Questions That Have Definite Answers That We'll Never Know

[Xprimentyl]

Started to post this thread in the "Games" section, but there's no real "game" component. Just think of some, I dunno, "existential" questions that have exact answers but are beyond human capability to ever know:

How much water is displaced by the sum total of every form of marine life in every body of water on the planet?

How many words have I spoken in my lifetime? How many words will I have spoken when I die?

Who was the very first, non-native American conceived and born on American soil?

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Am almost certain the first two questions may well have had a few educated estimates already. But those googlings are for someone more arsed than I at the moment.

In a water displacement related curiosity some may have not thought to ask of before, we have ways of slowing our planet's rotation if we put our minds to it:

Could China's Three Gorges Dam Slow Rotation of Earth?

Construction of the dam was rumored to also alter the length of days.

www.snopes.com

That water will weigh more than 39 trillion kilograms (42 billion tons). A shift in a mass of that size will impact the rotation of the Earth due to a phenomena known as “the moment of inertia”, which is the inertia of a rigid rotating body with respect to its rotation. The moment of inertia of an object about a given axis describes how difficult it is to change its angular motion about that axis. The longer the distance of a mass to its axis of rotation, the slower it will spin. You may not know it, but you see examples of this in everyday life. For example, a figure skater attempting to spin faster will draw her arms tight to her body, and thereby reduce her moment of inertia. Similarly, a diver attempting to somersault faster will bring his body into a tucked position.

Raising 39 trillion kilograms of water 175 meters above sea level will increase the Earth’s moment of inertia, and thus slow its rotation. However, the impact will be extremely small. NASA scientists calculated the shift of such a mass will increase the length of day by only 0.06 microseconds, and make the Earth only very slightly more round in the middle and more flat on the top. It will also shift the pole position by about two centimeters (0.8 inch). Note that a shift in any object’s mass on the Earth relative to its axis of rotation will change its moment of inertia, although most shifts are too small to be measured (but they can be calculated).

Scientists compared the effects of the dam to the Dec. 26, 2004, Indonesian earthquake, which prompted a tsunami that killed nearly 230,000 people.

Through a process known as the “moment of inertia,” the quake was found to have decreased the length of the day by 2.68 microseconds and Earth’s oblateness (flattening on the top and bulging at the equator) decreased by about one part in 10 billion.

Just so long as we can't yet knock the planet out of orbit like in my weird existential nightmares, then it's fine. For now.

What's in those them there larger black holes, eh? It's most likely not a future as an interdimensional puppeteer of gravity guided through the infinite multiverse solely by love, like in that Interstellar documentary film. It's more likely a brutal quick death where every particle of you is broken down into the most basic form of energy. But still, I need to know for sure!

Is it possible to peer into other dimensions with just a few intentional changes to brain chemistry? Like, say, a drug dosage?

Is this gonna all end in a big snap, clap, crack, bang, wallop, confetti explosion, anticlimactic fizzle, dribble or will it be an eternal retraction/expansion dynamic?

 

[Xprimentyl]

Am almost certain the first two questions may well have had a few educated estimates already. But those googlings are for someone more arsed than I at the moment.

I mean exactly how much/many; the exact numbers in gallons/liters and word count. Yeah, we can estimate, but there are exact answers we'll never know...

What's in those them there larger black holes, eh? It's most likely not a future as an interdimensional puppeteer of gravity guided through the infinite multiverse solely by love, like in that Interstellar documentary film. It's more likely a brutal quick death where every particle of you is broken down into the most basic form of energy. But still, I need to know for sure!

Didn't someone post an article here somewhere stating to the effect that scientists believe it'd be possible to enter and survive a black hole, we'd just never be able to get any validating info back from the "brave" pioneer who decides to test that theory out? How much would you have to love science and knowledge to volunteer for THAT one-way trip? I mean, I love Halle Berry; I wouldn't agree to chop my bollocks off after a one-night stand with her.

Is it possible to peer into other dimensions with just a few intentional changes to brain chemistry? Like, say, a drug dosage?

Is this gonna all end in a big snap, clap, crack, bang, wallop, confetti explosion, anticlimactic fizzle, dribble or will it be an eternal retraction/expansion dynamic?

The first question assumes the existence of other dimensions which is a more interesting question we'll likely never know the answer to.

The second? Get your head out of the oven!

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Despite Barry Mann's best efforts, we may never know who put the bomp in the bomp-bah-bomp-bah-bomp.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

I mean exactly how much/many; the exact numbers in gallons/liters and word count. Yeah, we can estimate, but there are exact answers we'll never know...



