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Feb 6, 2013

How can humans compete with singularity agents?

Posted by in categories: ethics, futurism, philosophy, robotics/AI, singularity

It appears now that intelligence of humans is largely superseeded by robots and artificial singularity agents. Education and technology have no chances to make us far more intelligent. The question is now what is our place in this new world where we are not the topmost intelligent kind of species.

Even if we develop new scientific and technological approaches, it is likely that machines will be far more efficient than us if these approaches are based on rationality.

IMO, in the next future, we will only be able to compete in irrational domains but I am not that sure that irrational domains cannot be also handled by machines.

Feb 1, 2013

“Olemach Theorem”

Posted by in category: physics

“Olemach-Theorem”: Angular-momentum Conservation implies a gravitational-redshift proportional Change of Length, Mass and Charge

Otto E. Rossler

Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Tubingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 8, 72076 Tubingen, Germany

Abstract

Continue reading “‘Olemach Theorem"” »

Jan 27, 2013

AIAA Rocky Mountain — Sentinel Program

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, business, defense, education, engineering, events, physics, space

For those in Colorado who are interested in attending a talk by John Troeltzsch, Sentinel Ball Program Manager, Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. please R.S.V.P Chris Zeller ([email protected]) by Tuesday, 26 February 2013 for badge access. US citizenship required.

6:00 pm Thursday, February 28th 2013
6:00 pm Social, 6:30 pm Program
Ball Aerospace Boulder Campus RA7 Conference Room
1600 Commerce St
Boulder, CO 80301

It will be good to see you there.

About the Talk:
The inner solar system is populated with a half million asteroids larger than the one that struck Tunguska and yet we’ve identified and mapped only about one percent of these asteroids to date.

Continue reading “AIAA Rocky Mountain — Sentinel Program” »

Jan 20, 2013

Activelink Power Loader Gives HAL Some Competition, but Who’s Going to Fukushima?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, defense, military, nuclear energy, robotics/AI


LEFT: Activelink Power Loader Light — RIGHT: The Latest HAL Suit

New Japanese Exoskeleton Pushing into HAL’s (potential) Marketshare
We of the robot/technology nerd demo are well aware of the non-ironically, ironically named HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) exoskeletal suit developed by Professor Yoshiyuki Sankai’s also totally not meta-ironically named Cyberdyne, Inc. Since its 2004 founding in Tsukuba City, just north of the Tokyo metro area, Cyberdyne has developed and iteratively refined the force-amplifying exoskeletal suit, and through the HAL FIT venture, they’ve also created a legs-only force resistance rehabilitation & training platform.

Joining HAL and a few similar projects here in Japan (notably Toyota’s & Honda’s) is Kansai based & Panasonic-owned Activelink’s new Power Loader Light (PLL). Activelink has developed various human force amplification systems since 2003, and this latest version of the Loader looks a lot less like its big brother the walking forklift, and a lot more like the bottom half & power pack of a HAL suit. Activelink intends to connect an upper body unit, and if successful, will become HAL’s only real competition here in Japan.
And for what?

Well, along with general human force amplification and/or rehab, this:

Continue reading “Activelink Power Loader Gives HAL Some Competition, but Who's Going to Fukushima?” »

Jan 18, 2013

A Revolution in Physics?

Posted by in category: physics

A Revolution in Physics and Cosmology

by Otto E. Rossler, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Tubingen, Germany

A deterministic 2-particle system interacting with a fixed third particle (the wall of a confining T-tube) shows two kinds of behavior never seen in a deterministic system before: Dissipative and antididissipative behavior in both directions of time (dependent on the sign of the force law). Dissipative behavior occurs in both directions of time when the system is started from non-selected far-from-equipartition initial conditions while the potential (giving rise to the force law) is Newtonian–repulsive. Antidissipative behavior occurs (in both directions of time) when the system is started from non-selected far-from-equipartition initial conditions while the potential is Newtonian–attractive.

“Entropic” behavior had not been demonstrated before in a deterministic system. Now, both “entropic” and “ectropic” behavior are described under deterministic-chaos conditions. The numerical simulations are due to Klaus Sonnleitner (2010) and, independently, Ramis Movassagh (2011) who also provided an analytical derivation.

Continue reading “A Revolution in Physics?” »

Jan 16, 2013

NASA AND EUROPEANS UNITING TO BUILD SPACESHIP!

Posted by in category: space

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-europeans-uniting-send-spaceship-moon-181659252.html

Jan 13, 2013

Water, Bombs, WE CAN GO NOW

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, biotech/medical, business, defense, economics, education, engineering, ethics, existential risks, military, nuclear energy, nuclear weapons, policy, space, transparency

I was recently accused on another blog of repeating a defeatist mantra.

