Post AplUNPlQXMGP4r9Zi4 by luigirenna@infosec.exchange
(DIR) More posts by luigirenna@infosec.exchange
(DIR) Post #ApkhtKi1yEawuf9gIq by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-04T22:28:23Z
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There is something in the universe that you and I could agree is "the weirdest thing in the universe"But, we have not looked at much of the universe. We have looked at a lot more of what is on Earth than anywhere else. Still, I think one could make a case that the "weirdest thing" (by Earthly notions) is probably *on* Earth... since we are talking about "weird" in reference to Earth. except-There is also an argument it can't possibly be on Earth. Statistically. A tough one.
(DIR) Post #Apki9L6SH1YqlgDC64 by RobotDiver@starlite.rodeo
2025-01-04T22:31:12Z
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@futurebird I'm going to speculate that the weirdest thing will likely be an organism of some sort, so most likely at least for several hundred years to come here on earth and likely below sea level.
(DIR) Post #ApkiD53ds7A4A8gDvE by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-04T22:31:57Z
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Weirdness is an uncanny-valley like concept. (But distinct from that concept) Just being totally different isn't "weird" it needs to subvert expectations. It needs to surprise, and confound expectations. This makes it more likely to be on Earth as it could simply be something happening on Earth that no one could have predicted. However, consider the balence of matter in the whole universe... IDK.
(DIR) Post #ApkiJbcLjCyQsm1e6q by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-04T22:33:08Z
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@RobotDiver Living things have a much higher chance of being weird. Though some non-living processes and phenomena are fairly weird. There's just more ways to be odd when it's alive.
(DIR) Post #ApkiPih4KewaZA9GaG by RobotDiver@starlite.rodeo
2025-01-04T22:34:12Z
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@futurebird True! I'm still desperately in love with Death Valley for it's weirdness.
(DIR) Post #ApkiZjbtmMnOIxVPF2 by snork303@toot.community
2025-01-04T22:35:59Z
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@futurebirdI believe that weird things on earth exist in relation to things we know and have experienced, and that out there in the universe there are things so beyond our knowledge and experience that they're our current definition of weird¹⁰⁰⁰.
(DIR) Post #ApkijM71zxpcK6egVs by glecharles@gardenstate.social
2025-01-04T22:37:44Z
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@futurebird I lean towards ON Earth, mainly because there's so much in the oceans we haven't seen (and plenty of weird we already have), while anything extraterrestrial is going to be weird by default. Unless it's more humans, which might arguably be the weirdest thing...?
(DIR) Post #Apkiq4UTujllhIpHou by LeoRJorge@mastodon.social
2025-01-04T22:38:53Z
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@futurebird going with this uncanny definition of weird, considering how weirdly similar but completely different to earth are some features of other bodies in the solar system (to make the point, think lakes of Titan), I think whenever we find life outside Earth, it will be extremely uncanny valley territory, as it's bound to be similar in the ways predicted by natural selection, but completely different at the same time
(DIR) Post #ApkirZtscSLRP0QNou by jadp@mastodon.social
2025-01-04T22:39:01Z
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@futurebird if science is about questioning, there may always be one more “that’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever encountered/heard-about”. Sometimes the surprise will be found on Earth, sometimes out there somewhere, and sometimes among the quantum explanations for things big and small we don’t really understand. I hope so.
(DIR) Post #ApkitxWbkpfVFgft5s by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-04T22:39:25Z
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@glecharles Going on a vast, and adventurous quest for "the weirdest thing in the universe" until Glenda shows up and says "but you've had it with you all along, Futurebird"
(DIR) Post #ApkivOUuxKCNCDZIJc by Neat_hot@beige.party
2025-01-04T22:39:30Z
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@futurebird Humans are pretty weird.
