Glad to see the idea of building underground arks mentioned. Usually people when talking about ensuring mankind's survival only talk about colonizing mars. But as explained in the video, it's not a solution to a nearby supernova or a GRB. And it's not as if an asteroid impact would completely destroy Earth or anything. It would make it worse a place to live, but it'd still be better than mars. Earth is not a basket that would be destroyed if someone drops it. There's nothing in space that could damage Earth as bad as a basket in the analogy. Ensuring the long term survival for mankind probably consists in building large emergency infrastructures on Earth. Bunkers, basically. In fact many have already been built during the cold war. Also things like the Seed Vault would be useful. Research into long term storage of food and energy would also help.
Seriously, Space Time and MagicScrumpy are the greatest things to ever happen to RU-vid. I've honestly learned so much from this channel, about General and Special Relativity, to Dark Energy and the expansion of the universe, to Quantum Mechanics. This channel is honestly one of my favorite channels and I always get really really excited when I see a new video (along with MagicScrumpy). Thank you so much.
Weirdly the pbs space time vids have lower volume than other videos on youtube, not sure if its just my computer but without changing the volume it feels like the audio here is dropped near 30% than other vids
its so people will listen more carefully. its educational not entertainment(kinda), so they dont need to keep our attention because we want the information.{i think}
How about instead of trying to make the universe more habitable for us, we make ourselves more survivable, through the use of genetic engineering or transhumanism?
because its easier to build a huge arc and put people inside, than to go to each one of those people and engineer them to survive in a plethora of environments.
That's why we need to develop an artificial intelligence that is comprised of microscopic robots (Replicators from Stargate SG1). This way we can live forever through our inventions.
the Fermi pardox can't be if that was the one we would still see micro organisms in space yet there is nothing, meteors from Mars should contain bacteria, nearby goldilocks zone planets should be sludge balls
my theory is that dark matter and dark energy are gravity-based stealth technology that hides all other sentient species. the idea is that any worthy civilisation would need to master gravity-manipulation technology without destroying itself before they can join the rest of advanced intergalactic civilisation. before that, even the smartest species are just treated as safari animals living in the wild and generally ignored.
Is it worth it? Our primate ancestors did what they needed to do to continue the species, not knowing that we'd get weak and hairless and glorify Cyrus and Bieber with our fragile technology. I think we owe it to the next of species to enable them to even exist, and let them make the decision for themselves what is worth doing for the survival of the entire species.
+Matt look into the civilizations types and tiers, many theorists explain how civilizations would die from a level 1 to 2. very interesting. oh if you were wondering, we are currently at around .75.
If that's your description of humanity, this isn't mine. We came a long way and if we had discarded humanity for its bad points in the past, we wouldn't be here today. Tomorrow is another deal and, and thankfully, there won't be anymore Bieber and Cyrus, maybe there will be other ones or we'll step out of those kind of things, like we stepped out of many things already. Or maybe the bad is only inherent to the good. Like there is no good without bad, maybe the good itself creates a bad by contrast, because nothing can be all the same and constant so contrast there will always be.
« Yeah, we did. Next week. » . Finally speaking in proper spacetime language, not bound by causality. Kudos for helping me feel better about my own achronism!
I love this channel, the soothing voice of the host, the incredibly relaxing backround music, the beautiful cosmo backround picture and the modern approach and presentations. Please consist these traits on every of your well made videos.
TRIBUTE TO NEAL STEPHENSON Neal Stephenson is one of the most important science fiction authors of our time, known for his grand scope, intricate plots, and deep exploration of complex ideas. His work has had a profound impact on popular culture, blending science fiction with other genres and featuring witty dialogue and clever observations. Stephenson's novels have won numerous awards and continue to be enjoyed by readers around the world. Notable works: Snow Crash Diamond Age Cryptonomicon The Baroque Cycle Seveneves Adaptations: Snow Crash (TV series) Cryptonomicon (video game) Stephenson is a true master of his craft, and his work is a testament to his visionary mind. *LOVE FROM INDIA*
As far as we know, we are the only life in the universe capable of knowledge retention and reason. Going by that unlikely assumption that this is true, us dying out would mean the universe loses its only vessels for self-reflection. For this reason alone we owe to the universe to not only survive, but to thrive, learning and evolve to continue providing a service that is as far as we know, is entirely unique unique. I will add though, that when you see fantastically shallow comments like "first thing is to actually make humanity worth saving", kinda makes me doubt everything I just said.
