In a perfect world we would clone Michael and he would be the only person to ever appear in RUclips videos. Him standing in front of the Mental Floss background on the Mental Floss channel is evidence enough for me to believe that this is already starting to happen.
Speaking as someone who has actually done a couple of science illustrations in the past, you always have to make the cut somewhere. There is infinite complexity in the analog, four-dimensional world, and you have to decide what it is you actually want to emphasize. There is no such thing as an accurate illustration. Both terms exclude each other. Especially if you are forced to display four dimensional, or even three dimensional content on 2 dimensional media. So if you want to legitimately critizice an illustration, first tell us what it is supposed to communicate, in its original context, and then point out how it not actually does that.
Well said. The only illustration of something that is 100% accurate is that something itself. The whole point is to simplify and emphasize different parts to better convey a part of it. I think for maps there is also the simplicity in having it fit onto a single square piece of paper. It's not to scale but it serves its purpose.
thank you for expressing that much better than i would have. im sick of people harping on the different illustrations we use for atoms. its quite ironic that he mentions scale with the solar system since its just as impossible with atoms.
There's a really cool hiking trail in Valberg (France) called Sentier Planétaire. Basically you start your hike from a sculpture that represents the sun, and then the whole solar system is represented to scale: 1m = 1 million km. It makes you realize how far away some planets are compared to what you see in books, because you have to walk, it makes it clear to see that distances vary.
+MsLyraGW And there is another true scale model of the solar system in Stockholm. Ok, it starts in Stockholm - the Ericsson Globe sports arena is the Sun, and the planets reach out hundreds of kilometres northward into Sweden. You can look up the location of the planets, which are to the same scale.
Hi Mental Floss. I like the pace of this video much better than the usual ones. I learned so much today, unlike with other list videos where I was just bombarded with information and only retain one or two 'facts' instead of real knowledge.
I'd say pull the molecules apart rather than breaking them, because breaking them would create new molecules along the cut and therefore a different material, no?
Pull apart is the most accurate term but they don't pull apart the molecules, that would change what it is. They just pull apart the bonds that hold the molecules of a solid close together. Like pulling two people hugging apart, you don't cut their arms off, you just overcome the strength of their grip.
The cutting action is more like shearing. And scissors and knives will cut molecules like long polymer or organics chains. Think of cutting plastic or meat.
It's interesting to see a show which is normally hosted by a fast talking host be hosted by a slower speaker. Definitely a different experience. I can dig it. :)
It's really nice to hear a nice-paced explanation instead of the typical speedy Green brothers style. :) Love both, bit this is easier to follow and learn from.
You know, I was just trying to find out if you posted a new video on your channel. There wasn't one and I was a little bummed and saw that you were on this channel. Michael, you are awesome.
The Map fact is not entirely correct. You can't project a non-Eucledian shape (like a sphere) on paper (an Eucledian space). You can for example project a 3d cylinder on paper (without top and bottom) :D But great video! A lot of pet-peeves of mine...
Michael is on a green screen in this video, if you didn't notice. That is pretty cool. So he record himself and mental floss green screened him to the set. Awesome :D
There exists a scale one to a billion model of the solar system. It's called the Fjerretslev Planet Path and it stretches for over five kilometers. It can be found in Fjerretslev, Denmark - a beautiful area for hiking, camping or playing on the beach.
HEY! I have a very serious question! What IS fire??? Is it plasma?? Energy?? A very concentrated form of heat? Is it a solid? A gas? Is there any matter within the actual flames of a fire??? Please make a video response if you see this. I cant find a solid description about fire anywhere!!
Is pure energy from combustion when the temperature of the object is pretty high. It is made of the object itself burning and the surrounding gas. Of course there its matter, not something you could actually feel tho, because the fire itself is pure gas and energy, so even if you had like... superpowers of heat immunity, you would not feel anything there.
TheDarkFlameHero gas is matter, the flame is a change in energy as molecules are broken then recombine in lower energy state what you see are photons mostly Na i believe causes orange flame the temperature is just the - enthlapy. combustion creates co2 (g) and h2o (g) so there is matter end even mass to fire i hope you take chem in college you can learn so much more about all these things
Michael has covered most, if not all, of the inaccuracies in this video, at one point or another, in his own videos. But its definitely interesting to see them listed.
