|
Orion's Arm Universe Project
Orion's Arm (also called the Orion's Arm Universe Project, OAUP, or simply OA) is a multi-authored online hard science fiction world-building project, first established in 2000 by M. Alan Kazlev, Donna Malcolm Hirsekorn, Bernd Helfert and Anders Sandberg and further co-authored by many people since. Anyone can contribute articles, stories, artwork, or music to the website. A large mailing list exists, in which members debate aspects of the world they are creating, discussing additions, modifications, issues arising, and work to be done. A computer game and a tabletop role-playing game are being developed by the community, within the OA milieu. There is an ezine for Orion's Arm fiction, art, and commentary, called ''Voices: Future Tense'', add-ons for the Celestia program to displaying Orion's Arm planets, spacecraft and other objects, and additional transhumanist flavored SF illustrations. The first published Orion's Arm book, a collection of five novellas set within the O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anders Sandberg
Anders Sandberg (born 11 July 1972) is a Swedish researcher, futurist and transhumanist. He holds a PhD in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, and is a former senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. Work Sandberg's research centres on societal and ethical issues surrounding human enhancement and new technology, as well as on assessing the capabilities and underlying science of future technologies. His research includes work on cognitive enhancement (methods, impacts, and policy analysis) and technical roadmaps on whole brain emulation, neuroethics, and existential risks. He analysed how to take into account the subjective uncertainty in risk estimates of low-likelihood, high-consequence risk. Sandberg is known as a researcher, participant and commentator in the public debate on human enhancement, neuroscience, ethics, and future studies. He is co-founder of and writer for the think tank Eudoxa, and is a co- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmospheric pressure is a few thousandths of Earth's, atmospheric temperature ranges from and cosmic radiation is high. Mars retains some water, in the ground as well as thinly in the atmosphere, forming cirrus clouds, frost, larger polar regions of permafrost and ice caps (with seasonal snow), but no liquid surface water. Its surface gravity is roughly a third of Earth's or double that of the Moon. It is half as wide as Earth or twice the Moon, with a diameter of , and has a surface area the size of all the dry land of Earth. Fine dust is prevalent across the surface and the atmosphere, being picked up and spread at the low Martian gravity even by the weak wind of the tenuous atmosphere. The terrain of Mars roughly follows a north-south ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Q-ball
In theoretical physics, Q-ball is a type of non-topological soliton. A soliton is a localized field configuration that is stable—it cannot spread out and dissipate. In the case of a non-topological soliton, the stability is guaranteed by a conserved charge: the soliton has lower energy per unit charge than any other configuration (in physics, charge is often represented by the letter "Q", and the soliton is spherically symmetric, hence the name). Intuitive explanation A Q-ball arises in a theory of bosonic particles when there is an attraction between the particles. Loosely speaking, the Q-ball is a finite-sized "blob" containing a large number of particles. The blob is stable against fission into smaller blobs and against "evaporation" via emission of individual particles, because, due to the attractive interaction, the blob is the lowest-energy configuration of that number of particles. (This is analogous to the fact that nickel-62 is the most stable nucleus because it is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnetic Monopole
In particle physics, a magnetic monopole is a hypothetical particle that is an isolated magnet with only one magnetic pole (a north pole without a south pole or vice versa). A magnetic monopole would have a net north or south "magnetic charge". Modern interest in the concept stems from high-energy physics, particle theories, notably the grand unified theory, grand unified and superstring theory, superstring theories, which predict their existence. The known elementary particles that have electric charge are electric monopoles. Magnetism in bar magnets and electromagnets is not caused by magnetic monopoles, and indeed, there is no known experimental or observational evidence that magnetic monopoles exist. A magnetic monopole is not necessarily an elementary particle, and models for magnetic monopole production can include (but are not limited to) Spin (physics), spin-0 monopoles or spin-1 massive vector mesons. The term "magnetic monopole" only refers to the nature of the particle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exotic Matter
There are several proposed types of exotic matter: * Hypothetical particles and states of matter that have not yet been encountered, but whose properties would be within the realm of mainstream physics if found to exist. * Several particles whose existence has been experimentally confirmed that are conjectured to be exotic hadrons and within the Standard Model. * State of matter, States of matter that are not commonly encountered, such as Bose–Einstein condensates, fermionic condensates, nuclear matter, quantum spin liquid, string-net liquid, supercritical fluid, color-glass condensate, quark–gluon plasma, Rydberg matter, Rydberg polaron, photonic matter, Wigner crystal, Superfluidity, Superfluid and time crystal but whose properties are entirely within the realm of mainstream physics. * Forms of matter that are poorly understood, such as dark matter and mirror matter. * Ordinary matter that when placed under high pressure, may result in dramatic changes in its physical or c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Energy Condition
