Category Archives: Science
In the recent post Inevitable Math I explored the idea that mathematics was both universal and inevitable. The argument is that the foundations of mathematics are so woven into the fabric of reality (if not actually being the fabric of reality) that any intelligence must discover them.
Which is not to say they would think about or express their mathematics in ways immediately recognizable to us. There could be fundamental differences, not just in their notation, but in how they conceive of numbers.
To explore that a little, here are a couple of twists on numbers:
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7 Comments | tags: alien math, Frederik Pohl, Heechee, math origins, math theory, more math, prime numbers, real numbers, surreal number | posted in Math, Opinion, Sideband
Oh, no! Not math again!
Among those who try to imagine alien first contact, many believe that mathematics will be the basis of initial communication. This is based on the perceived universality and inevitability of mathematics. They see math as so fundamental any intelligence must not only discover it but must discover the same things we’ve discovered.
There is even a belief that math is more real than the physical universe, that it may be the actual basis of reality. The other end of that spectrum is a belief that mathematics is an invented game of symbol manipulation with no deep meaning.
So today: the idea that math is universal and inevitable.
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44 Comments | tags: alien math, cardinal numbers, cardinality, counting, counting numbers, first contact, Leopold Kronecker, math origins, math theory, mathematics, natural numbers, numbers, Philosophy of Math, rational numbers, real numbers, Theory of Mathematics | posted in Math, Opinion
Put on your arithmetic caps, dear readers. Also your math mittens, geometry galoshes and cosine coats. Today we’re venturing after numeric prey that lurks down among the lines and angles.
There’s no danger, at least not to life or limb, but I can’t promise some ideas won’t take root in your brain. There’s a very real danger of learning something when you venture into dark territory such as this. Even the strongest sometimes succumb, so hang on to your hats (and galoshes and mittens and coats and brains).
Today we’re going after vectors and scalars (and some other game)!
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16 Comments | tags: 2D, 3D, azimuth, coordinates, declination, dimensions, direction, elevation, location, scalars, speed, technology, vectors, velocity | posted in Math
There comes a time when words fail, and all you can do is stare in amazement. The Friday press conference from the New Horizons team had that effect on many of us. (I’m not the only one who wept with sheer joy.)
From behind, the Sun illuminates Pluto’s 100 mi layer of haze. Having an atmosphere kinda makes it seem like a planet to me.
They say pictures are worth thousands of words, so I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking (click on any image to go to the source)…
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2 Comments | tags: Carl Sagan, NASA, New Horizons, Pluto, Pluto is a planet, Pluto is amazing!, space, space exploration, Sputnik Planum, star-tar, tholins | posted in Science
Hot off the press! Check out Pluto’s first close up:
Those mountains are up to 11,000 feet high! And the surface looks to be roughly 100 million years old — extremely young compared to the four-and-a-half billion-year age of the solar system (and not a crater in sight!).
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17 Comments | tags: Charon, Clyde Tombaugh, Emily Lakdawalla, Mordor, NASA, New Horizons, Planetary Society, Pluto, Pluto is a planet, Pluto is amazing!, space, space exploration | posted in Science
Oh, my! I mentioned last time that the Minnesota Twins, after a surprisingly good month of May, cooled down big time in June. Fans held their breath wondering how far the team would fall from the height reached in May. Now, with June behind us and July well under way, we can start breathing normally again.
The Twins lost ground in June but remained above the .500 mark (by five games!) by month’s end. But July seems to have brought an end to the ice-cold bats. The Twins are 8-4 in July as we begin the All-Star break.
But more importantly: It’s Pluto Day!
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4 Comments | tags: Brian Dozier, Ceres, Charon, Clyde Tombaugh, Dawn mission, Glen Perkins, Minnesota Twins, MLB All-Star Game, NASA, New Horizons, Pluto, Pluto is a planet, Pluto is amazing!, space, space exploration, Twins 2015, Venetia Burney, Vesta, Win Twins | posted in Baseball, Science
This blog is nearly four years old (I started on July 4th, 2011). This post makes it exactly 500 posts here on Logos Con Carne. To commemorate it, I’m giving myself the 500 Odometer Award (which I built myself from various electrons I had laying around).
As part of the party, this post consists of miscellaneous odds and ends that have intrigued me lately. I’ll leave it to you to decide which are the odds and which are the ends.
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22 Comments | tags: All of Me, Comic Sans, George Winston, Jon Schmidt, light, light speed, Linus and Lucy, Minnesota Twins, Monty Python, NASA, SDO, skydiving, The Piano Guys, Tom Scott | posted in From My Collection, Life, Music, Science, The Interweb, Writing
We’re finally sliding into home plate in this series (it’s baseball season, so I get to use baseball metaphors now). After spending a lot of time looking into how Special Relativity works, we’re able to at last explore how it applies to the idea of faster-the-light travel.
Last time we saw that FTL radio seems hopeless — at least at communicating between frames of reference in motion with regard to each other. It’s possible there might be a loophole for FTL communication between matched frames. (If nothing else, it may be fertile background for some science fiction.)
Today we examine the idea of FTL motion — of “warp drive!”
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2 Comments | tags: ansible, Cougar Town, faster than light, FTL, light, light speed, light year, science fiction, Special Relativity, speed of light, warp drive | posted in Physics
Over the last five weeks I’ve tried to explain and explore Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity. We’ve seen that motion, velocity, simultaneity, length, and even time, are all relative to your frame of reference and that motion changes the perceptions of those things for observers outside your frame.
All along I’ve teased the idea that the things I’m showing you demonstrate how the dream of faster-than-light (FTL) travel is (almost certainly) impossible. Despite a lot of science fiction, there probably isn’t any warp drive in our futures.
Now it’s (finally) time to find out just exactly why that is.
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7 Comments | tags: ansible, causality, causality violation, Ender's Game, faster than light, frame of reference, FTL, light, light speed, light year, Orson Scott Card, science fiction, simultaneity, Special Relativity, speed of light, Ursula Le Guin | posted in Physics
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