Fine Structure

There's a brief article in Discovery News last week about a lecture by Stephen Hawking about "alien quiz shows." While the main focus was on the possibility of contact from another species across the stars, Hawking did manage to work a subtle ending on the topic of planet colonization which is something I feel our species should consider as an important next step.

Our biggest fears as a species are the ones that effect the entire planet. Global warming, nuclear war, killer asteroids - these things make the front page at the slightest mention. Although we think mostly about our own personal safety when these types of disasters are mentioned, what we should really be concerned about is the survival of our species as a whole.

If you think about this with a scale-through-history perspective, expanding to other planets and solar systems is a natural progression. Imagine of a prehistoric culture on an island with limited boating technology. This culture is at risk of complete extinction by events which are not uncommon. Volcanic eruptions, particularly strong hurricanes, localized drought. Depending on their location, any of these things may be likely to occur over the course of 50-100 years. Our theoretical island-culture can increase their chances of survival by developing boating technology and expanding to the mainland or another island. Boating technology protects them from a number of slowly moving disasters even if they don't immediately expand elsewhere. And as this culture expands, it's total population is under less risk from natural disasters.

Once this culture expands to the mainland, they may still be at risk of an ice age if they can't expand southward in the event of such a change. This event is much less common, possibly two orders of magnitude less. You can see that our theoretical culture has just increased it's chances of survival by giving itself a good deal more time to develop the technology to move to warmer climates if necessary, something that it would have been powerless against initially.

In this same way, we're at risk from many of the global threats because we don't have the technology to move any great number of people off the planet in any sustainable way (sustainable being the key word). We have the technology to take a few of us to the moon (not that we have recently) but the moon is hardly sustainable for 3 people, let alone a good chunk of our 6 billion humans.

One of our options is to develop the technology to live on some previously-inhospitable rock (mars, moon, etc). We would somewhat significantly reduce our risk as a species and we would need to develop terraforming technology or start making those bubble-cities you always see in science fiction. And, of course, we would still be threatened by solar-system wide disaster. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about our solar system to accurately judge what disasters could effect our entire solar system and at what scale. Perhaps we're taking about the estimated life of the sun, which we have a possible 4 billion years left, or something less predictable, like an errant black hole swinging our way and gobbling us up.

The other option, and one which is only limited by the heat death of the universe itself, is to develop the technology to travel between solar systems and expand across the universe. This is what Hawking alludes to in the end of the article. The likelihood of a disaster that effects the entire universe is so small that our species would effectively be guaranteed survival for the better part of forever. And this brings up some interesting questions - will we find something similar to earth or do alien civilizations really entail something we haven't yet imagined? Fortunately, we have a little while to think about these things as the technology to go beyond our solar system in a reasonable amount of time is developed. However, this is our only way to make sure the human race lives on indefinitely. With our expanding population and shrinking available space, this should definitely be something our species should aspire to.

TED does this curious thing where they'll record all the sessions from their conference every year and then only put them on the web selectively over a number of years. This particular talk on string theory by Brian Greene is from 2005 and it was just released recently. I recall parts of his animations from a NOVA special he did which I saw in late 2003 so it's even less recent and very high-level. It is fascinating to see his presentation just before the media started reporting negatively on string theory though. He does mention falsification briefly at the end though, indicating that he either a) he knew there were a ton of smart people in the audience or b) people had already starting getting on string theorists' case about falsifiability in early 2005. I don't think Greene's style in this presentation is very good, in fact, I think he looks a little ill. I don't recall thinking that the 2003 NOVA special was poorly presented though so maybe he really was ill. Small version below, see this page for a larger version.

Alternatively titled "Profession that rewards intelligence under siege by smarter workers!" but I wasn't sure if all readers correctly interpreted the <sarcasm> tag.

This article at WebMD gives some very vague details about a poll of 1,400 Nature-readers in which questions relating to brain-enhancing drugs were asked. Unsurprisingly, not an insignificant portion of those polled (20%) suggested that they had taken some form of drug to boost brain function (although I'm not completely sure about the wording in the poll, it sounds as though the questions were somewhat direct). There were some other results for the type of drug used, questions about coworkers and children but I'll mostly focus on the main issue here.

Firstly, why is this 20% number any kind of news at all? I understand that science is filled with old guys who probably have little interest in changing their ways and taking "smart drugs" but this was news in high school and college well over four years ago which means that there are plenty of budding scientists for whom this probably isn't an unusual action, let alone sight. This number is only going to increase as new scientists for whom this is the norm replace the older scientists for whom this wasn't available.

That last distinction probably sums up my opinion fairly well. The only reason this isn't widely used right now is that the drugs weren't widely available until this generation of scientists. As for those who compare this phenomenon with baseball's current steroid scandal, it's quite different. Fair competition (while almost completely ignored) is supposed to exist in baseball. Science has it's own form of competition but it's by no means fair and, in the end, benefits the species.

I will concede one point that I'm not really sure about yet. Stratification is a big deal for anyone who competes and isn't born into just the right location. In this case, the availability of these drugs does give those scientists with access an edge over those without. Does this mean we should "even things out" by keeping these drugs from scientists everywhere? Of course not. That's counterproductive and you may as well try to "equal out" all the funding that science gets all around the world. How do we give the opportunity to try these smart drugs to those without? We don't. Not for lack of want, but because we have plenty more pressing issues like science education ahead of it. Probably more on this in the future.

The last thing I want to mention is that this issue must stem from fear of pills alone. I don't know of a single person who will claim that drinking coffee doesn't have some sort of effect on them and plenty of people, scientists or not, use coffee to stimulate the brain. We already take these types of drugs, they're just not in a format that's scary to us.

KQED really has their shit together when it comes to online video content and it shows in this piece on SETI and the new Allen Telescope Array in Hat Creek, CA. Watch the smaller embedded version here or go to the KQED page for the full size video.

I try to have as much fun at work as humanly possible (also without getting fired) and while I never really consider any day to be off-limits for pulling pranks in the office, April Fools is a day that I can't resist passing up. This year a subset of us filled one of our founders' office with balloons which was particularly nice to look at since the office has tall windows. Pictures follow: