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Dario Izzo

Check your country impact on science!!! - 8 views

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    Did you know that papers in space science are among the most quoted? Check how your country is doing .... you will be surprised :)
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    In terms of country based quotations ("Most scited countries") I cannot access space science, only Geosciences, Immunology, Material Science, and Psychiatry & Psychology. But when I first saw the list of countries at the left under "Impact in Science" I saw Argentinia was on top, and USA was on last position. Yes, I was surprised, until I realised that is was just an alphabetical order. Did you see the same list?
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    scotland's a separate country. must be preparing for independence already. and it's highest percentage is for space science. crazy
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    Dajan, you need to click on the country you are interested in ....
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    Nooo, can't be THAT simple.
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    data a bit old .... newer data (but less well presented) at http://sciencewatch.com/ there you can also read: "The 20th century was largely dominated by the US as a major powerhouse of scientific research and innovation, with 40% of the papers indexed in the Web of Science fielded by US scientists in the 1990s. By 2009, that figure was down to 29%. The US now struggles to keep pace with increased output from Europe and Asia."
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    hottest space science paper in January 2012: Field: Space Science Article Title: Herschel Space Observatory An ESA facility for far-infrared and submillimetre astronomy Authors: Pilbratt, GL;Riedinger, JR;Passvogel, T;Crone, G;Doyle, D;Gageur, U;Heras, AM;Jewell, C;Metcalfe, L;Ott, S;Schmidt, M Journal: ASTRON ASTROPHYS, 518: art. no.-L1 JUL-AUG 2010 * ESTEC SRE SA, ESA Res & Sci Support Dept, Keplerlaan 1, NL-2201 AZ Noordwijk, Netherlands. * ESTEC SRE SA, ESA Res & Sci Support Dept, NL-2201 AZ Noordwijk, Netherlands. * ESTEC SRE OA, ESA Sci Operat Dept, NL-2201 AZ Noordwijk, Netherlands. * ESTEC SRE P, ESA Sci Operat Dept, NL-2201 AZ Noordwijk, Netherlands. * ESOC OPS OAH, ESA Mission Operat Dept, D-64293 Darmstadt, Germany. * ESAC SRE OA, ESA Sci Operat Dept, Madrid 28691, Spain.
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    Interestingly, Space Science is the only field in which my country has positive "Impact vs. world" value (even more interestingly as we don't even have a proper national space agency)...
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    this might also be an indication / point to an issue with their data concerning space science publications ... quite surprising indeed that all Europeans are doing so well in this field
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    Something should be wrong, for Spain I can read: Economics & Business 4.54 -28 Only minus 28!
Joris _

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics - Space and the Biological Economy - 0 views

  • the U.S. space program has a robust life science program that is diligently working to innovate new approaches, research and technologies in the fields of biotechnology and bio-nanotechnology science, which are providing new solutions for old problems – including food security, medical needs and energy needs
  • more money be allocated to develop environmentally sound and energy efficient engine programs for commercial and private aviation
  • waste water program
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  • we lack fundamental knowledge about the entire effect of the photosynthesis system on food growth, and that space-based research could provide vital clues to scientists on how to streamline the process to spur more efficient food growth
  • From the start of the space age until 2010 only around 500 people have journeyed into space, but with the advent of private space travel in the next 24 months another 500 people are expected to go into space
  • Wagner indentified prize systems that award monetary prizes to companies or individuals as an effective way to spur innovation and creativity, and urged the Congressional staffers present to consider creating more prize systems to stimulate needed innovation
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    a bunch of ideas, iinitiatives, and good points about upcoming changes in space ...
johannessimon81

Asteroid mining could lead to self-sustaining space stations - VIDEO!!! - 5 views

