No Moon, no life on Earth, suggests theory

NewScientist.com ^ | 18 March, 2004

[RightWhale]

John Rawls died recently, too. There are no philosophers left unless Terry Eagleton counts, which he does not IMHO since he is an art critic.

[Junior]

I always wondered if, on Star Trek, the people that came out of the transporter were really the "same" people that went in :^)

They weren't. The way the transporter is described, the information is recorded at the point of sending and the body is destroyed in the process. The remnant matter from the body is stored away for use in later transports. The "pattern" is transmitted and reformed at the destination. The guy who gets off the transporter dais looks like you and thinks he's you, but he ain't you. You were killed in the transport.

About 20 to 25 years ago I read a short story dealing with this. In the story, a transporter tech was responsible for destroying the bodies of people at the point of origin (these transporters only sent the information, they didn't destroy the body), but one day decided to revive the transportee after sending her information to the receiving station, so now there were two of her walking around.

[RightWhale]

Could the transporter send several copies to several destinations or several copies to the same destination?

[js1138]

Died, but his memes live on.

[js1138]

In one of the star treck movies, Scottie was preserved in a transporter memory loop for a number of years. Thank heavens for Quantum ECC memory.

One could reasonably argue that the transported person is the same if the particles forming the received image are properly entangled with those of the transported.

Small matter of engineering.

[Junior]

A Lord Valentine's Castle flashback...

[longshadow]

the Borg would be, as far as I know, the only ones who could potentially make socialism work ;)

And fully demonstrate it's "compassionate" side at the same time.......("bend over and be assimilated! You must subordinate yourself to the Collective!")

[longshadow]

but the old tube radios could be resuscitated forever by replacing worn out tubes.

And dried-out capacitors...... which at tricker than tubes when the originals were hand-rolled.

[RightWhale]

That's right, they were wet inside. Sometimes they exploded like firecrackers. Most amusing.

[js1138]

And "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever"

[longshadow]

That's right, they were wet inside.

I suppose that explains why they were dipped in wax.....

[js1138]

The wax gave them that extra something to burn.

Here's a fun link:

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/feb03/ncap.html

[RightWhale]

Musicians believe their amplifier circuit board components are filled with 'magic smoke', which once released to the air means the amp will no longer function.

[VadeRetro]

Theseus's ship is an unnecessarily complicated version of George Washington's axe. You hold up a traditional wooden-handled axe and announce: "This is George Washington's original axe that cut down the cherry tree! The very one! It's had twelve new handles and three new heads since then, of course."

[PatrickHenry]

It's had twelve new handles and three new heads since then, of course.

Yes. But now imagine that the axe in question has been in continuous service at Mt. Vernon for 225 years, and when not being used (or repaired) has always been kept hanging on the same pegs in the original barn.

[js1138]

Sorry, but every collector knows that alterations to the original, even for repair or refurbishing, lowers its value.

[orionblamblam]

> There is an absolute upper limit on the efficiency of reaction drives, though for the life of me I can't remember what it is.

For chemical rockets... we're essentially already there. 95% efficiency is common enough. That extra 5% ain't worth the effort. There are of course spiffier propulsion systems that chemical rockets (such as NTR, GCR, orion, antimatter, etc.), but chemical rockets have, for all intents and purposes, reached the limit of theior capabilities. They can be made cheaper and more reliable, of course.

[Virginia-American]

I have been watching creationists cite Pasteur for several years now, and it suddenly occurs to me that pre-scientific Christians must have believed in abiogenesis.

Yes, it was called spontaneous generation. According to the website, some guy named Redi (1668) should get the credit, not Pasteur. (I'd never heard of him, but a Google search called hin Galileo's patron)

But it does seem to cotradict Genesis. (Were rats created on day n, or yesterday in the garbage?) Thanks, js, it's an obvious observation that I'd never made.

[bondserv]

So many theories. It's hard to keep track of them all.

[bondserv]

So many theories. It's hard to keep track of them all.