I did not expect so much to not be the way I think it is and also I did not expect Michael here. Pretty cool to see YT channels working together though!
This could also be titled “models have limitations and unless you didn’t pass 3rd grade science, 5th grade science, 6th grade science, forgot about it in 8th grade science, and had your ears covered in high school, you already knew that.”
Not that I don't like John Green, but I was just thinking "Man, I'm really in the mood to hear Michael talk - he needs to upload another video." I'm so pleased.
***** I've been telling them to get further away from their green screen so there isn't any reflection of the color on the host. Eventually, they'll listen.
I like how you think. :-) I would say yes, they would be second-hand. Even though you are genetically identical, your clone would still be a second, seperate human being than the original you. Another example of that logic: You're married, and your wife is fully aware the clone exists and can tell the difference between you two. If she and the clone have sex (without an agreement that clone-sexing is okay with you) that would be adultery. She's not having sex with *you*, right?
Ahh.. yeah, that's pretty tricky. (Again, I love hypotheticals like this!.:-) So, thanks for posing it, Christopher! ) Apologies in advance for the length of this post, but this is pretty heavy topic. - For the sake of this argument, let's define a clone as a human not only genetically identical to you, but also aged-up to be equal in age, and imprinted with your memories and experiences. That way you're almost equal in all facets of life. (After all, genetics are only part of what makes "you" - experiences are also a big factor in who you are.) -Also, let's define "You" as being the original copy (the supplier of the DNA used to create the clone.) You are still a seperate being from your clone. I'm basing this on the logic that identical or conjoined twins are two seperate people, despite being genetically identical or sharing a body. If someone punches CloneYou in the face, you won't feel it. If You have sex with your clone, it's not masturbation. If you both wanted to take a trip by plane, you'd have to buy two tickets. -Imagine yourself sitting next to your clone. While you would likely feel a strong connection with your clone (they know you best!) you wouldn't feel like the two of you are one singular person, right? So it makes sense that any posessions, and future life experiences belong to the one who has them. -In legal terms, this would also be the case. You couldn't commit murder and send CloneYou to jail to serve the sentence because you are technically "both You." It's also likely that Original You would be entitled to all possessions, since it could be argued that CloneYou didn't even exist when You bought those items. They would also have to be assigned a seperate Social Security Number and all other legal docs. --Now if you want to get into deeper moral implications like Souls, or if CloneYou trying to rekindle a relationship with an Ex-lover would be commiting fraud (since they technically did not date, despite CloneYou having felt they shared that original experience) that's completely different. I don't feel qualified enough to even entertain those right now... -But I would assume that - if you're both existng at the same time - it's probably a lot better to be the Original You than the Cloned You. And if you're planning to have yourself cloned after death, write your future cloned self into your will just to be safe. Odds are, they would be considered a seperate entity.
A clone is exactly like an identical twin. So your question is "If you died but had an identical twin, would the clothes he takes off your cadaver be second hand?". Sounds a bit less profound that way, doesn't it? What you really mean is "copy", not "clone".
I love Micheal's videos. He is coming to Mumbai, India where I live but I can't get to meet him since all tickets are sold out. :( I wish I could. I have following his channel since last year and he has really inspired me. I hope he reads this.
The electron diagram isn't really wrong it just takes some explanation. No chemistry professor points out that diagram and says "this is exactly what electrons look like around the nucleus" usually a good bit of explanation comes with that diagram talking about energy levels and orbitals and so on.