(DIR) Post #ApkjM9jpwGshEuJ8Oe by preferred@expressional.social
2025-01-04T22:44:46Z
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@futurebird @glecharles 💝
(DIR) Post #ApkjNzpnjROB6PyVWK by joelvanderwerf@mastodon.social
2025-01-04T22:45:06Z
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@futurebird "The weirdest thing in the universe is on Earth" (1) might be like "All ravens are black" in that statistical arguments get paradoxical."Hey look at this huge list of things we have observed outside of Earth that are not quite as weird as the weirdest thing you've seen on Earth." Is that evidence for (1)?Or does the knowledge that this list of things is proportionally vanishing (not to mention dimmed by distance) serve as evidence against (1)?Dunno.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_paradox
(DIR) Post #ApkjXmI6wO6nzhsfmS by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-04T22:46:48Z
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@vikxin I think that depends on if Earth isn't the weirdest thing... which it could be...
(DIR) Post #ApkkEb1wgRjTWPjkgq by SKleefeld@mastodon.social
2025-01-04T22:54:36Z
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@futurebird As you point out, statistically, it's not on Earth. Let it not be on Earth. Earth still has a "weirdest thing" -- it's just the "weirdest thing on Earth."
(DIR) Post #ApkkQ3hIROg9cGXniS by toni@zug.network
2025-01-04T22:56:39Z
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@futurebird I’m going to agree with what others have argued. A living organism has more potential to be perceived as “weird”, since we can compare it to ourselves. So it’s likely we’ll find it on Earth.But, it’s not about finding it but about it being the weirdest thing that exists, even if we can’t ever perceive it? In that sense I think extraterrestrial life will be weirder than what we can find on Earth. Europa is a good candidate where we might find something very weird in this century.
(DIR) Post #ApkktsnFXv5IUAYACW by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
2025-01-04T23:02:00Z
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@futurebird There is an important problem with this -- the sublime is weird. The version of the word sublime that I mean is the one used in aesthetics as in whether something is beautiful or sublime: sublime things are awesome and grand, mixing wonder with fear: mountains, storms etc. So many things in space are outside of human scale that your sense of the sublime would be triggered a lot.
(DIR) Post #Apkl0HPuuPJKalgdRw by simrob@social.wub.site
2025-01-04T23:03:10Z
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@futurebird this feels like asking if the smallest uninteresting number is less than a million - there’s really not such a thing as a smallest uninteresting number (because if there was that would be interesting)I don’t think I could agree with *myself* what the weirdest thing in the universe is, much less agree with you!Hell, I’m not even sure what a “thing” is if we’re examining weird things - someone mentioned Death Valley, but is that weirder than California, which contains it?
(DIR) Post #ApklsMZ3zDvAC6kmie by mcc@mastodon.social
2025-01-04T23:07:08Z
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@simrob @futurebird *quietly* You can resolve the vicious circle easily by applying Russel's system of types. For a sentence of type N you can only reference concepts of type n<N. So you cant say "an object is interesting if it is the smallest uninteresting number". You can only say "an object is 2-interesting if it is the smallest 1-interesting number". And 1-interesting and 2-interesting are unequal, so there is no paradox. Sorry, offtopic. Just we've had a solution to this issue for 116 years
(DIR) Post #ApklxoIQJBRbeNZGi0 by simrob@social.wub.site
2025-01-04T23:11:14Z
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@mcc @futurebird yes, *and* this formulation requires an absolutely precise definition of “interesting number” that (I claim) would make it clear the concept isn’t amenable to formalization in this way - and the same goes for “weird thing”
(DIR) Post #Apklxp7TFOHGChS2HA by mcc@mastodon.social
2025-01-04T23:12:33Z
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@simrob @futurebird i mean i think it works because you can frame the "type violation!" response in everyday human language by just saying "you're being difficult". so if you're trying to talk about a specific thing and someone applies to meta-reasoning to break the concept, you can say "you're being difficult" and you're right both in low-effort social-universe terms and also in high-effort mathematical formalism terms
(DIR) Post #Apklxpo0hEIyKdM0a8 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-04T23:13:58Z
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@mcc @simrob I just want to find out about some real real weird stuff. It's natural to try to imagine an upper limit.