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    Let's all start up some crazy space companies together: harvest hydrogen on Jupiter, trap black holes as unlimited energy supplies, use high temperatures close to the sun to bake bread! Apparently it is really easy to do just about anything and Deep Space Industries is really good at it. Plus: in their video they show Mars One concepts while referring to ESA and NASA.
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    I really wonder what they wanna mine out there? Is there such a high demand on... rocks?! And do they really think they can collect fuel somewhere?
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    Well they want to avoid having to send resources into space and rather make it all in space. The first mission is just to find possible asteroids worth mining and bring some asteroid rocks to Earth for analysis. In 2020 they want to start mining for precious metals (e.g. nickel), water and such.They also want to put up a 3D printer in space so that it would extract, separate and/or fuse asteroidal resources together and then print the needed structures already in space. And even though on earth it's just rocks, in space a tonne of them has an estimated value of 1 million dollars (as opposed to 4000 USD on Earth). Although I like the idea, I would put DSI in the same basket as those Mars One nutters 'cause it's not gonna happen.
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    I will get excited once they demonstrate they can put a random rock into their machine and out comes a bicycle (then the obvious next step is a space station).
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    hmm aside from the technological feasibility, their approach still should be taken as an example, and deserve a little support. By tackling such difficult problems, they will devise innovative stuffs. Plus, even if this doom-to-fail endeavour may still seem you useless, it creates jobs and make people think... it is already a positive! Final word: how is that different from what Planetary Resources plan to do? It is founded by a bunch of so-called "nuts" ... (http://www.planetaryresources.com/team/) ! a little thought: "We must never be afraid to go too far, for success lies just beyond" - Proust
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    I don't think that this proposal is very different from the one by Planetary Resources. My scepticism is rooted in the fact that - at least to my knowledge - fully autonomous mining technology has not even been demonstrated on Earth. I am sure that their proposition is in principle (technically) feasible but at the same time I do not believe that a privately funded company will find enough people to finance a multi-billion dollar R&D project that may or may not lead to an economically sensible outcome, i.e. generate profit (not income - you have to pay back the R&D cost first) within the next 25 years. And on that timescale anything can happen - for all we know we will all be slaves to the singularity by the time they start mining. I do think that people who tackle difficult problems deserve support - and lots of it. It seems however that up till now they have only tackled making a promotional video... About job creation (sorry for the sarcasm): if usefulness is not so important my proposal would be to give shovels to two people - person A digs a hole and person B fills up the same hole at the same time. The good thing about this is that you can increase the number of jobs created simply by handing out more shovels.
Luís F. Simões

Singularity University, class of 2010: projects that aim to impact a billion people wit... - 8 views

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    At the link below you find additional information about the projects: Education: Ten weeks to save the world http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100915/full/467266a.html
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    this is the podcast I was listening to ...
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    We can do it in nine :)
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    why wait then?
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    hmm, wonder how easy it is to get funding for that, 25k is a bit steep for 10weeks :)
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    well, we wait for the same fundings they get and then we will do it in nine.... as we say in Rome "a mettece un cartello so bboni tutti". (italian check for Juxi)
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    and what you think about the project subjects?
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    I like the fact that there are quite a lot of space projects .... and these are not even bad in my view: The space project teams have developed imaginative new solutions for space and spinoffs for Earth. The AISynBio project team is working with leading NASA scientists to design bioengineered organisms that can use available resources to mitigate harsh living environments (such as lack of air, water, food, energy, atmosphere, and gravity) - on an asteroid, for example, and also on Earth . The SpaceBio Labs team plans to develop methods for doing low-cost biological research in space, such as 3D tissue engineering and protein crystallization. The Made in Space team plans to bring 3D printing to space to make space exploration cheaper, more reliable, and fail-safe ("send the bits, not the atoms"). For example, they hope to replace some of the $1 billion worth of spare parts and tools that are on the International Space Station.
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    and all in only a three months summer graduate program!! that is impressive. God I feel so stupid!!!
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    well, most good ideas probably take only a second to be formulated, it's the details that take years :-)
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    I do not think the point of the SU is to formulate new ideas (infact there is nothing new in the projects chosen). Their mission is to build and maintain a network of contacts among who they believe will be the 'future leaders' of space ... very similar to our beloved ISU.
LeopoldS

House Approves Flat 2011 Budget for Most Science Agencies - ScienceInsider - 0 views

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    "Some segments of the research community would get their preferences under the House spending bill. For example, it matches the president's request for a 1.5% increase for NASA, to $19 billion, including a 12% increase, to $5 billion, for the space science program. Legislators had already worked out a deal with the White House on the future of the manned space program, and they included funding for an additional shuttle flight in 2011. They even added $35 million to the $20 million increase that the president requested for NASA's education programs, boosting them by a whopping 30% to $180 million. "
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    Some segments of the research community would get their preferences under the House spending bill. For example, it matches the president's request for a 1.5% increase for NASA, to $19 billion, including a 12% increase, to $5 billion, for the space science program. Legislators had already worked out a deal with the White House on the future of the manned space program, and they included funding for an additional shuttle flight in 2011. They even added $35 million to the $20 million increase that the president requested for NASA's education programs, boosting them by a whopping 30% to $180 million.
Ma Ru