victryismin89 You want entropy try this. The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five-dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way: Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole. Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough. So Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share in the glory that was Multivac's. For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth's poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both. But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact. The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower. Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public functions, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it. They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle. "It's amazing when you think of it," said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. "All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever." Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. "Not forever," he said. "Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert." "That's not forever." "All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Ten billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?" Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. "Ten billion years isn't forever." "Well, it will last our time, won't it?" "So would the coal and uranium." "All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can't do that on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don't believe me. "I don't have to ask Multivac. I know that." "Then stop running down what Multivac's done for us," said Adell, blazing up, "It did all right." "Who says it didn't? What I say is that a sun won't last forever. That's all I'm saying. We're safe for ten billion years, but then what?" Lupow pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. "And don't say we'll switch to another sun." There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov's eyes slowly closed. They rested. Then Lupov's eyes snapped open. "You're thinking we'll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren't you?" "I'm not thinking." "Sure you are. You're weak on logic, that's the trouble with you. You're like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one." "I get it," said Adell. "Don't shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too." "Darn right they will," muttered Lupov. "It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred million years. The sun will last ten billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last two hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all." "I know all about entropy," said Adell, standing on his dignity. "The hell you do." "I know as much as you do." "Then you know everything's got to run down someday." "All right. Who says they won't?" "You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said 'forever.' It was Adell's turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can build things up again someday," he said. "Never." "Why not? Someday." "Never." "Ask Multivac." "You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can't be done." Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age? Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased? Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended. Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER. "No bet," whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly. By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten the incident. Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright shining disk, the size of a marble, centered on the viewing-screen. "That's X-23," said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened. The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of insideoutness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, "We've reached X-23 -- we've reached X-23 -- we've --" "Quiet, children." said Jerrodine sharply. "Are you sure, Jerrodd?" "What is there to be but sure?" asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship. Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspatial jumps. Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship. Someone had once told Jerrodd that the "ac" at the end of "Microvac" stood for ''automatic computer" in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that. Jerrodine's eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. "I can't help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth." "Why, for Pete's sake?" demanded Jerrodd. "We had nothing there. We'll have everything on X-23. You won't be alone. You won't be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great-grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded." Then, after a reflective pause, "I tell you, it's a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing." "I know, I know," said Jerrodine miserably. Jerrodette I said promptly, "Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world." "I think so, too," said Jerrodd, tousling her hair. It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father's youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors, had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship. Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth's Planetarv AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible. "So many stars, so many planets," sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. "I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now." "Not forever," said Jerrodd, with a smile. "It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase. "What's entropy, daddy?" shrilled Jerrodette II. "Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?" "Can't you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?" "The stars are the power-units. dear. Once they're gone, there are no more power-units." Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. "Don't let them, daddy. Don't let the stars run down." "Now look what you've done," whispered Jerrodine, exasperated. "How was I to know it would frighten them?" Jerrodd whispered back, "Ask the Microvac," wailed Jerrodette I. "Ask him how to turn the stars on again." "Go ahead," said Jerrodine. "It will quiet them down." (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.) Jerrodd shrugged. "Now, now, honeys. I'll ask Microvac. Don't worry, he'll tell us." He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, "Print the answer." Jerrodd cupped the strip or thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, "See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don't worry." Jerrodine said, "And now, children, it's time for bed. We'll be in our new home soon." Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER. He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead. VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, "Are we ridiculous, I wonder in being so concerned about the matter?" MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. "I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion." Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed. "Still," said VJ-23X, "I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council." "I wouldn't consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We've got to stir them up." VJ-23X sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More." "A hundred billion is not infinite and it's getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years -- VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for that." "Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problem of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions." "Yet you wouldn't want to abandon life, I suppose." "Not at all," snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, "Not yet. I'm by no means old enough. How old are you?" "Two hundred twenty-three. And you?" "I'm still under two hundred. --But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this GaIaxy is filled, we'll have filled another in ten years. Another ten years and we'll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we'll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known universe. Then what?" VJ-23X said, "As a side issue, there's a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next." "A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year." "Most of it's wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those." "Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in a geometric progression even faster than our population. We'll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point." "We'll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas." "Or out of dissipated heat?" asked MQ-17J, sarcastically. "There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC." VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him. "I've half a mind to," he said. "It's something the human race will have to face someday." He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC. MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of submesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite its sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across. MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, "Can entropy ever be reversed?" VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, "Oh, say, I didn't really mean to have you ask that." "Why not?" "We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't turn smoke and ash back into a tree." "Do you have trees on your world?" asked MQ-17J. The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER. VJ-23X said, "See!" The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council. Zee Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity. --But a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space. Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals. Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind. "I am Zee Prime," said Zee Prime. "And you?" "I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?" "We call it only the Galaxy. And you?" "We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?" "True. Since all Galaxies are the same." "Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different." Zee Prime said, "On which one?" "I cannot say. The Universal AC would know." "Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious." Zee Prime's perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrank and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the original Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man. Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and he called out: "Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?" The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor led through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof. Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see. "But how can that be all of Universal AC?" Zee Prime had asked. "Most of it," had been the answer, "is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine." Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a Universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged. The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime's wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars. A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. "THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN." But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Lee Prime stifled his disappointment. Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, "And is one of these stars the original star of Man?" The Universal AC said, "MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS A WHITE DWARF" "Did the men upon it die?" asked Lee Prime, startled and without thinking. The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TlME." "Yes, of course," said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again. Dee Sub Wun said, "What is wrong?" "The stars are dying. The original star is dead." "They must all die. Why not?" "But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them." "It will take billions of years." "I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?" Dee Sub Wun said in amusement, "You're asking how entropy might be reversed in direction." And the Universal AC answered: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER." Zee Prime's thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a Galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime's own. It didn't matter. Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built. Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable. Man said, "The Universe is dying." Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end. New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars built, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too. Man said, "Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years." "But even so," said Man, "eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase forever to the maximum." Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC." The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and nature no longer had meaning in any terms that Man could comprehend. "Cosmic AC," said Man, "how may entropy be reversed?" The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER." Man said, "Collect additional data." The Cosmic AC said, 'I WILL DO S0. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TlMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT. "Will there come a time," said Man, 'when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?" The Cosmic AC said, "NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES." Man said, "When will you have enough data to answer the question?" The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER." "Will you keep working on it?" asked Man. The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL." Man said, "We shall wait." The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down. One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain. Man's last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero. Man said, "AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?" AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER." Man's last mind fused and only AC existed -- and that in hyperspace. Matter and energy had ended and with it space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer [technician] ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man. All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness. All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected. But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships. A timeless interval was spent in doing that. And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy. But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too. For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program. The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done. And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!" And there was light --
Xzazazazia Mh, the question is more profound than that. Personal tastes don't appear ex nihilo, they come to life and through life, and the question is : how? :)
Many people create associations between the colors they enjoy and positive memories or thought. Color is simply a subject that psychologists have been trying to understand and study for years. Therefore no true answer.
Mental Floss, I have come to expect at least a bare minimum of fact checking from you. That is not a Mercator projection. There is no such thing as a "Gail-Peters" projection; the one you're thinking of is the Gall-Peters, and mentioning it is a sure sign that you don't know what your talking about. In order to atone, I challenge you to make a new video that actually shows the strange and wondrous projections that exist, like the Littrow projection, the Butterfly projection, and the Dymaxion projection. Only then shall you be cleansed.
But isn't Mental Floss just a research team and not a bunch of scientists? So, although their content is reliable, we cannot be totally sure that it is 100% reliable, right? And also, this research team is using mostly Internet for this research, compiling information from other equally not-so-100-percent reliable websites, so even with well-known sources, we couldn't know for sure if ALL this is true.
Mental Floss is a team of educators. They gather interesting information and share it with people. Given that, you would expect them to do some basic fact checking. Knowing how calamitously wrong they got this, how can I have faith in anything else they post?
Ramix09 nop. not as sure as i am that there was no moon landing, a magic bullet hit jfk, there were aliens at roswell and the elvis is in the bahamas with michael jackson and tupac
While inaccurate illustrations are sometimes a problem, taking illustrations like the march of progress, and the illustrations of the planets, literally just means you haven't understood the subject at all.
I thought the title of the video was 15 Inaccuracies Found In Common Sense. Through the entire video I though, 'well, it's interesting, but none of this has to do with common sense. Please do a video about things that are considered common sense but are wrong. I need to see a video about this, now.
