Science!

[Colonel Flagg]

I had a friend in high school who applied to Berklee School of Music. It's a good school for jazz, so I understood back in the day.

[Colonel Flagg]

Don't worry about supermoon - we'll get another in a couple of years.

Saturday was a cloudy and rainy night in Philly.

[Kitsa]

Brendon Small went there, didn't he?

[Zhukov]

People need to stop defending Berklee. It sounds rubbish, and that's enough.

I saw the super moon, it was pretty cool.

[Esuohlim]

Originally Posted by Zhukov

People need to stop defending Berklee. It sounds rubbish, and that's enough.

I saw the super moon, it was pretty cool.

Supermoons are rubbish too. They happen all the time and the moon isn't THAT much bigger when it does. Catch the moon rising/setting on a particularly hazy summer day and then you'll see a big motherfucking moon.

[Zhukov]

Originally Posted by Esuohlim

Supermoons are rubbish too. They happen all the time and the moon isn't THAT much bigger when it does. Catch the moon rising/setting on a particularly hazy summer day and then you'll see a big motherfucking moon.

The moon is closer to us in the southern hemisphere though, so I can understand why you think that.

[kahljorn]

agreed, i already ruled out going to ucla and ucsd because they aren't prestigious enough to have a school with one name. Harvard, Princeton, Cambridge.. all one name. Berk Lee just doesn't make the cut.

[Fathom Zero]

San Diego Community College it is, then.

[kahljorn]

San Diego is two words

[Esuohlim]

HAVE YOU TRIED SUPERMOON UNIVERSITY. ONE WORD.

[kahljorn]

Originally Posted by Esuohlim

HAVE YOU TRIED SUPERMOON UNIVERSITY. ONE WORD.

i dont think my gpa is super enough

[Fathom Zero]

[Pub Lover]

I don't remember if this got mentioned already.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1837966/m...sics-invention

A dynamic Casimir effect engine?

[Fathom Zero]

Sweetness.

[Kitsa]

She sounds awesome.

[Esuohlim]

THIS SOUNDS LIKE VAGUE BULLSHIT TO ME, FRIENDS

[Kitsa]

CAPS

I want to see how far she can go with it, actually. Probably further than Egypt.

[Esuohlim]

The thing is I was under the impression that the Casimir effect as a catalyst for space travel was already theorized a long time ago. And I can't find an article about this from a website that is even close to scientifically credible.

Plus, phrases like "...where two very reflective very flat plates are held close together, and then moved slightly to interact with the quantum particle sea. It's horribly technical, but the end result..." raise some red flags. From an engineering standpoint there is basically nothing technical about two reflective flat plates.

NERD SHIT. Anyway, there's a big difference between theoretical physics and what we can engineer as human beings. Quantum physics is basically all on the subatomic scale, where all kinds of crazy shit happens and requires a whole new set of rules apart from classical mechanics.

So yeah, you can theorize all you want but linking quantum physics with real-life macro applications is pretty much a pipe dream since quantum effects on a macro scale are negligible.

But then there's that goddamn double-slit experiment.

IT'S SHIFTY IS ALL.

[Fathom Zero]

I'd like to see a proof of concept, anyway. Shame you don't have to do that to patent something.

[Sethomas]

So yeah, you can theorize all you want but linking quantum physics with real-life macro applications is pretty much a pipe dream since quantum effects on a macro scale are negligible.

...wut?

Have you never walked inside of a hospital's medical imaging station? Magnetic resonance imaging is all quantum effects (inducing higher electron energy states to produce photons); positron emission tomography is the product of matter-antimatter collisions; CT scans and X-rays depend on the photoelectric effect to convert EM radiation into an intelligible electric signal. Hell, the computers have to factor in quantum tunneling from the Schrödinger Equation (which is as quantum as it gets) as a source of energy bleed. LEDs are macro applications of quantum effects, as are fluourescent bulbs for that matter.

If you haven't been paying attention, most of the innovations of post-WWII technology have made considerate use of quantum physics. I am guessing that you were just limiting your considerations to the outlandishly bizarre realm of quantum effects that occur near the Planck level. Even there you have to give credit to Hawking Radiation for saving us from the evil scientists at the LHC who would otherwise turn the Earth into a black hole. In more practical terms, conventional computing is getting to the point where More's Law will reach its limit because of the aforementioned barrier tunneling that takes place at the 10^1-2 nm scale.

[Esuohlim]

Shit, gettin' Sethed is rough

I basically meant negligible with respect to kinematics in the macro world. I'm an engineer first, (shitty) physicist second. It just makes no sense to me that a "quantum particle sea" could be the driving mechanism behind propelling a space craft.

[Colonel Flagg]

Originally Posted by Esuohlim

I basically meant negligible with respect to kinematics in the macro world. I'm an engineer first, (shitty) physicist second. It just makes no sense to me that a "quantum particle sea" could be the driving mechanism behind propelling a space craft.

About a hundred years ago, my QM prof gave us a thought experiment to demonstrate the absurdity of certain quantum effects manifesting in the physical world. The concept of tunnelling was one such effect - he talked of taking one of the smaller students in the class and throwing him against a brick wall trillions upon trillions of times. If quantum mechanics applies to this situation, eventually, he said, the student will tunnel through the barrier.

He meant this as an allegorical description of one of the original arguments against the reality of quantum mechanics (skeptics shouting "How can this be?" at the top of their proverbial lungs) because, of course, students aren't electrons and only at the subatomic level can particles really behave like waves.

This whole propulsion thing makes me think of a similar story about something I believe was called the "gyromagnetic effect" that I heard about long ago. It turned out to be a perpetual motion machine.

[Fathom Zero]

I was going to post something like that, but I only eat lunch with physicists and engineers.

[Kitsa]

I liked that he spelled out PET and then used the shortened CT. He's a man who knows where corners can be cut.

[Fathom Zero]

Also, isn't gravity, even as weak a force as it is, stronger than this quantum propulsion business? The article talks about probes being tossed off course by the effects of the particles, but if that was what it was using to begin with, then I'd imagine it could be greatly affected by a number of conditions. You could account for the effects of gravity and such and plot a course through space in such a way that it could probably use the effects of gravity to propel itself, even, but there's no way something like this would be able to stand on its own two mediocre thrusting feet.

At least, to my astronomical knowledge.