(DIR) Post #ApkmWyvol4H2lqlVlw by IngaLovinde@embracing.space
2025-01-04T23:20:20Z
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@futurebird are Wang's Carpets weird, for example?
(DIR) Post #ApkmmHhRGFeRK4Kvc8 by simrob@social.wub.site
2025-01-04T23:20:23Z
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@mcc hmm, we’re totally derailing the thread so @futurebird let us know if you’ll like us to stop atting you, but I don’t know what you mean here and I’m curious. who is being difficult?Also fwiw, as a matter of philosophy I prefer the “not everything we say in English needs to be formalizeable in Agda” resolution to this particular paradox. Playing fuzzy terminology games is ok but you may win fuzzy paradox prizes, so beware trying to do logic to a fuzzy thing like “interesting” or “weird”
(DIR) Post #ApkmmIfLfVZcJsMlzk by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-04T23:23:06Z
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@simrob @mcc It's kind of part of the problem. It feels like a paradox in part because it's not precisely framed. This is one way of explaining the frustration ...
(DIR) Post #ApkmtO0SDAImuScKLA by simrob@social.wub.site
2025-01-04T23:24:21Z
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@futurebird my actual answer here when I’m not trying to be a pedant is that I don’t know, because if there’s other life in the universe it’s almost certain to be the weirdest thing from our perspective, and if there’s no other life then the weirdest thing is probably on earth
(DIR) Post #ApknShPe3E7NEUEr0y by IngaLovinde@embracing.space
2025-01-04T23:30:44Z
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@futurebird also do you mean observable universe or entire universe?AFAIK we don't really know if the universe is finite. And of it's not, then there might (should?) be some near-identical but different version of Earth, some Graham's number of light years away, or maybe even much closer. Now _that_ would be weird!
(DIR) Post #ApkncQkkqUIOSZkj8S by dgoldsmith@mastodon.social
2025-01-04T23:32:31Z
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@futurebird The universe is very, very, very, very, very, (inhales) very large. There are ~2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, with an estimated 10²⁵ planets orbiting stars and 10-10000 times more sunless planets. There are very likely more planets with (at least microbial) life than there are grains of sand on Earth (~10¹⁸). And the weirdest thing in the universe doesn't have to be alive.It's statistically hugely unlikely that the weirdest thing in the universe is on Earth.
(DIR) Post #ApknjyfHA3zTf6mxZQ by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-04T23:33:56Z
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@IngaLovinde I think it would need to be the observable universe, and to the extent that we could somehow "observe" the weird thing. Earth is really weird. So, my answer is if there are no other planets with life like Earth close enough that we could detect that life and verify that it's covered those planets then Earth is the weirdest thing. However if there are other planets with a thin film of life like action over their surface? Then it's probably NOT on Earth.
(DIR) Post #ApknljCfcKsIHxF9cG by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2025-01-04T23:34:10Z
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@futurebird "weird by Earth human standards" need not imply that the thing is on Earth. On the other hand it might be so far outside of a human frame of reference as to not elicit weirdness feelings.
(DIR) Post #ApkoW6rrxv6Z0Hd9U0 by catselbow@fosstodon.org
2025-01-04T23:42:34Z
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@futurebird @IngaLovinde Don't forget that sameness can be weird. For example, if we found another planet with humans just like us, in societies just like ours, that would be weird. And the more like us they were, the weirder it would be.
(DIR) Post #ApkohrA8BSHFljm11E by dynamic@hub.netzgemeinde.eu
2025-01-04T23:43:14Z
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@myrmepropagandist I get what others are noting about the weirdness of life, but even accounting for living things, I'm not sure that anything on Earth is weirder by Earth standards than black holes, which definitely don't exist on earth.