In fact, the Velociraptor in Jurassic Park isn't based on a Velociraptor at all. I can't remember its name, but the actual Velociraptor is a lot smaller than the dinosaur (that did however exist) depicted in the movies.
Deinonychus... And when Michael Crichton wrote JP there was a misspelling of the species of an Utahraptor discovered those years, putting it under the 'velociraptor' genus. So he tough velociraptors were huge. And Spielberg didn't bother to correct it... Well, I like to see it as that Ingen created messed up dinosaurs.
3:20 just go here for an accurate representation of the scale and size of our solar system. joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html it is really quite humbling to see how insignificant we actually are.
Interesting note about Da Vinci's anatomical drawings: During the times he didn't have access to human bodies, he would also dissect, study, and draw animal structures. Several sketches of structures, which were drawn inside a human shape, more likely were drawn from (and resemble to a zootonomist) ox hearts and uteri, among other structures from other animals. The distinction between anatomy and zootonomy in Da Vinci's time were seen as comparable, and in many cases, identical, to just about anyone, including surgeons and doctors (many of whom never really got to poke an human viscera because of taboo).
Oh my god, I got so excited when I clicked on this video and saw Michael pop up. Two of my favorite channels combined
***** Yeah, that's what I thought.
Sadly he's on a greenscreen...
also funny even though I have seen like 95% + of the vSAUCE videos I don't think I have ever heard Michael say his last name before
But does it matter that he's on a greenscreen?
It seems so weird without his usual music.
I thought it strange also.
I got mind blown by just hearing Michael after I clicked the video.
My jaw actually dropped
Weston Heitkamp I get that
I was so surprised to see Michael from Vsauce here !
Pleasantly surprised I must add ^^
Did anybody else keep waiting for the Vsauce music to kick in?
Here.
145 (Poodles) by Jake Chudnow [HD]
Going Down by Jake Chudnow [HD]
"And as always. Thanks for watching."
I was waiting for the Vsauce to leave and get john back because it sucks anyway.
NovemberCrystal I played these in the background while watching the video
Caxxatron You may not like Vsauce, but that is just not constructive criticism.
thepancakeking I'm doing this right now. Makes the video that much better.
If there's anybody other than John that I would rather see on this channel, it's Michael.
Michael we love you :) You are very professional and clear, as always...even if it's not your show!
Michael is amazing. I was surprised to see him here, honestly.
I just realized Michael isn't actually there and is just in front of a green screen.
Tommy Page the color misbalance was driving me crazy...thanks for pointing out its root. I can sleep a little easier now.
The clipping of the side of his glasses is what tipped me off.
You sure
Vsauce, Michael here...
OR AM I?!
Michael: Talks about the Mercator projection. Image: not the Mercator projection
I know right
Also, calling the Gall-Peters the "Gail-Peters".
It's nice to see a guest host who is actually smart and fun to watch.
HOLY SHIT MICHAEL FROM VSAUSE ON MENTAL FLOSS MY MIND JUST GOT BLOWN
No, you would need Kevin for that...
OH MY GOD IT'S MICHAEL SOMEONE HELP I LOVE HIM
Andrew Winn It's ok i'm here! wait you mean vsauce2 kevin? oh.... I'll just be on my way....
In a perfect world we would clone Michael and he would be the only person to ever appear in RUclips videos. Him standing in front of the Mental Floss background on the Mental Floss channel is evidence enough for me to believe that this is already starting to happen.
Speaking as someone who has actually done a couple of science illustrations in the past, you always have to make the cut somewhere. There is infinite complexity in the analog, four-dimensional world, and you have to decide what it is you actually want to emphasize.
There is no such thing as an accurate illustration. Both terms exclude each other. Especially if you are forced to display four dimensional, or even three dimensional content on 2 dimensional media.
So if you want to legitimately critizice an illustration, first tell us what it is supposed to communicate, in its original context, and then point out how it not actually does that.