It is in the nature of consciousness, of intelligence to be capable of greatness and superficiality in equal parts. Nothing that is, in its own design, always good can ever be anything great. For we strange vessels, we thinking matter, we rise to greatness only because we have a choice not to. There will always be those whose minds falter, cold, closed-in, empty. But they are the product of a grand experiment of incredible variation and are to be seen as a byproduct, not the essence.
To assume that we are invaluable to the universe and are obligated to thrive is incredibly arrogant. As much as when europeans invaded the Americas and felt that they owe it the world to "civilize" the "savages". Also there are a lot of species on Earth alone that are capable of knowledge retention and reason, feelings too, or have you never had a dog ?
Velko Ivanov I don't know. What else in the universe is there to assign value? With invasions you have humans against other humans and the hypocrisy is obvious. But do dogs, or other species have 'values' like this? Is there anything else we know of that has the concept of 'invaluable'?
Sokar .....To me, that is, to my way of thinking, it's quite limited thinking to imagine that because we don't "KNOW" of other sentient life, that is, on other planets (or even gas clouds), that on unimaginatively countless orbs out there, that planet Earth just, for some strange reason, happens to have the only intelligent life.
Not a bad idea. But I think you are just an idiot. Let me guess you don't want a wall. You don't want it because it Donald Trump idea but if you political God Obama wanted it you would.have been all over it and supported. Pull you head out of your ass. A wall is a great idea.
What does it matter if our descendants aren't human? That's going to be the case anyway... our goal should be to preserve intelligent life in the universe.
Love the channel, two part question. 1. If we were to identify an impending supernova that is a GRB candidate, do we have a means to predict the orientation of the blast? 2. Are GRBs that are not oriented directly at us detectable? Perhaps through reflection or scattering effects?
Underground Moon Colony It solves several problems at once. Firstly, it protects against huge radiation bursts. Secondly, it moves humans off of Earth, safeguarding the species from biosphere-destroying events that might only affect Earth (volcanoes, evolution, asteroids). Underground moon colonies are naturally shielded from solar winds, which is a classic lunar colonization issue. Being underground can also solve structural issues that come with maintaining a pressurized atmosphere on the moon, and circumvents some of the materials cost of constantly building sealed structures on the moon when more colony space is needed. The moon is also the only extraterrestrial body we have already been to, so we as a species know we can get back there more easily than other bodies like Mars, Venus, or Jovian moons. That said, we still have all of the problems that normally come with living on another planet, including not having any atmosphere and decreased gravity.
In my opinion, it's simple: it doesn't matter how, just set up some interplanetary and/or deep underground colonies that are large enough and sufficiently equipped to survive indefinitely and equipped to, if not found colonies, at least interact with others. Going interplanetary isn't just a survival strategy, it's an inevitable future.
As far as our almost not even human ancestors go, think back to where our current species came from. Our ancestors were able to survive extinction events millions of years ago without any technology that comes even close to rivaling our own now. Sure, they weren't as catastrophic as a gamma burst or super nova, but they survived. It should be our duty to provide the same kind of hope for a future to our descendants that our ancestors gave to us, even if they didn't know it at the time.
We barely survived a supervolcano even a few thousands years ago, not a mass extinction. So you are saying "we survivde a fall from the second floor. This wasn't as catastrophic as a fall from a flying plane but we should be ok".
David Sbabo Reading comprehension isn't quite your forte. And yes, that's exactly the point of my comment: given your analogy if 1 guy in a million survives the human species does not go extinct.
Extinction proofing idea: re-invent our monetary/economic systems to produce efficient, stable, and healthy societies that actually have the energy and collective intelligence to progress technologically.
We've been trying to do that for about forty years with absolutely nothing to show for it. If we have to wait until every belly in the third world has been filled, and until every inner-city addict has been cured, then we are doomed.
Gustav Babic WTF are you talking about? We throw people in jail for using minuscule amounts of drugs and in doing so ruin them psychologically. Only country that has tried what i'm talking about is Portugal and the results are far less drug use and less prisoners.
Loved your approach to this issue. You covered some questions I haven't heard or thought of. Eventually, I think we'll send life on a one-way trip if for no other reason than we'll have done everything else. But if and when future generations visit will they be us anymore?