(DIR) Post #ApkpDXacUSRMKdGtyi by TerryHancock@realsocial.life
2025-01-04T23:50:26Z
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@futurebird I going with "not on Earth". There's a lot of really weird (and terrifying, if you were up close!) stuff out there.Even electron-degenerate matter, which is all over the place in white dwarf stars is pretty weird, conceptually.But if it actually pans out that consciousness really is emergent from quantum behavior in microtubules in the warm wet environment of animal brains? Then I'm going to pick that. So that'd be "on Earth".
(DIR) Post #Apkpu8aFL0NTEGPOYi by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-04T23:58:08Z
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@robhughes This feels like watching one of those guys doing three card monte on Broadway.
(DIR) Post #ApkrMR4yGVBiedpye8 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T00:14:28Z
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@robhughes Give me my quarter back!!
(DIR) Post #Apksz5gzoXIrZZcSFE by barrygoldman1@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T00:32:38Z
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@futurebird the universe is HUGE and surprises us at every turn.this is why i find the undue focus on search for life so disturbing. we earthlings think life (and human brain) must be the most wonderful, complex things in the universe.But i bet there is stuff out there that will make life seem like cardboard cuttouts!This is why i find NASA's allocation of space exploration resources to be dangerous.
(DIR) Post #ApktFKjdeal6rNbHfc by barrygoldman1@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T00:35:37Z
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@futurebird @IngaLovinde u are BIASED. wut makes u think life is the weirdest thing in the universe? IT IS HUGE. we will find things weirder than life.
(DIR) Post #Apktoy3BTLwUvgjaK0 by stevenaleach@sigmoid.social
2025-01-05T00:42:01Z
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@futurebird I feel like the answer depends on what we mean by "weird". I mean logically a black hole or neutron star should absolutely win, right? But in terms of human experience, deep sea life feels more weird.An exotic physical process or physical state just 'is' and doesn't differ from what we would think of as 'normal' in the same way that a 'strange' animal does. A black hole or galaxy can be awesome and amazing - an octopus will always be very cool and very, very weird.
(DIR) Post #ApkxAqQsm8itXKwUYy by EMR@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-01-05T01:19:27Z
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@futurebird Everything not on earth is weird to the earthling experience, but it's also so seemingly uniform that it's hard to gauge weirdness.For example, a bilaterally symmetrical animal evolving into a radially symmetrical animal is bafflingly weird, but it is just want Starfish have done.Same goes for insects evolving wings against all odds (every other arthropod gets one pair of limbs per segment and likes it), plate tectonics (only earth seems to get this.)
(DIR) Post #ApkxHA6CZL6GGiHVke by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T01:20:43Z
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@EMR Plate tectonics is kind a gross, like the whole planet is scabby and bubbling.
(DIR) Post #ApkyQayu5fteCdvim8 by SRLevine@neuromatch.social
2025-01-05T01:33:34Z
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@futurebird That fact we currently have a moon of the perfect size and distance to give solar eclipses where you can safely see the sun's corona is wild.
(DIR) Post #Apkyytz7wStwzHOQvQ by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-01-05T01:39:51Z
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@futurebird For me the weirdest thing might be what potentially could exist in neutron stars. Of course someone already mentioned black holes and they break a lot of our systems for understanding laws of physics completely, but neutron stars also do something really weird. They are so incredibly dense that even a spoonful of neutron star material would weigh more than one billion tons (900 billion kilograms.) In that incredible density and initial heat before it cools down another entirely different state of matter may actually occur beyond even plasma: "nuclear pasta."https://www.space.com/21722-nuclear-pasta-neutron-stars-matter.html
(DIR) Post #ApkzPmwcE6OWyE2Swq by Da_Gut@dice.camp
2025-01-05T01:41:30Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou @futurebird oooh, there was a book.... a long time ago (70's?) about life on a neutron star. And the humans that helped them. Lets see if I can find that title.