Well said. The only illustration of something that is 100% accurate is that something itself. The whole point is to simplify and emphasize different parts to better convey a part of it. I think for maps there is also the simplicity in having it fit onto a single square piece of paper. It's not to scale but it serves its purpose.
thank you for expressing that much better than i would have. im sick of people harping on the different illustrations we use for atoms. its quite ironic that he mentions scale with the solar system since its just as impossible with atoms.
There's a really cool hiking trail in Valberg (France) called Sentier Planétaire. Basically you start your hike from a sculpture that represents the sun, and then the whole solar system is represented to scale: 1m = 1 million km. It makes you realize how far away some planets are compared to what you see in books, because you have to walk, it makes it clear to see that distances vary.
+MsLyraGW There is also one just outside Geneva, Switzerland in the town of Bernex. Even with small planets to scale it makes for a long walk.
I didn't know that, thank you :)
+MsLyraGW And there is another true scale model of the solar system in Stockholm. Ok, it starts in Stockholm - the Ericsson Globe sports arena is the Sun, and the planets reach out hundreds of kilometres northward into Sweden. You can look up the location of the planets, which are to the same scale.
There's even one in Zürich! There's a hike from the Uetliberg, it's really cool :)
Ahhhhhh my two favorite channels working together oh you guys made my day!
This episode combined two of my favorite channels
This is probably the only guy that i'm comfortable with doing Mental Floss besides John Green
Hi Mental Floss. I like the pace of this video much better than the usual ones. I learned so much today, unlike with other list videos where I was just bombarded with information and only retain one or two 'facts' instead of real knowledge.
"Oh look, another mental_floss video, time to learn some stuff. HOLY SHIT! IT'S MICHAEL!"
OH MY GOD! Michael is perfect for mental_floss!
getting vsauce to host instead of max silvestri with the dos equis plugs- 100% improvement
I was waiting for the normal Vsauce creepy music, but forgot it wasn't his channel I was watching :D
It's also strange to realize how slowly Michael speaks compared to John. Today's video was a little easier to follow than usual.
I am surprised Vsause incorporated into Mental Floss. This is a mix of two of the shows I love.
7:20
Did Michael just say "I don't even know"?
The universe is over
Actually he said "How do you even know whats going on here!?".
Kala Pradeep *I don't even know what's going on here.
David Barroso I thought so, too, but after listening to it again, he definitely said "How do you even know what's going on here".
Yndostrui I could see how someone would hear it like that, but it still seems more like he's saying "I don't even know" to me.
+Yndostrui I don't*
Be honest. When John Green wasn't there, we were sad. But when we found out it was Michael, we cheered!
Hell yeah! Two of my favorite educational shows in one.
+1 For Michael Stevens!
Oh, and I loved how you green screened the backdrop of the salon behind him.
How does scissors, and knives work?
On the _molecular_ level, that is!
Do they cut long molecular strains, or do they pull them apart?
I'd say pull the molecules apart rather than breaking them, because breaking them would create new molecules along the cut and therefore a different material, no?
Pull apart is the most accurate term but they don't pull apart the molecules, that would change what it is. They just pull apart the bonds that hold the molecules of a solid close together. Like pulling two people hugging apart, you don't cut their arms off, you just overcome the strength of their grip.
The cutting action is more like shearing. And scissors and knives will cut molecules like long polymer or organics chains. Think of cutting plastic or meat.
More important, which is more powerful, rock, paper or scissors?
@@dbk97 dont even know if this is true or not but it's very convincing!
OH my Glob! You guys got Michael from freakin' Vsause on here! If you get Bill Nye on here, then I'll probably explode!
Cool. Now we just need Mike from PBS Idea Channel to host an episode, and the nerd trinity will be complete.
It's interesting to see a show which is normally hosted by a fast talking host be hosted by a slower speaker. Definitely a different experience. I can dig it. :)
Michael Stevens definitely needs to be a regular!
Love you Michael!
The awesomeness of these two RUclips channels just merged.... I think this is the beginning of the apocalypse.... :(
Considering Michael has a degree in neuropsychology...I REALLY hope he shows up as a guest on SciShow Psychology! :D
Keiran On
...I totally meant that. Can I just pretend I didn't have a brain fart? :P
At first I was like "hope it's not another guest host" then I was like "I am totally okay with this".