Euroscience Open Forum 2010 - 2 views

shared by Ma Ru on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
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    A conference ACT should consider going to.
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    Perhaps some of ACTers will find this conference interesting... One of the talks: "Would Einstein be on Twitter? Exploring the potential and limits of Web 2.0 in science & science communication" [Edit] Oh, I see someone has already posted this link... a year ago. Anyway, if anyone of you plans to go, let me know - I'll be around ;-)
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    Just came back from ESOF 2010... I was on look for ACT agents undercover, but either they were not there or the cover was good enough... Anyway here's a few remarks from me (I could write a nice report... if you paid): 1) In general, to say that ESA was underrepresented on the conference as a whole is not enough (I guess ESA just failed to notice the event taking place). For instance, on the GMES presentation, ESA as such was not mentioned at all... at some point I started to wonder if ESA is actually involved in the project, but now I checked the website and apparently it is. On the other hand, GMES presentation was crap anyway, as after 1:15 of talking, I didn't gain any knowledge of what GMES is and what its contributions to the EU community will be. 2) There was a lot of talk about LHC and particle research (well, at least among those that I attended). Some of them were very good, some of them rather crap... 3) "Would Einstein be on Twitter? Exploring the potential and limits of Web 2.0 in science & science communication" talk - quite interesting, but focusing mainly on Science-to-Wide Public and Science-to-Journalists communication. Not really on Science-to-Science (as in Ariadnet). There was quite an extensive discussion with the public. You may be interested that Nature is trying to stimulate Web 2.0 communication, running blog service, but also I think a kind of social network - perhaps you'd like to have a look. In general the conclusion was that Web 2.0 is not so useful for scientific communication because practising it requires TIME (blogs, etc.) and often some professional skills (podcasts/videocasts, etc.), and scientists have neither of these. This can be run on corporation level (like ESA does actually), but then it looses the "intimate" character. 4) "How much can robots learn?" talk... very nicely presented: understandable by the wide public, but conveying the message... which is something like "we can already make the robots do stuff absolutely imp
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    Well, my comment was cut in half, and I don't feel like typing it again... the most important highlight from the rest is that the only presenter from ESA (ESTEC) did not show up on his talk because his department was undergoing some sort of audit on the same day :)
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    Fantastic comment - or better report!! thanks very much Marek! Who was the supposed no-show speaker from ESA?
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    Bernard Foing (he is actually one of the 8 ESA employees who have their own page on Wikipedia)...
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    written almost entirely by a guy called a "quest for knowledge" ... who will this be????? :-)
Juxi Leitner

Obama declares war on space junk - space - 29 June 2010 - New Scientist - 2 views

  • The US will also fund research into cleaning up the space junk that's already there.
  • Obama administration also calls for research into technologies that could remove space debris already in orbit, such as laser tractor beams.
Nicholas Lan

Kerbal Space Program | Media - 2 views

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    what seems to be an impressively detailed space game
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    Yeah... 2011 called with the greetings. However, there was quite an interesting news about KSP recently... Perhaps it's been ACT's small failure to spot this opportunity? Considering we wrote space missions games ourselves...
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    This guy actually makes very detailed video tutorials about how to master the orbital dynamics in Kerbal. I think the level of detail (and sometimes realism) is quite impressive: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxzC4EngIsMrPmbm6Nxvb-A
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    I will have to try this definitely, looks like a lot of fun.. I also saw some crazy 'Insane Rocket Division' videos.. :)
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    @Marek: true, old news. But "opportunity"? For what? The games we write are always games with a scientific purpose (not training not educational) Kerbal Space programme is cool, but it is a game just like Microsoft Flight Simulator (but less accurate). Having ESA mission simulated in it is also cool but is it what we should or could do? Even more is it want we want to do? My personal opinion: No-No-No
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    > The games we write are always games with a scientific purpose (not training not educational) I'd say investigating how to get the crowd may be an important part of "science of crowdsourcing". So, an obvious example would be comparing how many participants the original ACT space mission game attracted versus a variant implemented in Kerbal and why. Easily made and easily publishable I think. But that's just an obvious example I can give on the spot. I think there is more potential than that, so would not dismiss the idea so definitively. But then, correct me if I'm wrong, social sciences are still not represented in the ACT... Perhaps an idea to revive during the upcoming retreat? ;-)
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    it's on sale on steam til tomorrow by the way if anyone's interested
Joris _

The seeds of disruptive innovation within the European Space Agency - 24 August 2010 > ... - 5 views

