Speculation Definition and 32 Threads

Greetings and salutations from the Swamp, aka Florida. For most of my life, I've been incredibly fascinated with the fields of Physics and Astrophysics. I've, also, been pretty lazy in regards to formal education. And that's a point of fact, not relative to an observer (lol). Lately, as I age...

In Star Trek, they mention a Chromo-electric pulse and Chromo-electric force field. I know chromo-electric fields hold the nuclear force together with gluons but could a highly advanced civilization use chromo-electric fields for weapons or protection?

What kind of technology will be available in a million years from now? Is the world going to be a better place in a million years from today? Will it be possible to solve chess or have completely self-driving cars and self-driving trucks in a million years from now?

I recently read that there is enough hydrogen in the human body to lift 195 lbs off the ground. I know this sounds super-silly but if we ever develop nanites; could they manipulate the hydrogen and allow us to float?

In the horror novel, the Descent, by Jeff Long, Earth has a system of deep caverns so extensive that they constitute a virtual "sub-planet," a kind of partial lower deck in the Earth's crust, whose mutated human inhabitants have horns and decorate their bodies with extensive scarification...

Hear me now? 'Strong signal' from sun-like star sparks alien speculation Interesting... Wait though With only one signal you just can't tell, and it certainly doesn't come up to scratch as "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.". It might have been just the cleaner in the...

Sorry, this might be a question you can only answer with speculation, but if anyone has any idea of how close we are to teleportation of inanimate objects or creating portals, I would love to know. I have always found teleportation and portals to be super cool. From what I've heard, in order...

Hi I have a really weird idea that is robbing me of my sleep. One of the many problems with fusion seems to be how to harvest the energy released by the reaction efficiently. So as I was slowly drifting into sleep I was wondering, how we usually harvest energy from reactions, and the piston...

Neutron stars formed from supernova events are prohibited from becoming black holes because it is thought that the gravitational force is not enough to overcome Fermi degeneracy of the neutrons or quark gluon soup at the core of these objects, however, addition of more mass can overcome this...

Hi Everyone, First of all, I'm not a scientist ;) But I'm doing some experimentation and just want to confirm if I am on the right track. FDA pickle recipe for non fermented pickles has the following parameters: 50% vinegar 50% water I am using standard commercial 5% distilled...

My question/topic of discussion is, "Economic Speculation and Hedging". For many people this is just a mysterious thing that big bad Wall Street bankers do, and I want to find out about it. How does the calculus and the other maths apply to speculation and hedging? I understand that math is...

Electrons and protons have anti-particles. Has there ever been any speculation or work done on whether a black hole has an anti-particle such that if the two were to collide, they would annihilate each other? Probably not, but I was just curious.

Hi all, :shy: I have a bit out of track question and may be this shall go to philosophy section. On one hand, I often see posts where some amateur/non physicist posts some speculative idea or hypothesis. Others go onto argue or suggest not to merely speculate and argue like I read...

I'm trying to cook up an interesting desert planet. Dune made me wonder if a tool-using species could turn a planet with plenty of water into a desert planet. Say, one nation starts hoarding water via the "catchments" we saw on Arakis (with some plausible mechanism to prevent evaporation)...

Europa, one of Jupiter's large moons, is predicted to have a salty ocean beneath its icy surface. This ocean is expected to have more liquid water than the oceans of Earth have. Virtually every place on Earth that we find liquid water we find at least microbial life. Based on this it seems...

I am interested in black-holes because, even though I have no education to speak of and somebody here don't like me for it, I think differently about them. It is said there are 11 dimensions. Could it be that there have been 7 big bangs with the first one producing 4 dimensions and the next six...

Since the cold war nuclear race we haven't really heard much about nuclear weapons development, but i imagine that the technology is pretty far ahead today compared to what it was when they detonated Tsar Bomba in 1961, which was a 50 mt. hydrogen bomb with a design that allowed 100 mt. So i...

Assalamualykum I’m a non-math person, but that doesn’t deter me from being logical and rational who churns out ideas, some of which are stupid, as you don’t have to be stupid to be stupid, I mean you could be as intelligent as Stephen Hawking and still be stupid. Mr. Hawking acknowledges...

The title of the thread is the same as this blog post at http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=is-speculation-in-multiverses-as-im-2011-01-28&WT.mc_id=SA_SA_20110216 about Brian Greene's new book, The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos. A snippet: My...

The BBC has added it's voice to the mounting speculation that Bush and Olmert may be planning an attack on Iran before the end of their terms of office. The full article is available here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7439431.stm What do people here think? Will the US and/or Israel...

I caught this on C-Span last night. It is very interesting, also very long. Some big time players testify here. There is a lot of talk about the "Enron Loophole" If nothing else watch Dr. Mark Cooper at about the 50 trough 60 minute segment. Yea I know he is involved in consumer affairs, but...

Can microevolution in dogs be proven without "speculation"? I am debating a fellow on a different website, and I'm worried my answer will not be as technical or correct. So, I'm asking for some help from the more learned minds that roam this place. : ) """Me: Mutations occurred in the...

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-hs.ice22sep22,0,4648388.story A hole (polynya) the size of Indiana has opened in the Beaufort Sea, a part of the Arctic Ocean. Can anyone speculate on the the cause of this hole, the likes of which have not been witnessed before in this part of the...

"Decoding the Universe" by Seife - Science or speculation? I came across this in my local Barnes and Nobles, and didn't know what to make of it. Any thoughts on whether this book is within the realm of real science, or does it rely too much on speculation? Any thoughts? "Decoding the...

Is it drowning astronomy, there are so many papers on dark matter, dark energy, but i wonder if all this speculation is detracting true astrometry

Speculation On Extra Solar Biology I think this could be an interesting thing to talk about, what could alien life really be like? Of course nothing like the stupidity shown in movies and on TV. To get this thread going I've provided a link to an unfinished world building project...

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996092 this shouldn't be too much of a suprise. No need for incredibly expensive equipment either. It is known that light travels slower in denser materials. 'Materials' can include space itself since space consists of quantum fluctuations...

Are EMP generators llegal in the United states, more specifically florida? Also how much voltage do you speculate must be created to create an EM(P)?

I am curious to see what your opinions are on the odds of Time Travel accually being achieved... under what circumstances do you think it would be possible? And those of you who do believe it will be possible in the future, how much longer until it is possible?

http://arxiv.org/astro-ph/0309800 A group at University of Washington, Fardon et al just posted "Dark Energy from Mass-Varying Neutrinos" which does not seem to me as far-fetched as other speculation I've seen about cause of DE they seem to think that some element of their idea is...

This is sort of meant to be a fun post to sort of speculate in a logical way, about aliens, their motives or other things about them. Not about any "real evidence" or what supposed to be true about them. Just some good old imagination.I hope this doesn't detract too much from the serious...

I read and heard from a professor about the speculation (simply speculation) of multiuniverses (in otherwords, there is more than the one Universe we reside in). According to Quantum Mechanics, there are quantum fluctuations which, as some scientists theorize, may have created the...