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National Science Fiction Day

Compartmentalizing stuff is fine. I know a lot of engineers who don't like science fiction, maybe that is the reason. I like it, though I kind of have to laugh when people want to explain science or engineering to me. It is the same all over the place though, such as a I bought another truck because I wanted to take it's engine and transmission for one of mine:

View attachment 5840

25-30 years ago it would only be four hours and they would be sitting on my garage floor, now it would be two days and that's if I didn't throw my back out. So I decided to sell it, and when I posted it in a truck group, here come people who are going to tell me how much it is worth, never gonna sell it, etc.. Sold it in less than a week and even made money. People. The internet is simultaneously the best and worst place for information.

Sort of with gravitics, some probably won't happen, such as deck plates, overall though, looking at how we use gravity: ballistics, pulleys, etc.. that we use all the fundamental forces, it is highly likely that we'll use even more gravity manipulation the more we understand it, we are still only learning basic principles. I don't know where that will lead. Science fiction might be a dream, though dreams are good. With my books, I have a friend who is a rocket scientist, and he is impressed with them. I think it is enough to try to avoid obvious errors, and to understand it is always a moving target, science changes, what we once thought to be real, might prove false tomorrow, or the other way around. Overall dreaming is good though, that is how we advance.
If you are doing science right, settled science isn’t.
 
If you are doing science right, settled science isn’t.
Enigeers have a tendency to use the term "mature technology" mostly about keeping it simple; settled science isn't something I hear a lot. Science itself is about methodology, evidence, etc. similary to I heard people talking about scientific consensus, and thinking it is about what scientists say, vs it is actually the consensus of data.
 
Enigeers have a tendency to use the term "mature technology" mostly about keeping it simple; settled science isn't something I hear a lot. Science itself is about methodology, evidence, etc. similary to I heard people talking about scientific consensus, and thinking it is about what scientists say, vs it is actually the consensus of data.
As an ideal, no science is EVER settled. It's always subject to revision...

We (the teaching profession, which is the last profession I got paid in) teach half-truths to our students, that they may comprehend the experiental as subject to rules... but as they age, they get taught more, and usually more accurate, rules.

Literally, we're teaching a fiction simplified from a best fit theory. We don't actually teach calculus based orbital calculations in elementary schools; we touch on newtonian gravity and teach it as if it's rock solid truth... but it's not. Newton had no time dilation in his theories... tho' his relativity has been largely accepted as truth. And his principles of orbital mechanics are reasonably good. Still, we know they're wrong yet teach them as right. they're just not wrong enough to bother 5th graders with. Plus, we're still doing basic algebra and basic geometry, if not basic mathematics, in grades 5 and 6. hitting them with Calculus and Post-Einsteinian orbits? simply would turn them off...

We continue such fictions into the undergraduate level... Useful but incomplete, and hence wrong, approximations.

Some, when they get to realizing that, distrust all formal education.
Some, when they get to that, give up.
Some, when they get to that, decide to find a less wrong theory.

As a you-tuber I follow says, "Less wronger is more better"
travis-mcenery-less-wronger-is-more-better.gif
Travis has a great run of info on various spiders, including testing the testiness of various spiders...
 
As an ideal, no science is EVER settled. It's always subject to revision...

We (the teaching profession, which is the last profession I got paid in) teach half-truths to our students, that they may comprehend the experiental as subject to rules... but as they age, they get taught more, and usually more accurate, rules.

Literally, we're teaching a fiction simplified from a best fit theory. We don't actually teach calculus based orbital calculations in elementary schools; we touch on newtonian gravity and teach it as if it's rock solid truth... but it's not. Newton had no time dilation in his theories... tho' his relativity has been largely accepted as truth. And his principles of orbital mechanics are reasonably good. Still, we know they're wrong yet teach them as right. they're just not wrong enough to bother 5th graders with. Plus, we're still doing basic algebra and basic geometry, if not basic mathematics, in grades 5 and 6. hitting them with Calculus and Post-Einsteinian orbits? simply would turn them off...

We continue such fictions into the undergraduate level... Useful but incomplete, and hence wrong, approximations.

Some, when they get to realizing that, distrust all formal education.
Some, when they get to that, give up.
Some, when they get to that, decide to find a less wrong theory.

As a you-tuber I follow says, "Less wronger is more better"
View attachment 5846
Travis has a great run of info on various spiders, including testing the testiness of various spiders...
I don't remember when I heard about Newton, though pretty early. Yes, science is never settled, data can change things always. Sagan said famously that "Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge." Things have changed over time, such as with my first time around the profs would not even let us use calculators, second time I took physics again just as an easy A, and where they wouldn't let us use graphing calculators, I saw students use them, and when I mentioned that they weren't really learning they were like so? I know differences such as a friend who designed missile guidance systems, he complained towards the end he never wanted to lead teams anymore because guys were trying to look up, do stuff from youtube, and arguing with him. That is in a lab though, I have spent most of my career in the field and for almost 30 years the guy in charge, and I quickly learned to turn the screws, I did get called into the office before for being too hard on people. The guys that left almost always came back when they saw how short their bonus checks were compared to my jobs, and the office was happy to get projects done on time, and in budget. Now I am nearly done, kind of glad as well.
 
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