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    :p
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    haha :) well.. don't shoot me Dario. I wasn't involved in this disclosure. But now that the link is public, you might all want to consider subscribing to their feed: http://ewds.strath.ac.uk/space/Podcasts.aspx They have some nice talks there. One of them is by Ken McLeod, the science fiction writer. Is anyone else with me on the idea that we should also invite science fiction writers for science coffees? :)
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    So nice to hear Dario again! :-) But apparently UoS needs someone a bit more skilled to handle these videos...
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    Only one self-comment alla Barney ..... suit-up
Luís F. Simões

Space Colonists Could Use Bacteria to Mine Minerals on Mars and the Moon - 3 views

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    Link to the paper that is the subject of this article: Olsson-Francis, Karen and Cockell, Charles (2010). Use of cyanobacteria for in-situ resource use in space applications. Planetary And Space Science, 58(10), 1279-1285.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2010.05.005
Nina Nadine Ridder

Europe offers space station as platform for climate science - Technology News - SINA E... - 0 views

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    The European Space Agency is looking at proposals for using the International Space Station as a platform for climate science, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain said on Thursday.
pacome delva

TeamParis-SynthEthics - 5 views

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    This is an interesting report from a student in sociology, who worked with a group of scientists on a synthetic biology project for the competition IGEM (http://2009.igem.org/Main_Page). This is what happen when you mix hard and soft sciences. For this project they won the special prize for "Best Human Practices Advance". You can read the part on self or exploded governance (p.34). When reading parts of this reports, I thought that it could be good to have a stagiaire or a YGT in human science to see if we can raise interesting question about ethics for the space sector. There are many questions I'm sure, about the governance, the legitimacy of spending millions to go in space, etc...
Nina Nadine Ridder

Moon Dreams | North America > United States from AllBusiness.com - 0 views

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    NASA aims to "create a healthy private-sector competition for transport to the space station". Through this the development of space tourism is enforced and an increase in the number of rocket launches should be expected. 
Luís F. Simões

William Shatner Wakes Up Crew for Final Discovery Mission - Slashdot - 1 views

  • The Space Shuttle Discovery left the International Space Station this morning for the last time. To commemorate the ship's accomplishments over 27 years of service, the crew was greeted to a morning wake-up message from Capt. Kirk. "Space, the final frontier," Shatner said in a prerecorded message. "These have been the voyages of the space shuttle Discovery. Her 30-year mission: to seek out new science, to build new outposts, to bring nations together on the final frontier, to boldly go and do what no spacecraft has done before."
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    here's a recording of the transmission: http://ia600406.us.archive.org/13/items/STS-133/03-07-11_STS-133_FD12_Crew_Wakeup.mp3 to quote from the thread at reddit: "When the space shuttle first flew, 55 americans were being held hostage in the embassy in Iran, and Ronald Reagan had just become president. That same year Prince Charles would marry Lady Diana, the HIV virus would be first identified, Post-It notes were invented, and a small company called Microsoft released it's new operating system MS-DOS."
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    Speaking of William Shatner, the legendary "Rocket Man": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hARDXYz2io
ESA ACT

Basics of Space Flight - 0 views

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    Basics of Space Flight is a tutorial designed primarily to help operations people identify the range of concepts associated with deep space missions, and grasp the relationships among them.
Luís F. Simões

Boeing probes international market for human spacecraft - 1 views

  • The aerospace powerhouse is designing and testing systems for its CST-100 space capsule, a craft the company says could begin flying astronauts to low Earth orbit by 2015. It will launch on existing rockets to lessen development risk and costs.
  • "The spacecraft that we're designing is rocket-agnostic. It would be possible to sell this like a commercial airplane to countries who perhaps have a launch vehicle who would like to launch it in their own country."
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    ...and hitting the news in the same day: A Rocket Built from U.S. and European Parts "A new rocket that would combine parts from NASA's canceled Ares I rocket as well as the Ariane 5 , a well-proven European satellite launcher, could provide a low-cost option for taking crew and cargo to the space station. The rocket proposal was announced this week by ATK, an aerospace and defense company that manufactures the solid rocket motors for NASA's space shuttles, and Astrium, the European company that makes the Ariane 5. They say the rocket, called Liberty, would be ready for flight by 2015." "Other commercial companies, including Boeing and Orbital Sciences Corporation, are looking to use low-end versions of the Atlas V to carry the capsules they are building. Liberty could carry any capsule at a cost less than that of the Atlas V, according to ATK." Look! Competition! :)
nikolas smyrlakis

