of bullshiat are based on initial flawed premises.

IOW, if some or all of the foundational elements of modern physics/cosmology are wrong (possibly going back to the rejection of aether with the Michelson-Morley experiment, and, later, the various lofty pronouncements of Neils Bohr) then progress using those foundations can only be accomplished by piling theoretical (and practically-speaking untestable) "fixes" onto the base.

Here's a concrete example: Link The book caught my eye in a library and I read it. While doing so I increasing came to the conclusion that Krauss was either confused or laying down a thick carpet of bullshiat. Only later, when thinking about buying the book on Amazon, did I read the negative reviews, particularly one by David Milliern (3rd down, and see blog Link near ) which confirmed my earlier opinion: Krauss seems to be frantically trying to erect ANY kind of alternative explanation other than God for the existence of the universe, and "hang the consequences". IOW, he has an agenda beyond actually finding out the truth.

That is NOT to say that the idea of God creating the universe isn't also wrong. It's just saying that Krauss's explanation does not satisfactorily explain it either.

Ivo Shandor: Suckmaster Burstingfoam: In all seriousness, does anyone in cosmology really take this dark matter /dark energy crap seriously?

I mean, nobody knows what they are or what they're made of, nor can anyone prove their existence by experiment.

Isn't it all kind of luminiferous-aether-y?

Yeah, there are a few people who take these things seriously.

Regarding that first picture, the graph of galactic rotation speed, it seems to me that you would need discreet "rings" (or circular waves or something) of dark matter concentric with the galaxy in order to keep the curve flat like that. Otherwise, if dark matter were more or less uniform, or at least following relatively the same distribution of matter as the visible stuff, you would just end up with the same curve as the predicted but it would be larger.

I need to read about this stuff more. And maybe make a spreadsheet graph or something. Thinking about it sure isn't helping me with the math. I'm thinking time-dilated gravitons due to the gravity flux between the center and the outer edges.

/Better use an inverse tachyon pulse.