Category Archives: — By the Physicist

Q: Do we actually live in a computer simulation?

Posted on September 30, 2019 by The Physicist

Physicist: This has become a whole thing.  Although it has shown up in a lot of incarnations throughout history, the most recent is something like this: Computers are getting better all the time and some day artificial reality will be … Continue reading →

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Computer Science, Paranoia, Philosophical, Skepticism | 15 Comments

Q: Half-life?

Posted on August 20, 2019 by The Physicist

The original question was: If you have a lump of radioactive material with a half life of say 10,000 years, then how come it could start steadily decaying right away? Why wouldn’t everything be relatively stable for 10,000 years and … Continue reading →

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Logic, Particle Physics, Physics, Probability | 8 Comments

Q: What’s the point of going to the Moon?

Posted on July 19, 2019 by The Physicist

Physicist: We imagine interplanetary spacecraft as massive, expensive rockets, but the Moon changes that.  Spacecraft built and launched from the Moon don’t have to have huge boosters; even tiny spacecraft can travel across the solar system efficiently.  We should go … Continue reading →

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Astronomy, Engineering, Physics | 14 Comments

Q: How hard is it to build a space elevator? What’s the point?

Posted on June 19, 2019 by The Physicist

Physicist: Right around the end of the 19th century, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (of rocket equation fame) got to thinking about how a taller version of the Eiffel tower, built on the equator, might be a good way to get things into … Continue reading →

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Engineering, Physics | 11 Comments

Q: Could we get rid of CO2 if we pumped it through a pipe into space?

Posted on May 31, 2019 by The Physicist

Physicist: Like any plumbing fix: it depends on the pipe. Evangelista Torricelli, the first to measure the weight of the air above us, once famously wrote that “Noi viviamo sommersi nel fondo d’un pelago d’aria.” (“We live submerged at the … Continue reading →

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Engineering, Physics | 37 Comments

Q: Will time travel ever be invented?

Posted on March 31, 2019 by The Physicist

Physicist: It already has!  Or rather, it already will be. Once time travel has/will have been invented, you’d think that said inventor could just go back in time and show off their invention, or give it to some ancestor (or … Continue reading →

Posted in -- By the Physicist, April Fools | 16 Comments