BBC News - European space missions given cost warning - 1 views

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    Cosmic Vision missions, some of which to be selected before the end of 2011.. Favorite phrase: "Mindful of the recent criticism the agency has received from member states on the issue of cost overruns, Professor David Southwood, Esa's director of science and robotics, told the teams: "Industry and the science community need to get to work on this; it's a collective responsibility."" :-> reference class forecasting!
jaihobah

Couture In Orbit: when space and fashion collide | Science Museum Blog - 0 views

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    I'm not sure what's new here; space and fashion collide violently every day at the ACT...
Lionel Jacques

Russian Craft Fails to Head to Mars Moon - 1 views

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    Out-of-control Russian space probe may be 'most toxic falling satellite ever: A Russian space probe aiming to land on a Mars moon was stuck circling the Earth after equipment failure Wednesday, and scientists raced to fire up its engines before the whole thing came crashing down.
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    Is it just me, or is uncontrolled space junk re-entry becoming trendy?
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    this was a fantastic mission - ... what a pity!
Francesco Biscani

The End Of Gravity As a Fundamental Force - 6 views

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    "At a symposium at the Dutch Spinoza-instituut on 8 December, 2009, string theorist Erik Verlinde introduced a theory that derives Newton's classical mechanics. In his theory, gravity exists because of a difference in concentration of information in the empty space between two masses and its surroundings. He does not consider gravity as fundamental, but as an emergent phenomenon that arises from a deeper microscropic reality. A relativistic extension of his argument leads directly to Einstein's equations."
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    Diffcult for me to fully understand / believe in the holographic principle at macroscopical scales ... potentially it looks though as a revolutionary idea.....
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    never heard about it... seems interesting. At first sight it seems that it is based on fundamental principle that could lead to a new phenomenology, so that could be tested. Perhaps Luzi knows more about this ? Did we ever work on this concept ?
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    The paper is quite long and I don't have the time right now to read it in detail. Just a few comments: * We (ACT) definitely never did anything in this direction? But: is there a new phenomenology? I'm not sure, if the aim is just to get Einstein's theory as emergent theory, then GR should not change (or only change in extreme conditions.) * Emergent gravity is not new, also Erik admits that. The claim to have found a solution appears quite frequently, but most proposals actually are not emergent at all. At least, I have the impression that Erik is aware of the relevant steps to be performed. * It's very difficult to judge from a short glance at the paper, up to which point the claims are serious and where it just starts to be advertisments. Section 6 is pretty much a collection of self-praise. * Most importantly: I don't understand how exactly space and time should be emergent. I think it's not new to observe that space is related to special canonical variables in thermodynamics. If anybody can see anything "emergent" in the first paragraphs of section 3, then please explain me. For me, this is not emergent space, but space introduced with a "sledge hammer." Time anyway seems to be a precondition, else there is nothing like energy and nothing like dynamics. * Finally, holography appears to be a precondition, to my knowledge no proof exists that normal (non-supersymmetric, non-stringy, non-whatever) GR has a holographic dual.
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    Update: meanwhile I understood roughly what this should be about. It's well known that BH physics follow the laws of theormodynamics, suggesting the existence of underlying microstates. But if this is true, shouldn't the gravitational force then be emergent from these microstates in the same way as any theromdynamical effect is emergent from the behavior of its constituents (e.g. a gas)? If this can be prooven, then indeed gravity is emergent. Problem: one has to proof that *any* configuration in GR may be interpreted as thermodynamical, not just BHs. That's probably where holography comes into the play. To me this smells pretty much like N=4 SYM vs. QCD. The former is not QCD, but can be solved, so all stringy people study just that one and claim to learn something about QCD. Here, we look at holographic models, GR is not holographic, but who cares... Engineering problems...
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    is there any experimental or observational evidence that points to this "solution"?
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    Are you joking??? :D
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    I was a bit fast to say it could be tested... apparently we don't even know a theory that is holographic, perhaps a string theory (see http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9409089v2). So very far from any test...
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    Luzi, I miss you!!!
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    Leo, do you mean you liked my comment on your question more than Pacome's? Well, the ACT has to evolve and fledge, so no bullshitting anymore, but serious and calculating answers... :-) Sorry Pacome, nothing against you!! I just LOVE this Diigo because it gives me the opportunity for a happy revival of my ACT mood.
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    haha, today would have been great to show your mood... we had a talk on the connection between mind and matter !!
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