Comments on: Has dark matter finally been found?

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 22:42:12 +0000

How about “LUBE”s: Liberals who Understand Basic Economics? Oh wait, you can’t detect ‘em ’cause they don’t exist! But the same can be said about “SCRTTL”s: Socially Conservative Republicans That Think Logically.
Now that I’ve p*ssed off the two main non-thinking portions of society –
if you haven’t guessed yet, I’m Libertarian. I believe in freedom for all, especially freedom from the big, wasteful, bloated, blood-sucking leach of big government that’s destroying our once strong economy and our once proud country. We are no longer exceptional, just another dying socialist country. As we went from economic freedom to socialist “utopia”, we’ve also gone from 80% of the world economy down to, what is it now 20%?, 15%? From steadily and rapidly growing per capita GDP, to steadily declining per capita GDP. We used to get richer every year, it was just the accepted norm – we were the USA, things got better every year, the free enterprise capitalist system was humming). We had harnessed the most powerful engine of wealth and innovation in human history. And then we began to abandon it, and along with our increasing acceptance of socialism, came our steady and accelerating decline. Now each year the average take home pay declines – down $4000 in the last 4 years.
Amazing! In a world of increasing wealth, and increasing productivity, we’ve managed to shrink our per capita GDP from 1st, down to, what is it now? 31st? We’ve been shrinking relative to the rest of the world for 50 years – since we first started paying people not to work, and paying people to have children they can’t support themselves. And since we began our explosive growth of the non-productive bureaucrat class, we’ve gone from yearly surpluses, to YEARLY trillion dollar deficits, and huge interest payments to our economic rivals, on our $16 trillion dollar debit. Only the increases in automation and productivity have managed to keep us from falling totally off the cliff.
We’ve lost the battle, the future and the singularity will be controlled by others who have taken up the free enterprise flag (probably the Chinese – isn’t that ironic, they watched the US economically destroy the USSR and learned the power a free economy; in the meantime, we’ve adopted the failed socialist policies of the USSR) .
Once they are in control and the singularity approaches, do you think they’ll care what we want? They will control the world, and will decide whether we live or die.
I think it’s too late, but maybe, just maybe, if we can wake up in time, we will still have a chance. It’s up to you — stop and think. Think logically, continue to learn, don’t accept what you’ve been told is true — think it through for yourselves. We could return to growth, innovation, and freedom, or we can continue to follow the path of the old Soviet Union to economic and national destruction. But this time the costs are even bigger than our declining wealth and our national destruction. We all know the singularity is coming, if we don’t control it, someone else will. The choice is clear: embrace freedom, embrace free enterprise and free capitalism, and control an unlimited future, …or die. I believe it’s that stark.
Think it through – the free enterprise is an incredibly powerful, self-regulating, wealth building machine. If we don’t use it, someone else will…

By: SmartAndSober

SmartAndSober — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:56:33 +0000

May time-machines, if they are possible, enable new forms of computations?
Violation of causality (if optimally channeled), as pointed out by Dr Hans Moravec in his book Robots, should provide incredible computing power (greater than what is enabled by quantum computing and radically-miniaturized computing substrates, as these methods certainly do not involve time-travel).

By: SmartAndSober

SmartAndSober — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:41:23 +0000

I know some possible forms of time-machine (that allows travelling into the *past*), such as:
1) Given a pair of wormhole mouths, separate one from the other at a relativistic speed, thus creating chronological difference.
2) Creating and employing a Tipler Cylinder (a cylinder of infinite length and rotates at relativistic speed, beyond these I do not have further detailed knowledge).
I wonder in what ways can antimatter be applied on such machines?

By: Giulio Prisco

Giulio Prisco — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 08:47:06 +0000

I hope antimatter can power time machines, so I could go say hello to my younger self at CERN, 25 years ago! ;-)

By: SmartAndSober

SmartAndSober — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:52:32 +0000

A frequent commentator here, Dr Giulio Prisco, (if I remember correctly) works at CERN. It would be great if he can provide us some insightful discourse on How to Trap Antimatter.