With the current lack of immediate threats, we should focus on more immediate problems for the time being. Once we've achieved wold peace, defeated disease and world hunger and got all of humanity living in a post-scarcity world, creating dozens of contingency plans for when life on earth experiences a really bad days at the office should be a piece of cake. We've made it so far, what's another hundred years or so?
Maybe you want to adjust your time frame, another hundred years or so won't be enough to begin to address the "immediate" threats you listed. Although I agree they are the most important issues to resolve in any long term plan for humanity.
We dont know how many time those problems will take to be solved, also trying to avoid our extincion is a pretty good way to solve some of the problems you listed above, example: we colonize mars, we have more terrain to inhabit, so we can balance population in both planets, more resources (and so less need for war) and also we can grow more food (so we can solve hunger).
I liked the idea of deep underground shelters to protect from a gamma ray burst. Mars seems like it would be a good candidate for that sort of idea, since it's much less geologically active than Earth and has near-Earth gravity, right? Alternately, we could probably arrange space arcs that are permanently out of the line of sight of any star threatening to go all gamma on us.
Life Before After Well that depends on how you look at it. If the human mind has a fault then we can expect that fault to influence the thinking of everyone and thus their views on pretty much everything. A simple issue could give rise to insanely complex results. I believe this is the case. One flaw in the human mind is tribal thinking, another confirmation bias. I certainly have not seen societies free from 'ancient religion' being particularly smarter than those with. (Putting aside the issue of not all religions 'looking forward to the apocalypse'.) Certainly this year has shown me a surprising number of atheists wanting a Trump presidency to cause mass chaos and thus ensure a faster revolution.
+Gareth Dean There are many caveats I didn't put because my point would need a long paragraph and would be obscured. Probably still is so I'll try to clarify... I didn't suggest there are societies today that are free from ancient religions and that are better. I think that if people were more scientifically literate and applied the scientific method where appropriate in their lives, then society would flourish at a much rapid pace. I'll probably need another caveat here... No, I am not suggesting a darwinian world either. Second, I was obviously talking about the main religions, the Abrahamic religions; the ones that are more troublesome... They look forward to the apocalypse. Third, please provide sources/survey for your claim that atheists are looking forward to the mass chaos a Trump presidency might cause. Your reading of youtube comments is not a reliable source. You are simply trying to draw similarities between religious and non-religious people to imply that neither is better, just to keep the status quo which completely misses the point.
tonee899 Given the recent occurrence of Trump's candidacy a peer reviewed source is unlikely to be available, it'd all be polls and online sources. (Though as a contrast I'd be interested in your sources for religious people 'looking forward to the apocalypse'.) My objection would be then that being religious doesn't change the way your mind works, fundamentally you're still human and still prone to the biases inherent in having a mind evolved as ours has. Scientific literacy has a surprisingly low impact on many things. For example while religious belief and politics both provide strong predictors of belief in evolution, scientific literacy (and educational achievement) tend to be weak or nonindicative. (See for example scholar.google.co.nz/scholar_url?url=citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.547.6811%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm14JtWtzEvw3NvPa7-YS6pZQk7aGQ&nossl=1&oi=scholarr ) In several issues being white and well educated *increases* your chances of disagreeing with scientific consensus. (These are typically 'left wing' issues such as GMOs or vaccines.) Indeed attempting to educate people on such issues often has no effect or simply entrenches their beliefs. (See for example here: pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/02/25/peds.2013-2365 ) Indeed the 'knowledge gap' theory has proven to be at best ineffective and often laughably bad at dealing with unscientific attitudes. ( www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23808985.1996.11678931 ) One can argue that this is a failure of critical thinking, that, if people were taught how to question ideas, given the 'scientific mindset' these obstacles could be overcome. But that moves us from the things people believe more to why they believe them. Especially given the role politics plays in people's beliefs I'd argue that religion is only a part and not a particularly special part of what affects our progress. We find extremism and unscientific thinking everywhere we look, from communist Russia and its Lamarckian genetics to eugenics to psychology's continuing dabblings in race and intelligence to the modern 'skeptic' movements backing conspiracies. In the end science is hard, you have to put aside natural human biases, which we often do very poorly. I am skeptical that something as amorphous and varied as religion is the be-all and end-all.
I've been watching this channel for the past few weeks - and I admit I don't understand most of it. However, I laughed at the causality joke. Then I sat back in my chair, and asked myself, "Did I just laugh at a causality joke?".... Love the channel!