(DIR) Post #ApkzPnevZLq9Belr16 by Da_Gut@dice.camp
2025-01-05T01:44:24Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou @futurebird Not as old as I thought. The 1980s.Dragon's Egg."is a 1980 hard science fiction novel by American writer Robert L. Forward. In the story, Dragon's Egg is a neutron star with a surface gravity 67 billion times that of Earth, and inhabited by cheela, intelligent creatures the size of sesame seeds"From 1980
(DIR) Post #ApkzRIzMZWRgdy2zHU by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T01:45:01Z
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@Da_Gut @nazokiyoubinbou I loved that book!
(DIR) Post #ApkzVzjpZXvcO41ByK by Da_Gut@dice.camp
2025-01-05T01:45:50Z
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@futurebird @nazokiyoubinbou I enjoyed it as well. I might need to look it up again.
(DIR) Post #ApkzjdLHdWyGyv2XAG by pussreboots@sfba.social
2025-01-05T01:48:17Z
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@futurebird I think our frame of reference keeps us from fully understanding what could be the weirdness of what's not earth.
(DIR) Post #Apl17eks8TDOGd1lxI by sleet01@fosstodon.org
2025-01-05T02:03:34Z
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@futurebird I would argue that the"weirdest thing" in the universe exists elsewhere, because there is so _much_ elsewhere and we are still finding objectively weird new stuff in disciplines we consider mature and well-understood here on Earth.But I fear that we will not realize its weirdness because it will be so alien that we won't understand its true nature until long after whatever it is has been dismissed, or destroyed.
(DIR) Post #Apl2EBORnexVBWDMPY by Urban_Hermit@mstdn.social
2025-01-05T02:16:12Z
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@futurebird lots of interesting discussions, most of which are true within its own context.One idea I would add is that weird things are not very weird if they are also far away. Perhaps blending the idea of weird and creepy.Finding a slime mold on your kitchen sink is weirder than those blue anvil headed flat worms because the flat worms exist a continent away, halfway around the Earth.Weird aliens on a weird planet very, very far away are not very weird at all. Expected.
(DIR) Post #Apl3S5LfAgxERf6aQa by abetterjulie@wandering.shop
2025-01-05T02:29:49Z
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@futurebird I chose not on Earth because I have a frame of reference for everything here, no matter how weird.
(DIR) Post #Apl5tntDsMgCJZ9CcK by EverydayMoggie@sfba.social
2025-01-05T02:57:21Z
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I'm sure this will be seen as cheating, but I vote for "on Earth" because weird is a completely subjective construct that, as far as we know, exists only in human minds. And humans are (with an insignificant number of exceptions) all on Earth. Therefore all "weird" only exists on Earth.@futurebird
(DIR) Post #Apl66eusY8ZGFV3HLk by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T02:59:42Z
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@futurebird psychologically, the "weirdest" things are things which are nearly normal, but just far enough outside of normal to fall into the "uncanny valley".statistically, in a universe so vast, there must be another planet extremely similar to earth, but ... different enough to fall into that uncanny valley. And probably not nearby. and that's where star trek happens ... sort of.
(DIR) Post #Apl6ZewpVmT6kDnE12 by chris_hayes@fosstodon.org
2025-01-05T03:04:55Z
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@futurebird Blackholes are weird.
(DIR) Post #Apl8I8Ul7Io74zR1qi by australopithecus@mastodon.social
2025-01-05T03:24:02Z
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@futurebird Weirdness is a strictly phenomenological quality, existing only in the experience of it. As such something unknown is necessarily not weird. In that sense, the weirdest thing must be on Earth.On the other hand, no thing can remain the weirdest thing, because familiarity renders a thing less weird, and the distinction of being "the weirdest" would grant it a measure of fame and, as a consequence, of familiarity. Possibly, the weirdest thing is the next weird thing you encounter
(DIR) Post #Apl8RVRf9sYCrdSGBc by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T03:25:53Z
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@australopithecus To live? It is to chase that next pinnacle experience of the truly weird. And nothing can just *stay* weird forever, so the chase never ends.Every day I wake up hoping to be amazed, struck down by wonder and just a little horrified.
