Recent content by Unclear Engineer

The point would be that even 1/2 c would be a game changer for travel to the nearest stars, compared to what we think is possible with the technology we have now. Especially for robotic probes, which would send data back at c. But, as you and they both said, just getting the math to work...

Bill, not saying that you should "buy" it, but "string theory" involves more than 3 physical dimensions. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory . "String theories require extra dimensions of spacetime for their mathematical consistency. In bosonic string theory, spacetime is...

You still seem to be missing my point. The actual merger of 2 SMBHs is not likely to be a long-term event. A quasar is probably NOT the actual merging event, but maybe the prelude to one, where 2 SMBHs are in close orbits BEFORE merging. That would fit the observation that there are a lot...

??? This article is about ORCs. I didn't mention quasars, I only said that MERGING supermassive black holes seem to be a likely candidate for the creation of ORCs. You FIRST said that quasars are caused by SMBH s feeding on lots of stuff, which is a likely situation during the merging of...

We see lots of quasars that are not in the middle of ORCs, so I doubt that rapid feeding SMBHs are the source of ORCs. But two SMBHs merging into one SMBH is a different situation. We think that must have happened many times because we don't know of any other way to build up billions of...

Bill, I don't think people feel acceleration unless there is something they feel that is not accelerating along with them. An astronaut orbiting the Earth is constantly accelerating towards the Earth, but feels stationary. Or, if you accelerate different parts at different rates, such as...

The thing that springs to my mind when I hear that ORCs are the "sometimes" result of merging galaxies is that maybe they come from the ones which have their central supermassive black holes merge. We predict that occasionally happens, but do we have models for the emissions when it does? I...

The rubber sheet analogy has the irony of trying to use our understanding of gravity pulling "downward" to try to explain how that doesn't really happen - that space "bends" instead. It was a poor, unrealistic choice to begin with, and trying to use it to explore the details of how things work...

Well, we really do NOT "know" it is particles - that IS speculation - until you can actually find particles that you can show cause the observed effects. As for "trusting the process", I do. THAT is why I am posting that others should not be stating as fact things which have not been proven...

In discussing redundancy, New Glenn is redundant to SpaceX rockets and ULA's Vulcan. These provide lots of options for sending things into orbit. They will all eventually probably be capable of being certified to launch crewed missions. Something like Dream Chaser would add to the...

I think that is where we will end-up, anyway.

We seem to have strayed into not just politics, but propaganda. Any successful sociological system needs to realistically deal with human nature. And both pure communism and pure capitalism founder on unrealistic "expectations" of human nature. People are not only "imperfect", we are also...

Strange that this article did not mention that Starliner will land on land, rather than "splash down" on a body of water. That is something the Russians have been doing all along, but is a first for the U.S. and has some advantages. But, it seems really sad that Boeing got a contract for 62%...

If there was nothing available to allow editors to jump to headline inducing conclusions, we wouldn't get a chance to read about it here.

I few thoughts that came to me as I read this article: 1. Any collision of a body large enough to take the Moon completely out of Earth orbit would also have a profound effect on the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, even without touching the Earth. In the sense of momentum transfer by...