Hey Space Time, I've got two possible solutions based on a theme of sustainability. A: From Within The development of an underground society which could live completely separated from the exterior. Sometimes the best protection from an external high speed projectile is armor. Good old fashioned mass. Sure we could create a space colony or colonize multiple planets. But I believe that one of the safest places would be tucked into the folds of the earth. We would need to develop a complete underground self sustainable system. A mining, collecting, converting, and building operation. Feeding your population would also become a challenge, but through use of farming and artificial light we may be able to grow our own produce. Fish farms in underground lakes. We could also farm bugs. Maintaining good health underground will be heavily dependent on vitamins and nutrition. B: From Without We create some asteroids of our own which orbit the earth and will descend on command after a catastrophe. We stash different types of launchable units. Designed to assist return life back to the earth or adjust certain imbalances that may be introduced into the atmosphere. Robots that create more robots that can complete certain tasks. Instead of each unit needing to be self sustaining you could also leave the main processor (you could have multiple for redundancy) for the robots in orbit so each device didn’t have to have it’s own AI unit. This would make it more readily available as we have not perfected AI. This partnered with an advance on biological 3d printing technology we can 3d print and re-populate the world. This could theoretically speed up the re-population of the earth by millions if not billions of years. This same tech could also be “snail mailed” to other star systems and be used to biologically 3d print whatever we wanted in another galaxy or on another planet. You wouldn’t have to ensure the safe transport of the actual organisms. You would just bring the ability to design them and do it there. Provided your printing materials can last that transport or give yourself a means of collecting those basic printing materials on arrival. What are your thoughts?
Bernard Weber wrote a book entitled 'The space butterfly' ('Le papillon des etoiles' - might not have been translated into English yet) in which humanity realises that it's too late to save our planet and decides to build a massive spaceship powered by light to go on a inter-generational exodus trying to find another Earth-like environment. The spaceship is big enough to contain flora generating oxygen for a large group of individuals selected on their likeliness to live peacefully as a community. After a few generations though, wars are being fought and the spaceship is left partly destroyed from the inside. The book itself is pretty weirdly written but the plot twist is amazing, I wonder if a movie is ever going to be made about it. That is to me the most conceivable outcome to a doom day scenario.Matt, I absolutely love your TV shirt btw.
Most people wouldn't be, even with a lottery system or something like that to give normal people a chance there would still be a large percentage of the population who would rather enjoy their last days rather than try to help some strangers survive.
+PBS Space Time : A little off topic but you hinted at explaining the real nature of energy in an earlier episode but never really got around doing it. You've already explained energy-matter transformation and wave-particle duality but does that really explain why there's energy in a system or what energy really is made up of. Hope to find some answers or explanatory source material from you. Keep making these great videos, thanks.
Build Colony Ships, Build Space Arks and build both underground and underwater arks, also build automated shielded cloning facilities to create new humans!
I had an idea earlier today. In the event of a large asteroid, if we had enough time to know its impending arrival and prepare for it, what if we put it in orbit around Earth? To be clear, it would be a very large and controlled orbit that we would have to make sure did not get out of control at any point, but this is beside the point. If we put a relatively small asteroid (under 500m-3km in diameter) in a stable orbit, we could then proceed to mine it and ship its internal components back to Earth for study and use. Economic crash of the Iridium/platinum markets asside, this would be a huge leap forward in our space-faring technology, and -more importantly- in the number of, and scope of, competitive companies seeing space as a way to make money. Thusly pushing more competition to get into space as a way to make money and, consequentially, making better technology for humans to survive in space, as well as perhaps space hotels, space ports, etc. This is all just my wild speculations, but it would be very interesting to see it come into play in the near future.
Hell yeah! Neal Stephenson is the shit! Just got done reading the Baroque Cycle and am currently rereading Diamond Age. Please Please Please write more books set in the Snow Crash/ Diamond age universe and get the Snow Crash movie or miniseries done, I and a lot of other people demand it!
if we build something to absorb that energy( gamma ray burst ) , then we can use it to travel in space or 'maybe' use it to create a worm hole. That would be awesome.This can help us to escape any kind of extinction.