(DIR) Post #AplAuJxT95HHXnCR5E by econads@mendeddrum.org
2025-01-05T03:53:26Z
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@futurebird do we have to be able to find it, or do we hypothetically have access to the whole universe to check? If the former I would say on earth, since the chances of us reaching another planet are extremely remote given the distances involved. On the other hand if this is hypothetical, I would say the universe because it's so big as to be effectively infinite by our standards, with an implied infinity of possible weirdness.
(DIR) Post #AplFQjaDo78g6O2Md6 by v_claire@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T04:44:10Z
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@futurebird personally, I think stars, and the way stars happen, grow and change is weird, and all the hijinks they get up to are weird.
(DIR) Post #AplJ3za6YnOksLOTPk by lritter@mastodon.gamedev.place
2025-01-05T05:24:52Z
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@futurebird the weirdest thing on earth can only be found on bing video with safesearch off
(DIR) Post #AplJLOMxeV0Wg2XiEK by ShiitakeToast@beige.party
2025-01-05T05:28:00Z
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@futurebird I think for something to be truly weird to us it would need to be associated with an expectation then defy that. So like an animal with four times the normal number of eyes and double the legs: weird. Something we have no association with? I don’t know.
(DIR) Post #AplMSGB2oCi39uw2qG by jeffc@mastodon.online
2025-01-05T06:02:52Z
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@futurebird@australopithecus This reply made me realize that I'm not clear on the distinction between "weird" and "wondrous".Personally, the fact that \( e^{i\pi}=-1 \)(Euler's identity) is true remains high on my personal list, years after I learned it, despite the familiarity.I'm not sure where it falls in your poll, though.
(DIR) Post #AplOvKc7alA1E2afaa by amro@todon.nl
2025-01-05T06:30:30Z
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@futurebird Ouch! The bill for my mental recovery will be coming your way shortly. To much heavy thinking without a warning
(DIR) Post #AplUNPlQXMGP4r9Zi4 by luigirenna@infosec.exchange
2025-01-05T07:31:36Z
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@futurebird I have voted "on Earth" and my answer is because of the Laser, and the population inversion that generates it and the bizarre phenomenon of negative absolute temperature that comes with it - where you have something that approaches absolute zero from the other side, being actually super hot. I have been thinking about this since uni, and never found an example of this in nature as it is always consequence of human activity.
(DIR) Post #ApmP6BYdnTaXTw68Js by mcc@mastodon.social
2025-01-05T18:07:00Z
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@futurebird I've been thinking about this last night and I've decided that the weirdest thing in the universe is that the moon and the sun are the same size in the sky. This is incredibly freaky actually. For this to happen we had to roll a very specific combination of moon count, sun count, moon size, and time in the evolution of the earth-moon system (the moon is moving away from the earth)
(DIR) Post #ApmStmMe2WDTgfpJ56 by morachbeag@aus.social
2025-01-05T18:49:45Z
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@futurebird Ooo this is tough. I wanna say "humans" on account of the fact we walk around in jackets and pants and drive cars saying "Ah, isn't nature fascinating and strange and curious" but given the scale of a universe we haven't even seen yet, I think I'm working off a comparatively small sample size there.
(DIR) Post #ApmVOiZCPNyYnLZyIS by janisf@mstdn.social
2025-01-05T19:17:47Z
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@futurebird Earth itself may be the weirdest thing in the universe.