By: Editor

Editor — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:25:57 +0000

Good plan. Trapping antimatter particles is one of the goals of CERN.

By: SmartAndSober

SmartAndSober — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:11:18 +0000

That is why We must achieve Singularity faster so We can perform Cosmic Engineering: reverse the Malevolent Over-Inflation and lengthen the Universe’s Life.
If we want Real Immortality, Immortality of the Universe will be a Pre-requisite.
Eliezer Yudkowsky said (something to this effect): “Immortality is not 1 billion years of life. Immortality is not 10 to the power of 1 billion years of life. Immortality is living literally for eternity.”

By: SmartAndSober

SmartAndSober — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:07:10 +0000

I am also reminded of what Stephen Hawking mentioned in his excellent book “The Universe in a Nutshell”: that Pairs of Particle and Anti-Particle frequently Materialize in vacuum and then (immediately afterwards) cancel each other out.
Post-Singularity AIs should harvest these “particle-antiparticle pairs” and use them for Computation.

By: SmartAndSober

SmartAndSober — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:04:23 +0000

What comes after Science is Technology.
Can we “Farm” (grow in our facilities) anti-matter, dark matter and other such matters? Antimatter might be very useful in Far-Future computing (as energy source or Storage material).
BTW, we must learn alot about “Dark Energy” so that we can prevent “Big Rip”: the Cosmic Death by Excessive Inflation.

By: Tolemariam Fufa

Tolemariam Fufa — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 05:45:15 +0000

I am very much excited, and looking forward to hearing the results of the search for a new form of energy and matter!

By: Gorden Russell

Gorden Russell — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 02:48:50 +0000

You are too cool, Derek.

By: Derek

Derek — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 01:12:20 +0000

I think “black Republican” would be a more fitting term for something “dark, hard to detect, but real nonetheless” than a ninjaton. ;-)

By: Bri

Bri — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 00:26:22 +0000

Not to mention that it’s dark, unseen and can hold things together or make them drift apart!

By: Karen Allen

Karen Allen — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 00:06:52 +0000

It’s hubristic to think that just because we cant sense something, it doesn’t exist. It’s hubristic to think that just because something isn’t DNA-based, it’s not alive or conscious. Nothing in the universe is wasted. Dark matter and dark energy are our neighbors and need to be understood. This finding is wonderful.

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 23:11:44 +0000

Through both my marriages I was searching for “what’s the matter”. I am eased that that science may have found some sort of matter.

By: Rob Falgiano

Rob Falgiano — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 19:29:05 +0000

oh, i like that very much. NINJATONS!

By: Bri

Bri — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 18:40:46 +0000

Dark matters effects are somewhat the reverse of dark energy. Many people feel that dark energy may be an intrinsic aspect of empty space. That as it expands space expands there is more of it and that that makes more of it and space expands faster because of that. Dark matter is the stuff that’s holding the galaxies together. We have been able to see it’s effects on light as it can act as a gravity lens does, but we don’t know what it is made of. There is very little antimatter left in the universe.

By: Dr. Richard

Dr. Richard — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 18:17:49 +0000

Not likely. That is way too much anti-matter, we wouldn’t have a universe. The key is to look for gravitons and their anti-particle, the anti-graviton. That is a better candidate for dark matter. Dark matter is not driving the plenum to expand. That honor belongs to Dark Energy.

By: GatorALLin

GatorALLin — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 18:12:19 +0000

just curious if Dark Matter is the cause for the increasing speed of the Universe expansion?

cool that they may better understand what is Dark Matter and what does it do or what role does it play in the universe. Cool stuff…

By: Don Jarvi

Don Jarvi — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:11:49 +0000

Positrons and anti-protons must constitute this anti-matter. 96% of everything is anti-matter.

By: erichlof

erichlof — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:52:43 +0000

I guess it won’t be “dark” anymore?

I hope they did find it, because then we get to upgrade the name. My vote is for Ninjatons (dark, hard to detect, but real nonetheless). :)