Month: March 2012

Making Stargates

someone had some fun with this paper.

Enclose a few 1000 KG of matter within another thin shell of matter wherein we can change its mass from positive to negative. It would have to become sufficiently negative to null the positive mass of the initial mass of the shell and the matter it encloses. This would screen the gravitational influence of the matter in the rest of the universe on the matter within the thin shell.

Screen our electron from the gravitational potential due to the rest of the universe, the denominator would become of order unity and the exotic bare mass of the electron – 21 orders of magnitude larger than its normal mass and negative – would be exposed. Do this to a modest amount of normal stuff and you would have your Jupiter mass of exotic matter to make a traversable stargate – if the negative bare mass ADM model of elementary particles is a plausible representation of reality.

the crucial breakthrough is to reduce the mass-energy needed for a warp field from jupiter (10E27 kg) to voyager 1 mass-energy (10E3 kg).

Unscientific US

Mooney describes in detail how bad it is – that millions of our neighbors deem facts to be malleably ignorable. Though soundly refuted by scientific studies, angry parents continue to believe their children acquired autism through vaccinations: “Where do they get their ‘science’ from? From the Internet, celebrities, other frantic-angry parents, and a few non-mainstream researchers and doctors who continue to challenge the scientific consensus, all of which forms a self-reinforcing echo chamber of misinformation,” writes Mooney, noting that for every 5 hours of cable news, just 1 minute is devoted to science. In 2009, 15 year old US students ranked 17th out of 34 developed countries in science. A firm foundation in science is fundamental to modern citizenship as well as our ability to innovate and succeed in a global economy.

scientific illiteracy is a far bigger problem than the ups and downs of politics, or caring about which marginally different party is in power.

Park Slope is it’s own parody

oh look it is the soup nazi coop in park slope! (where else?)

Last night Park Slope Food Coop held its monthly members meeting. It’s difficult to pick a favorite here but “In europe I have been using the biodegradable, and they degrade so fast by the time you’re at checkout you don’t know where the bag is,” “‘but my collards won’t fit!’ — one of the actresses in the silent film PSA,” and “”My name is Robert Dow. No relation to Dow Chemical.” have to be contenders.