(DIR) Post #ApmYRUsM4Fbv42YX4q by efhastings@twit.social
2025-01-05T19:51:53Z
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@futurebird It might be appropriate to distinguish between weird (that is unsettling due to its near but not completely familiar, like the uncanny valley) and alien (that which is completely outside of experience and expectation). Weird would be in places on Earth or Earth-like. I can’t give an example of the truly alien, because it is outside my experience and imagination.
(DIR) Post #ApmYsyVa0Bsamr0P9U by WAHa_06x36@mastodon.social
2025-01-05T19:56:52Z
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@futurebird I think a good argument can be made that life is unfathomably unlikely to arise, and the anthropic principle holds and life arises nowhere else in the universe. Life is also a machine that creates ever increasing amounts of weirdness. But this argument, the weirdest thing has to be on Earth.
(DIR) Post #ApmhUKT87ELZFCBNK4 by mcc@mastodon.social
2025-01-05T18:07:52Z
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@futurebird If the fine structure constant is fine-tuned, we can appeal to anthropics (or multiverses even?) and say a particular fine structure constant was necessary for intelligent observers to arise and measure a fine structure constant. The moon and sun having similar arc sizes? Has to be a coincidence. BUT IT'S SUCH A WEIRD COINCIDENCE. Why would the only known self-reflecting intelligent species in the universe HAPPEN to pop up in the exact slice of time and space for Good Eclipses. Why!!
(DIR) Post #ApmhULerh5KOvsgGFk by mcc@mastodon.social
2025-01-05T18:23:19Z
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@futurebird On the way to this conclusion, I spent some time thinking about a slightly different question: Things that are "Interesting" rather than "Weird". Conclusions:The most interesting thing in the universe: Bacteria astronauts https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8867-earth-rocks-could-have-taken-life-to-titan/ (this is based on simulations and isn't proven to be true. but it's POSSIBLE, and this is enough)The most interesting idea: Braid matter http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.0037The most interesting manmade thing: LISA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Antenna
(DIR) Post #ApmhUQxTzIBvN4QhSy by mcc@mastodon.social
2025-01-05T18:25:38Z
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@futurebird Elaborating on "braid matter": There is a theory called "loop quantum gravity". It tries to make gravity quantum-physics-y (this is hard) by first developing a quantum theory of space. It works, but has a problem: It has no way to represent matter. So THIS theory suggests every piece of matter is a tiny persistent twist in spacetime. A bit of space got caught in a knot, and you can slide the knot along the "rope" but you can't untie it, unless it encounters another knot and rewinds.
(DIR) Post #ApmhUXuC9uikutwfoW by mcc@mastodon.social
2025-01-05T18:28:49Z
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@futurebird This is literally the most interesting thing I can imagine. Spacetime is empty and all the "things" are just patterns woven into the shape of spacetime itself.The theory is kinda primitive, very few people are working on it, and it is probably wrong, because it predicts an infinite number of particle generations, and our colliders have measured exactly three. So it can't be right.…Unless a future particle collider someday finds a fourth generation. Then things get *interesting*.
(DIR) Post #ApmjmdzSTRg8uSAH9U by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T21:56:51Z
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@mcc @futurebird I'm a little skeptical of panspermia; all those long journeys with too little water and too much hard radiation, only to end up in a totally different environment.That said, here on earth, the ancestors of both Cavimorph rodents and American primates rafted across the Atlantic from Africa to South America, probably sometime in the Eocene or earlier. Amphisbaenians also spread around the globe by rafting in the Paleocene or Eocene.
(DIR) Post #ApmjmejBjQG5CHYnQm by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T21:58:59Z
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@llewelly @mcc What if it was insulated by dry ice?
(DIR) Post #Apmk48cFrSo2ogeZ7Y by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T22:02:10Z
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@futurebird @mcc good question, I don't know. A related issue is that some organisms can live deep inside large rocks, so hypothetically, organisms could be protected in the interior of a sufficiently large rock. Which could also be important for atmospheric re-entry.
