Ultimate space simulation software

 
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midtskogen
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Re: Science and Astronomy News

03 Sep 2022 15:03

Is your software Sheep-proof?
It's been carefully tested against all the lunar sheep there are.  This is the software in question.  I have been working with the AV1 codec, having contributed both to the compression technology itself and to the software implementation in question.
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Watsisname
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Re: Science and Astronomy News

26 Oct 2022 01:10

More bad news for the idea of there being biosignature-levels of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus. More spectral lines were checked with very high precision, and a strong negative result was found.

Phosphine in the Venusian Atmosphere: A Strict Upper Limit from SOFIA GREAT Observations
 
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midtskogen
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Re: Science and Astronomy News

26 Oct 2022 07:07

If we can have uncertainty about biosignatures in the planets of our local solar system, how much can we then trust signs of biosignatures in exoplanets when that kind of data becomes available?
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Watsisname
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Re: Science and Astronomy News

26 Oct 2022 19:59

If we can have uncertainty about biosignatures in the planets of our local solar system, how much can we then trust signs of biosignatures in exoplanets when that kind of data becomes available?
Well, the original detection was very far from a sure thing, which was way too frequently glossed over or omitted entirely in popular media about it. It was the claimed detection of a single transition line, not a whole series of lines which would have been much more convincing. Multiple follow-up studies by other research teams re-analyzing the original data also disputed that the feature was real, but was rather an artifact of methods. The introduction of the paper here has a good review of the history behind it.

If and when we detect biosignatures in exoplanets, it's certainly possible a similar series of events could unfold. The public could be easily misled over sparse data, but the broad scientific community will not be convinced until the evidence is truly overwhelming. 

It's also possible our first detection does come with overwhelming confidence. That's what happened with the first LIGO detection. It was expected the first event would be something weak and requiring statistical analysis just to pull out of the noise. NOPE.  It was so strong it can be plainly seen in the raw waveform. :)
 
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apoastron
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Re: Science and Astronomy News

13 Nov 2022 23:54

there's another exomoon candidate! and this time around it isnt neptune-sized
https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.06210
Tell me, Dr. Freeman, if you can. You have destroyed so much. What is it, exactly, that you have created? Can you name even one thing? I thought not.
 
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midtskogen
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Re: Science and Astronomy News

16 Nov 2022 03:42

Artemis 1 finally on its way to the Moon!  And communication software that I've contributed to is on board. :)
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Mosfet
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Re: Science and Astronomy News

16 Nov 2022 06:13

Congratulations midtskogen!
"Time is illusion. Lunchtime doubly so". Douglas N. Adams
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midtskogen
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Re: Science and Astronomy News

17 Nov 2022 15:33

The software is on the iPad mentioned at 9:16 in Scott Manleys's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GmR5mfD2wE
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Re: Science and Astronomy News

03 Dec 2022 18:38

Sorry, I'm a little late to the party, but congrats Mid!  Your hard work has paid off!

I wanted to post this which was in the news today from a variety of sources.  Can we say this is a quantum scale confirmation for ER=EPR and for the Ads/CFT correspondence too?  Looks like exciting times are ahead as we can finally test for quantum gravity, and while there are still negative energy caveats, traversable wormholes are still a possibility in our universe (even though they are far beyond the energy requirements of what we're currently capable.)
This is a level of confirmation on the quantum computer level at least (and our universe is a giant cosmic quantum computer).

So these toy model wormholes will allow us to explore theories of quantum gravity and this does at least make traversable wormholes possible on the macro scale (but still with negative energy caveats-- read the articles for details.)