Didn't someone post an article here somewhere stating to the effect that scientists believe it'd be possible to enter and survive a black hole, we'd just never be able to get any validating info back from the "brave" pioneer who decides to test that theory out? How much would you have to love science and knowledge to volunteer for THAT one-way trip? I mean, I love Halle Berry; I wouldn't agree to chop my bollocks off after a one-night stand with her.



The first question assumes the existence of other dimensions which is a more interesting question we'll likely never know the answer to.

The word on the grapevine is if a black hole is large enough it may be theoretically possible to not be torn into infinite. Though it looks to be a very lonely one-way journey, not too dissimilar to suicide really!
Yeah, I did end up trying to search engine the biomass displacement briefly but without success, could be bad choice of words or impatience or both. That most life in the ocean is basically unknown probably doesn't help much too.

The second? Get your head out of the oven!

NEVER! It's nice and woozy in here and no-one can bother me, it's like a womb and a coffin all in one! A...woffin?

 

[Thaluikhain]

Huh, from the title I was expecting more about, say, lost writing systems that are unlikely ever to be translated.

Anyway, there are lost writing systems that are unlikely ever to be translated. Linear A, for example, used millenia ago in Greece. We have writing for that period, but nobody knows how to read it. What are they saying? Ok, if they translated it tomorrow and put the translations up online to be accessed from anywhere for free, I'd probably not actually read much, or any. But because it's impossible for anyone to ever read, that bugs me.

Also, the thought processes behind building certain ancient monuments. Generally we know who and how, but exactly why is often unclear.

 

[BrawlMan]

Not to come off as depressing, but who shot Biggie and 2Pac?

 

[Terminal Blue]

Linear A, for example, used millenia ago in Greece. We have writing for that period, but nobody knows how to read it. What are they saying? Ok, if they translated it tomorrow and put the translations up online to be accessed from anywhere for free, I'd probably not actually read much, or any. But because it's impossible for anyone to ever read, that bugs me.

While deciphering Linear A would be incredibly difficult, with enough samples of its still hypothetically possible that the script it could be deciphered, at least to a certain extent. It's really up to archaeologists at this point. The more samples of Linear A writing get found the more chance there is of the language being deciphered.

I think what's really fascinating about Linear A is the Minoan culture which produced it, which is really the earliest urban culture in Europe. Almost everything we know about them is from their art and architecture, and from much, much later depictions of them by Greek sources which usually paint them in a very negative light. If we could read things like their prayers, it would give an insight into how they thought about the world and how they influenced the cultures that came after them which would be pretty invaluable.

 

[Terminal Blue]

What's in those them there larger black holes, eh? It's most likely not a future as an interdimensional puppeteer of gravity guided through the infinite multiverse solely by love, like in that Interstellar documentary film. It's more likely a brutal quick death where every particle of you is broken down into the most basic form of energy. But still, I need to know for sure!

So, for obvious reasons its impossible to ever actually know. But yeah, Interstellar is probably not the best point of reference.

Being inside a black hole means being inside its event horizon, the hole itself is a singularity, a kind of impossible point in space at the very centre of the black hole where all the mass is crushed into a point with zero surface area. Because the singularity is spinning, it would be stretched out slightly into a ring shaped structure, albeit again one with zero surface area.

Spacetime inside the black hole's event horizon would be absolutely broken. Space itself would be so warped that all directions would lead to the singularity, and trying to move in any direction would just result in you reaching the singularity faster. To actually stop yourself from falling in further you'd need to travel faster than light. Unless you can do that, you're probably just incredibly dead. Because the singularity is infinitely small, as you approach it the force on different parts of your body will be so different that you and everything you brought with you will be spaghettified, and the stream of very hot plasma that used to be you will simply be added to the singularity's mass.

If you could travel faster than light, then it's completely up in the air what would happen if you tried to escape the hole. At this point, we're piling broken physics on top of broken physics.

 

[Seanchaidh]

What precisely is happening right now or in the past?

 

[Seanchaidh]

If you could travel faster than light, then it's completely up in the air what would happen if you tried to escape the hole. At this point, we're piling broken physics on top of broken physics.

If you could travel faster than light, then the event horizon wouldn't be an event horizon properly speaking; you could have faster than light trajectories that travel through and then out of it in a hyperbolic trajectory. And you could have faster than light orbital trajectories inside the event horizon (presumably still not touching the singularity itself). Of course, a black hole would most likely rip just about anything apart that got that close, so it might just be a scattered cloud of tidally spaghettified debris that pops out the other side or orbits it. Or goes into it, probably.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Where exactly is the hump located on a woman?