(DIR) Post #Apmm4iyes2BzUuXWOu by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T22:12:00Z
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@futurebird @mcc thing is ... panspermia is possible, but to me, oceanic rafting here on earth is way more interesting, because we know it did happen, and was probably quite important in the repopulation of land masses after the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous. I'd bet there are even groups of ants that spread by oceanic rafting. And to me that's fascinating.
(DIR) Post #Apmm4jXOmryvEenGYC by mcc@mastodon.social
2025-01-05T22:12:29Z
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@llewelly @futurebird Ants with boats :OAnts with boats :O :O :O
(DIR) Post #Apmm4kCsIf9tJICOCO by mcc@mastodon.social
2025-01-05T22:12:57Z
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@llewelly @futurebird Wait. Instead of taking a raft, couldn't an ant just crawl into a bird's feathers and hitch a ride somewhere?
(DIR) Post #Apmm4kuTgY2LUWbDA8 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T22:24:36Z
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@mcc @llewelly I don't know of any ants that do that...but I also don't know how one would find out if they did.
(DIR) Post #ApmmGbPioj9vVyrWlc by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T22:26:50Z
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@futurebird @mcc well, I don't know either, but there are people who study phoresis, maybe one of them can think up a way.
(DIR) Post #ApmmOREAZcguEtCAEa by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T22:28:15Z
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@mcc @llewelly A queen ant is found suspicious far from the home range of her species. "And how did you get over here again?""Oh I flew"*suspicion*Ants are really terrible at flying. It's very messy. They fly with all six legs splayed out because they just expect to crash at any moment. Their wings just flap desperately until a wind gust catches them. So I could see the birds being tempting. However. Birds love to eat fat queen ants. So... maybe not.
(DIR) Post #ApmqovA0J39mQ688Qq by kim@fedi.social
2025-01-05T23:15:26.476Z
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@mcc@mastodon.social @llewelly@sauropods.win @futurebird@sauropods.win I once cycled 30 miles with more than one earwig in my hair. Just saying.
(DIR) Post #ApmqowODjg7gETn0EK by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T23:17:48Z
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@kim @llewelly @mcc They can fly too. (yes, they do have wings, and they are folded up in the most amazing way, look up "earwig wing folding" it will blow your MIND) But they are also very bad at it (and lazy) so this isn't shocking.
(DIR) Post #ApmqvAHV046J3Pc5LM by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-05T23:18:59Z
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@kim @llewelly @mcc Being an insect must be like sometimes the block you live on just... gets up and starts lumbering off to some new location and you just have to roll with it.
(DIR) Post #App0BD6LZQNqKz2iAa by AbyssalRook@mstdn.social
2025-01-07T00:12:04Z
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@futurebird For me it's not so much that it's STATISTICALLY not likely to be on Earth, but more that there are places in the universe (supermassive black holes, mostly) where space and time themselves literally shift and cause and effect get fuzzy.I'd argue something that happens around there is the closest we can get to objectively weird, on a universal level.
(DIR) Post #AppDZZydTBVrdgO0HY by johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz
2025-01-07T02:39:02Z
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@mattmcirvin @edsoldat @mcc @yala @futurebird -With luck LISA will tell us far more about the universe than Gravity Probe B ever could because it's not a mere test of general relativity (which keeps passing every test), but an *observatory* that may let us look much farther back in time than we've ever seen before!
(DIR) Post #ApquYIyrfNhFp75lfk by xilebo@norden.social
2025-01-07T22:18:29Z
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@futurebirdAs you said, "weird" is similar to the uncanny valley, in that it's based on your personal knowledge and experience.When I first saw an angler fish, it was the weirdest thing, I had ever seen. But by now, I've seen so many pictures of them, that they seem quite normal.That means,1. the "weirdest thing" is not the same thing for everyone.2. we always find the weirdest thing at the border of our exploration. Today this is probably the deep sea. But someday it will be in space.