My “mantra” has always been WE CAN GO NOW. The solutions are crystal clear to anyone who takes a survey of the available technology. What blinds people is their unwillingness to accept the cost of making it happen.
There is no cheap.

Paul Gilster comments on his blog Centauri Dreams, concerning Radiation, Alzheimer’s Disease and Fermi;

“Neurological damage from human missions to deep space — and the study goes no further than the relatively close Mars — would obviously affect our planning and create serious payload constraints given the need for what might have to be massive shielding.”

Continue reading “Water, Bombs, WE CAN GO NOW” »

Jan 5, 2013

Gravity Modification – What Is The Record?

Posted by in categories: business, defense, economics, education, lifeboat, particle physics, physics, policy, space, transparency

If, we as a community, are intending to accelerate the development of interstellar travel we have to glower at the record and ask ourselves some tough questions. First, what is the current record of the primary players? Second, why is everyone afraid to try something outside the status quo theories?

At the present time the primary players are associated with the DARPA funded 100-Year Starship Study, as Icarus Interstellar who is cross linked with The Tau Zero Foundation and Centauri Dreams is a team member of the 100YSS. I was surprised to find Jean-Luc Cambier on Tau Zero.

Gary Church recently put the final nail in the Icarus Interstellar‘s dreams to build a rocket ship for interstellar travel. In his post on Lifeboat, Cosmic Ray Gorilla Gary Church says “it is likely such a shield will massive over a thousand tons”. Was he suggesting that the new cost of an interstellar rocket ship is not 3.4x World GDP but 34x or 340x World GDP? Oops!

Let us look at the record. Richard Obousy of Icarus Interstellar and Eric Davis of Institute for Advanced Studies claimed that it was possible, using string theories to travel at not just c, the velocity of light but at 1E32c, or c multiplied by a 1 followed by 32 zeros. However, Lorentz-FitzGerald transformations show that anything with mass cannot travel faster than the velocity of light. Note that Lorentz-FitzGerald is an empirical observation which was incorporated into Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity.

Continue reading “Gravity Modification – What Is The Record?” »

Jan 5, 2013

Einstein Mining

Posted by in category: physics

Einstein Mining

Otto E. Rossler, Faculty of Science, University of Tubingen, Germany

The young Einstein was the most fertile scientific mind of history. He first saw the observer-private nature of simultaneity, a consequence of the global constancy of the speed of light c valid in Maxwell’s equation. He then spotted the twin miracle (“paradox”): that a returned twin clock is younger than its stay-put sibling. The transversal Doppler effect described in the same 1905 paper was equally new. At the end of this miraculous year stood the improved Weber law (E exactly equal m times c-square) destined to become tragically consequential when Lise Meitner would recall its strength 34 years into the future. Two years after the miraculous year, there followed Einstein’s biggest discovery in the present author’s mind: the gravitational clock slowdown near the bottom of a constantly accelerating rocketship compared to a twin clock in its tip. It implies a second twin paradox (spending time downstairs lets you stay younger in Alan Lightman’s phrase).

This bundle of subsequently observationally confirmed predicted effects is an eternal heritage. Maxwell’s advice: go back to the origin of an already discovered gold vein since it is there that others inevitably originate is still valid. This is the excuse for the new notion of “Einstein mining.”

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Jan 3, 2013

Explaining Space Travel

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, biological, defense, engineering, ethics, existential risks, finance, geopolitics, habitats, military, nuclear energy, nuclear weapons, space, transparency

I recently posted this on the only two other sites that will allow me to express my opinions;

I see the problem as one of self similarity; trying to go cheap being the downfall of all these schemes to work around human physiology.

When I first became interested in space travel several years ago I would comment on a couple blogs and find myself constantly arguing with private space proponents- and saying over and over again, “there is no cheap.” I was finally excommunicated from that bunch and banned from posting. They would start calling me an idiot and other insults and when I tried to return the favor the moderator would block my replies. The person who runs those two sites works for a firm promoting space tourism- go figure.

The problem is that while the aerospace industry made some money off the space program as an outgrowth of the military industrial complex, it soon became clear that spaceships are hard money- they have to work. The example of this is the outrage over the Apollo 1 fire and subsequent oversight of contractors- a practice which disappeared after Apollo and resulted in the Space Shuttle being such a poor design. A portion of the shuttle development money reportedly went under the table into the B-1 bomber program; how much we will never know. Swing wings are not easy to build which is why you do not see it anymore; cuts into profits.

Continue reading “Explaining Space Travel” »