These videos are always enjoyable. I like how he clearly explained the Copenhagen interpretation but didn't glorify it as some other people do. He knows the jury is still out on that. As for questions: we say we wouldn't know when we'd get hit by a supernova or GRB, but surely as our knowledge of astrophysics expands, perhaps we'll be able to predict, to some extent, based on observations prior to any catastrophic event, when a supernova or GRB will occur?
Much like the seed bank, I always thought there should be something like that, with living quarters, somewhere on the ocean floor. It would have some of the complications of space, but fewer issues like radiation. For that matter, it can be (pre-apocalypse) powered in the normal manner. Generators can be tested yearly or whatever, and everything can be upgraded by submarine as technologies improve over time.
I say we work our way up to interstellar space travel while setting up the other solutions we can achieve. If this is a good enough answer I'll trade my arc spot for a t-shirt. Earth prime for life!
Plan B from interstellar would be interesting (sending deployable life to a far away in space) however it will most likely have to be automated because the journey there would be too intense for our current protection for fleshy things (humans). That's my favourite currently feasible idea of continuing life, however there are many more; Virtualizing the world (human consciences included) and storing it on computer's underground, become a nomadic species roaming the galaxy like the quarians, or blasting life in all directions like a cell bursting from a virus invasion.
It would be awesome if we could discover interdimensional travel, and we could like 'phase' out a ship/base away from danger. Kinda like they did on Stargate.
The ideal solution to extinction-events? "If you don't push this button, this facility will assume there is no one left and reboot humanity automatically." At this point we understand biochemistry and nuclear technology well enough to know that you can make a cloning facility which can clone and raise humans without any input. The cloning bit isn't even that much beyond current technology (although the artificial womb may be). The hardest part is a computer which can raise human children. That's very ambitious and not something I'm entirely comfortable with. That said, it is far more practical to send a facility which can create any Earth creatures it needs--humans included--to the stars than it is to make something big enough to hold breeding populations. Unless we get a working FTL, this is how we will realistically colonize the stars.
Most people seem to assume that time is like a tree, with a linear past and present leading to uncertain possibility branches. I propose that the past is very much like roots with its own possibility branching.
Greg Egan's Diaspora is about this exact issue. Those that survived were the ones that had virtualized themselves, running as sentient software in virtual communities on hardened micro devices in earth orbit and also sent out of the solar system. Not exactly a 2-year plan, but with any luck will be a reality eventually.
Thanks, any time quality video, I am very sad that in Italy we don't have something like that ... not at least in this way. This arguments for me is VERY interesting...
Compguy321 Why return?? We could keep the ark up indefinitely and run a shuttle between it and Earth. The folks on the ark could benefit from advances in Terrestrial technology and people would have the freedom to come and go.
I just recently found this channel, but I love everything about it. This video was really well done, but I have a thought to add to the discussion. Underwater Arks. You talk about how water is a great source of shielding for radiation. I believe your mars videos even say 1 meter thick water could shield from solar wind issues on mars. How would a gamma ray burst be effected in the same way? Granted anything substantially close enough would vaporize the planet. If the planet did survive the original blast, being on the bottom of the ocean could be a severely beneficial setup. We would be shielded from the dangerous gas (and radiation) present at the surface as well as having multiple energy sources nearby. Geothermal alone could sustain all of our power needs, but we could farm water power in ocean currents and we would have easy access to some biofuels. We would clearly need some way to recycle oxygen, but that would be pretty easy to set up with some underwater gardens. This setup would also protect from all but a direct hit from an asteroid or volcano as well. Aside from interstellar travel, I think it's our best bet.
Idk if anyone has seen this but as child I remember watching Titan AE I think? I think that's a pretty solid idea to "ensure" the survival of our species. Basically store genetic material (from as many species as we want) in a cryogenic state in a spacecraft that would roam the universe and "activate" once it finds a planet with suitable conditions for life. Of course.. this isn't "saving" our society but rather giving our species a chance to flourish somewhere else, in a probably distant future.
What about keeping a reservoir of ozone for use in case GRB hit us and release it in the atmosphere instead of waiting 80-100 years for the ozone layer to be fully replenished naturally?
We can predict supernovae by a few hours. The neutrino pulse gets to earth first because everything else is trapped in the star until the shock wave surfaces. The Si buring phase is also really fast and gives a weaker neutrino pulse earlier.
Concerning the double slit experiment in regards to a single photon being fired at a time... At what distance do the slits have to be separated before the interference pattern is no longer produced?
