SCIENCE OF SCIENCE FICTION Hollywood loves to depict future humans as intrepid spacefarers, traversing the unfathomable distances of the cosmos in stylish fighter jets with souped up faster-than-light drives. Given that we’ve yet to land boots on Mars, it’s easy to write off such yarns as pure fantasy. But let’s imagine, for a moment, that we actually desired to become a galaxy-spanning, or even universe-spanning, civilization. Could we—at least in theory—do so, without bending the fundamental laws of physics? Physicist Jay Olson believes we can. Yes, it’ll take a million generations and yes, it’ll probably involve insanely advanced technology, but at the end of the day, an intergalactic diaspora may not be as crazy as it sounds. In his recent paper, Olson treats the grand question of whether, and how, an intelligent civilization might spread on a cosmic scale. “In thinking about some of the ideas people have been discussing lately—the limits to technology and technological singularity, for instance—it occurred to me that it was possible to imagine life expanding on a cosmological scale,” said Olson. motherboard.vice/read/how-long-would-it-take-to-colonize-the-universe #science #cosmology #universe
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 17:49:39 +0000
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