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/sc ... ntum-realm

https://ai.googleblog.com/2022/11/makin ... -with.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05424-3







 
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Re: Science and Astronomy News

08 Dec 2022 07:46

https://bigthink.com/hard-science/brain ... anglement/

Brain experiment suggests that consciousness relies on quantum entanglement

Maybe this is the real reason that the brain resembles the structure of the universe so much-- isn't the universe a giant cosmic quantum computer and in its early stages when it was tiny quantum processes forged its eventual structure?

https://nautil.us/the-strange-similarit ... ks-236709/
 
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Re: Science and Astronomy News

08 Dec 2022 14:00


Maybe this is the real reason that the brain resembles the structure of the universe so much-- isn't the universe a giant cosmic quantum computer and in its early stages when it was tiny quantum processes forged its eventual structure?
No. The cosmic web structure forms simply because of gravity. Simulate the gravitational collapse of a nearly uniform fluid within an expanding space and you will get a similar structure.

On the ER=EPR wormhole experiment, it seems to be an analogue for the dynamics, sort of like how experimentalists can study analogues of event horizons and Hawking radiation using analogue black holes in fluids in the lab. Certainly looks interesting so I'll be excited for the next few years of research and feedback from the rest of the academic community.

I deleted your duplicate posts from the videos thread. Please keep a topic to a single thread. Science/astronomy news works just fine.
 
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Re: Science and Astronomy News

10 Dec 2022 11:25


Maybe this is the real reason that the brain resembles the structure of the universe so much-- isn't the universe a giant cosmic quantum computer and in its early stages when it was tiny quantum processes forged its eventual structure?
No. The cosmic web structure forms simply because of gravity. Simulate the gravitational collapse of a nearly uniform fluid within an expanding space and you will get a similar structure.

On the ER=EPR wormhole experiment, it seems to be an analogue for the dynamics, sort of like how experimentalists can study analogues of event horizons and Hawking radiation using analogue black holes in fluids in the lab. Certainly looks interesting so I'll be excited for the next few years of research and feedback from the rest of the academic community.

I deleted your duplicate posts from the videos thread. Please keep a topic to a single thread. Science/astronomy news works just fine.
Thanks I didn't know where to put it, Wat.  The fact that it resembles brain structure, is that also because of gravity or is it a combination of both gravity and electromagnetic force, Wat? In the case of the brain I thought it was more EM since gravity would be negligible on that scale, but could it be a composite of both?  Since both decrease at the square of the distance could they both perhaps have a similar outcome (although the EM force can be both positively and negative charged.)

I was thinking of that too regarding the ER=EPR experiment, it's like a tabletop experiment of a black hole, which I believe has been conducted before.  Still needs negative energy density on the macro level to keep a stable transversable wormhole open like that on the macro level, though the requirements have slowly been coming down  with time.

This looks like it could be a great way to test out different theories of quantum gravity, so maybe we'll see more rapid developments in this area too?  This would be what I'd consider the fourth tier of reality.  In chronological order, we have the classical level, and then relativistic level, and then the quantum level and now perhaps the level of quantum gravity (or maybe the last two should be considered together?)
 
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Re: Science and Astronomy News

10 Dec 2022 22:11

 The fact that it resembles brain structure, is that also because of gravity or is it a combination of both gravity and electromagnetic force, Wat?
The similarity between appearance of the cosmic web and neurons in a brain is a coincidence. 

The cosmic web forms purely by gravity. Electromagnetic forces are negligible on that scale. This is because there are positive and negative electric charges, and the electromagnetic force is so strong that opposing charges met up very quickly after the Big Bang, so that on large scales the universe appears electrically neutral. Gravity on the other hand always attracts, but it is weak, so it takes more time for material to gravitationally clump together and form the web structure.

The shape of the structure also doesn't depend very much on whether the force obeys an inverse square law, cube law, linear, or whatever. That will affect how quickly it forms, but the shape will work out about the same. For a proof of this, refer to my post a while back on the boids algorithm. In the 3D simulation, you may notice how at first the boids form a structure which (briefly) looks a lot like the cosmic web. This similarity is not coincidence -- the structure in both cases forms because of mutual attraction of nearby particles. In the boids algorithm case, the attraction law was proportional to the distance (up to some cutoff where boids no longer sense each other), quite unlike the inverse square law of gravity.

Of course, the similarity breaks down after the boids are clumped together. Then the other two rules of the boid algorithm become important, and the structure behaves like moving flocks of birds.