How much water is displaced by the sum total of every form of marine life in every body of water on the planet?

Do you also need to subtract the volume taken up by the water content contained in the creature's body?

Who was the very first, non-native American conceived and born on American soil?

I thought that it was supposed that the first people to live in North America walked across on an ice bridge from Asia or something. So the answer would probably be "the first Native American."

 

[BrawlMan]

Why does anime have so many killer trucks?

​

 

[Drathnoxis]

Why does anime have so many killer trucks?

​

I mean, statistically speaking, so does real life. Being in or around a motor vehicle is one of the most dangerous things you do on a day to day basis.

 

[BrawlMan]

I mean, statistically speaking, so does real life. Being in or around a motor vehicle is one of the most dangerous things you do on a day to day basis.

Yeah, but these trucks (or truck?) in particular are dead set on just murdering people for being either careless, stupid, or just plain existing. Or just to kick start the plot or have an overly-dramatic-traumatic backstory.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Why does anime have so many killer trucks?

I'm guessing it's because anime relies a lot on tropes and cliches.

And also because trucks are easy to animate.

 

[stroopwafel]

Spacetime inside the black hole's event horizon would be absolutely broken. Space itself would be so warped that all directions would lead to the singularity, and trying to move in any direction would just result in you reaching the singularity faster. To actually stop yourself from falling in further you'd need to travel faster than light. Unless you can do that, you're probably just incredibly dead. Because the singularity is infinitely small, as you approach it the force on different parts of your body will be so different that you and everything you brought with you will be spaghettified, and the stream of very hot plasma that used to be you will simply be added to the singularity's mass.

If you're past the event horizon there is no turning back as light can't escape from a black hole. Going faster than light around a black hole slows down time so I believe for every six months or so a year on earth will have passed. A black hole is the concentrated energy of a collapsed star that bends the space and time around it. Don't know about any singularity. What is inside a black hole is the biggest scientific riddle for many generations to come. If it can ever be answered in the first place. Most of the observable universe consists of dark energy but science has no idea what it actually is.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

A somewhat interesting channel for many weird space questions, though they pull theories from every direction with gleeful abandon. Like a Kugelblitz attack! Koogleblitss!


Would love to see some high-budget sci-fi films try to visualise even a fraction of the scenarios they cover in future.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Going faster than light around a black hole slows down time so I believe for every six months or so a year on earth will have passed.

Not quite, the closer you get to light speed, the more time slows down. That is the perception of time of the person moving fast is less than everyone else. At some point you'll be at 6 months for you being 1 year for Earth, but that's before you hit lightspeed. GPS satellites have to take time effects into account just for orbiting the Earth at nowhere near lightspeed. As an aside, your mass increases and distance decrease when traveling fast.

Being close to a mass will also affect time. GPS satellites being further from the mass of the Earth than the rest of us have to take this into account as well. Black holes have lots of mass, of course, so this can be a factor in close, but then collapsed stars have the same mass as the star that collapsed (minus any that blew off when collapsing), just more compressed.

A black hole is the concentrated energy of a collapsed star that bends the space and time around it. Don't know about any singularity. What is inside a black hole is the biggest scientific riddle for many generations to come.

The singularity is the point that the black hole is compressed into, having a volume of zero. Because it's the big scientific riddle, the term "singularity" also gets used for what happens when machines get AI (or other big technological progress, but usually that), because beyond that point, nobody cause gets what it's like.

Admittedly, I'm probably not expressing this well.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Not quite, the closer you get to light speed, the more time slows down. That is the perception of time of the person moving fast is less than everyone else. At some point you'll be at 6 months for you being 1 year for Earth, but that's before you hit lightspeed. GPS satellites have to take time effects into account just for orbiting the Earth at nowhere near lightspeed. As an aside, your mass increases and distance decrease when traveling fast.

Being close to a mass will also affect time. GPS satellites being further from the mass of the Earth than the rest of us have to take this into account as well. Black holes have lots of mass, of course, so this can be a factor in close, but then collapsed stars have the same mass as the star that collapsed (minus any that blew off when collapsing), just more compressed.



The singularity is the point that the black hole is compressed into, having a volume of zero. Because it's the big scientific riddle, the term "singularity" also gets used for what happens when machines get AI (or other big technological progress, but usually that), because beyond that point, nobody cause gets what it's like.

Admittedly, I'm probably not expressing this well.

You sound like one who's been to a black hole. I'm assuming this is the case, and hereby pledge my allegiance to you, a covert representative of our alien overlords, and only ask that when the culling of humanity comes due, I am spared and offered a position in your service, ideally one that does not involve my anus and your curiosity.