Recent content by majortom

Well, the thing is that thinking of possible problems is a creative, synthetic exercise, whereas problem solving is really more about brute force and bloody mindedness. It takes a certain type. Which isn't actually my forte. Call it a personality quirk. I was a student at one point. I went to...

I was thinking about the cable, and if the cable was heated, I think you could leave a big spool at the surface and it would work. If it wasn't heated, then it would get frozen in the ice and stop unspooling. I also thought of another problem. What if the probe gets to 10km and there's a big...

I think you could get away with pumping the water from the bottom of the device to the top of the device, if any pumping was needed at all. Thanks for the equation, that helps!

The attenuation length was found to be 300-500m for frequencies from 75MHz to 1.25GHz. (Found on some other forum thread.) Going straight through 15km seems unreasonable, but maybe 15 relays at what 10x amplification? That's not too bad.

That or wireless relays, or a combination of the two. Cable would have to reeled up on the device itself, so there's a maximum length.

No, it's a totally different problem. I'm not talking about drilling a shaft. Getting the equipment to do that to Enceladus would be outrageously expensive and impractical. Also, there's no 15km thick ice sheet on Earth. The scale of the problem is way larger, and the equipment used must be...

Correct is not subjective, at least not how I use the term. I use that term for logic and math proofs. Science is not that. So, yes, science is appallingly incorrect when compared to math and logic. Also, science isn't going to be limited by human capability for much longer, you need to think...

I don't quite agree with how you're using the word correct, but sure. The problem I see is that uncertainty sets a boundary on how small a scale we can really test. This has never happened before. Newton didn't have a theory which would have a lower and upper scale limit, but that appears to be...

Science has just an appalling history when it comes to proposing correct physical models. It seems that every time someone proposes a correct model, someone else finds a flaw in it. I think it's worth considering this in terms of precision and accuracy, and considering the effect of determinism...

Or maybe there are multiple "correct" models. If uncertainty sets a limit on the amount of information in the universe, then it's entirely plausible that we simply do not have enough information to arrive at a single model. On the other hand, a non deterministic model can convey the idea of...

Summary:: Speculative question on the feasibility of using a nuclear powered probe to reach the subsurface ocean of Saturn's moon Enceladus. I was thinking about the problem of how to put a probe in the ocean of Enceladus. Enceladus is a moon of Saturn which has some interesting properties. It...