 In the case of the brain I thought it was more EM since gravity would be negligible on that scale, but could it be a composite of both?
I would say neither. While the electromagnetic force is what forms bonds and interactions between the particles, it is not what governs the growth and shape of the structure. The neural structure of the brain forms the way it does for evolutionary/biological reasons, as it presumably optimizes the storage and transfer of information within brains. The instructions for creating it are carried in the DNA. There's probably a whole lot more that can be said about how that works, but I'm an astronomer and not a neuroscientist. :)
 
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Re: Science and Astronomy News

11 Dec 2022 05:42

 The fact that it resembles brain structure, is that also because of gravity or is it a combination of both gravity and electromagnetic force, Wat?
The similarity between appearance of the cosmic web and neurons in a brain is a coincidence. 

The cosmic web forms purely by gravity. Electromagnetic forces are negligible on that scale. This is because there are positive and negative electric charges, and the electromagnetic force is so strong that opposing charges met up very quickly after the Big Bang, so that on large scales the universe appears electrically neutral. Gravity on the other hand always attracts, but it is weak, so it takes more time for material to gravitationally clump together and form the web structure.

The shape of the structure also doesn't depend very much on whether the force obeys an inverse square law, cube law, linear, or whatever. That will affect how quickly it forms, but the shape will work out about the same. For a proof of this, refer to my post a while back on the boids algorithm. In the 3D simulation, you may notice how at first the boids form a structure which (briefly) looks a lot like the cosmic web. This similarity is not coincidence -- the structure in both cases forms because of mutual attraction of nearby particles. In the boids algorithm case, the attraction law was proportional to the distance (up to some cutoff where boids no longer sense each other), quite unlike the inverse square law of gravity.

Of course, the similarity breaks down after the boids are clumped together. Then the other two rules of the boid algorithm become important, and the structure behaves like moving flocks of birds.

 In the case of the brain I thought it was more EM since gravity would be negligible on that scale, but could it be a composite of both?
I would say neither. While the electromagnetic force is what forms bonds and interactions between the particles, it is not what governs the growth and shape of the structure. The neural structure of the brain forms the way it does for evolutionary/biological reasons, as it presumably optimizes the storage and transfer of information within brains. The instructions for creating it are carried in the DNA. There's probably a whole lot more that can be said about how that works, but I'm an astronomer and not a neuroscientist. :)
I loved looking at that Boids simulation, Wat.  It reminded me of a paper I read on Quanta about how nature follows universal laws and that is a good example of that.  We see examples of this (such as flocking birds) all around us.

I thought you would like to read that Nautilus paper because it was interdisciplinary research done by both an astronomer and a neuroscientist.  It's a long paper but well worth the read.


https://nautil.us/the-strange-similarit ... ks-236709/

This is newer, and I found this interesting because it backs up some of Roger Penrose's conjectures about consciousness originating on the quantum level.

https://bigthink.com/hard-science/brain ... anglement/

What you said about how the positive and negative neutralized each other after the big bang also explains why there isn't a sizable amount of antimatter in the universe, as they would mutually annihilate each other (but there are reasons why matter would be a little more common and that excess matter that wasn't annihilated is what formed our universe.)  I believe this was proven in how pions are produced slightly more commonly than their antiparticles inside particle colliders.
 
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Watsisname
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Re: Science and Astronomy News

12 Dec 2022 05:05

I thought you would like to read that Nautilus paper because it was interdisciplinary research done by both an astronomer and a neuroscientist.  It's a long paper but well worth the read.
I can't tell you how many people have been led to believe or at least wonder if the universe could be a conscious brain because of articles like these. It's exhausting. 

The article is written in such a way as to practically beg casual readers to reach that conclusion. It leaves aside the point that similarity in appearance doesn't mean equivalence in function, and that there is no information transference across the cosmic web in a manner that could lead to consciousness, as almost a sidenote near the end.

One of their figures shows something important. Many completely unrelated things have power spectrums that are similar to the cosmic web and brains. It's neat that the cosmic web and brain structure are similar, but it's not that surprising or mystical. 

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