In relativistic classical field theories of gravitation, particularly general relativity, an energy condition is a generalization of the statement "the energy density of a region of space cannot be negative" in a relativistically phrased mathematical formulation. There are multiple possible alternative ways to express such a condition such that can be applied to the matter content of the theory. The hope is then that any reasonable matter theory will satisfy this condition or at least will preserve the condition if it is satisfied by the starting conditions. Energy conditions are not physical constraints , but are rather mathematically imposed boundary conditions that attempt to capture a belief that "energy should be positive". Many energy conditions are known to not correspond to physical reality—for example, the observable effects of dark energy are well known to violate the strong energy condition. In general relativity, energy conditions are often used (and required) in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Negative Mass
In theoretical physics, negative mass is a hypothetical type of exotic matter whose mass is of opposite sign to the mass of normal matter, e.g. −1 kg. Such matter would violate one or more energy conditions and exhibit strange properties such as the oppositely oriented acceleration for an applied force orientation. It is used in certain speculative hypothetical technologies such as time travel to the past and future, construction of traversable artificial wormholes, which may also allow for time travel, Krasnikov tubes, the Alcubierre drive, and potentially other types of faster-than-light warp drives. Currently, the closest known real representative of such exotic matter is a region of negative pressure density produced by the Casimir effect. In cosmology In December 2018, astrophysicist Jamie Farnes from the University of Oxford proposed a " dark fluid" theory, related, in part, to notions of gravitationally repulsive negative masses, presented earlier by Albert Ein ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physics
Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which relates to the order of nature, or, in other words, to the regular succession of events." It is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines. "Physics is one of the most fundamental of the sciences. Scientists of all disciplines use the ideas of physics, including chemists who study the structure of molecules, paleontologists who try to reconstruct how dinosaurs walked, and climatologists who study how human activities affect the atmosphere and oceans. Physics is also the foundation of all engineering and technology. No engineer could design a flat-screen TV, an interplanetary spacecraft, or even a better mousetrap without first understanding the basic laws of physics. (...) You will come to see physics as a towering achievement of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faster-than-light
Faster-than-light (superluminal or supercausal) travel and communication are the conjectural propagation of matter or information faster than the speed of light in vacuum (). The special theory of relativity implies that only particles with zero rest mass (i.e., photons) may travel ''at'' the speed of light, and that nothing may travel faster. Particles whose speed exceeds that of light ( tachyons) have been hypothesized, but their existence would violate causality and would imply time travel. The scientific consensus is that they do not exist. According to all observations and current scientific theories, matter travels at slower-than-light (subluminal) speed with respect to the locally distorted spacetime region. Speculative faster-than-light concepts include the Alcubierre drive, Krasnikov tubes, traversable wormholes, and quantum tunneling. Some of these proposals find loopholes around general relativity, such as by expanding or contracting space to make the object ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hard Science Fiction
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell's ''Islands of Space'' in the November issue of ''Astounding Science Fiction''. The complementary term ''soft science fiction'', formed by analogy to the popular distinction between the "hard" (natural science, natural) and "soft" (social science, social) sciences,) first appeared in the late 1970s. Though there are examples generally considered as Hard and soft science, "hard" science fiction such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation (book series), ''Foundation'' series, built on mathematical sociology, science fiction critic Gary Westfahl argues that while neither term is part of a rigorous Taxonomy (general), taxonomy, they are approximate ways of characterizing stories that reviewers and commentators have found useful. History Stories revolving around scientific and technical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gray Goo
Gray goo (also spelled as grey goo) is a hypothetical global catastrophic scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating machines consume all biomass (and perhaps also everything else) on Earth while building many more of themselves, a scenario that has been called '' ecophagy'' . The original idea assumed machines were designed to have this capability, while popularizations have assumed that machines might somehow gain this capability by accident. Self-replicating machines of the macroscopic variety were originally described by mathematician John von Neumann, and are sometimes referred to as von Neumann machines or clanking replicators. The term ''gray goo'' was coined by nanotechnology pioneer K. Eric Drexler in his 1986 book '' Engines of Creation''. In 2004, he stated "I wish I had never used the term 'gray goo'." ''Engines of Creation'' mentions "gray goo" as a thought experiment in two paragraphs and a note, while the popularized ide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Societal Collapse
Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse or systems collapse) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of social complexity as an Complex adaptive system, adaptive system, the downfall of government, and the rise of violence. Possible causes of a societal collapse include natural catastrophe, war, pandemic, pestilence, famine, economic collapse, population decline or overshoot (population), overshoot, mass migration, Competence (human resources), incompetent leaders, and sabotage by rival civilizations. A collapsed society may revert to a more primitive state, be absorbed into a stronger society, or completely disappear. Virtually all civilizations have suffered such a fate, regardless of their size or complexity. Most never recovered, such as the Western and Eastern Roman Empires, the Spanish conquest of the Maya, Maya civilization, and the History of Easter Island#Destruction of society and population, Easter Isl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