I like how he introduced himself as if somebody doesn't know who he is
It's really nice to hear a nice-paced explanation instead of the typical speedy Green brothers style. :) Love both, bit this is easier to follow and learn from.
I was almost expecting this to start with "Hi MentalFloss, Michael here..."
What? since when does this exist? There is more of Michael? How did I not know this!!!!!!
It's like a thumbs up for Vsause and floss all at once. I wonder if green will be in a Vsause ep?
Everyone needs to be aware of these inaccurate illustrations exposed everywhere.. Thumbs up :)
You know, I was just trying to find out if you posted a new video on your channel. There wasn't one and I was a little bummed and saw that you were on this channel. Michael, you are awesome.
The Map fact is not entirely correct. You can't project a non-Eucledian shape (like a sphere) on paper (an Eucledian space). You can for example project a 3d cylinder on paper (without top and bottom) :D But great video! A lot of pet-peeves of mine...
Sorry... That was a typo, correcting it asap :D Thanks
***** No prob, I'll delete my jerky comment now. :3
He probably meant the sphere which cannot be projected on to a plane without distorting angles or areas. So every map will have imperfections.
Michael is on a green screen in this video, if you didn't notice. That is pretty cool. So he record himself and mental floss green screened him to the set. Awesome :D
They do that with pretty much every single guest.
Woah, I've never heard his voice without that odd music playing in the background.
Omg... A good guest host.
Idk, Hank was a pretty good guest host as well.
Emily from brain scoop was awesome though
Wheezy Waiter was great with coffee
lol It's so strange to see Vsauce and Mental Floss combined! I really like it!
There exists a scale one to a billion model of the solar system.
It's called the Fjerretslev Planet Path and it stretches for over five kilometers.
It can be found in Fjerretslev, Denmark - a beautiful area for hiking, camping or playing on the beach.
Velociraptor was also about the size of a chicken. The ones in the movie are more similar to Utah Raptors
How much of the stuff in the background do you people recognize that's quite a collection there.
Too bad it's greenscreen.
alidoge I don't think it is a green screen. John has taken stuff off of it.
alidoge Its real, re-watch previous episodes and he picks up physical objects from it.
Looks like it's a green screen for vsauce dude. He's probably not in the same area as the normal production stage for mental floss.
***** i agree
Wow, Michael, it must have been hard for you to stay on one subject for that long.
I just like how Michael explains stuff. Huge respect!
Michael, only you could stretch 15 inaccuracies into lasting 9 minutes. Truly beautiful.
HEY! I have a very serious question! What IS fire??? Is it plasma?? Energy?? A very concentrated form of heat? Is it a solid? A gas? Is there any matter within the actual flames of a fire??? Please make a video response if you see this. I cant find a solid description about fire anywhere!!
Wikipedia is your friend.
Is pure energy from combustion when the temperature of the object is pretty high. It is made of the object itself burning and the surrounding gas. Of course there its matter, not something you could actually feel tho, because the fire itself is pure gas and energy, so even if you had like... superpowers of heat immunity, you would not feel anything there.
TheDarkFlameHero
TheDarkFlameHero
gas is matter, the flame is a change in energy as molecules are broken then recombine in lower energy state what you see are photons mostly Na i believe causes orange flame the temperature is just the - enthlapy. combustion creates co2 (g) and h2o (g) so there is matter end even mass to fire i hope you take chem in college you can learn so much more about all these things
i almost screamed with excitement when i saw the vsauce guy
John, I fully expect you to pop up on a VSauce video here soon
Michael has covered most, if not all, of the inaccuracies in this video, at one point or another, in his own videos. But its definitely interesting to see them listed.
I'm a Huge Michael and Vsauce fan... This was so awesome...
Thanks for combining 2 awesome thinss.
At the end I expected to hear "And don't forget to be awesome...but what IS awesome"
Michael sounds so different without music playing in the background...
Where them videos for vsauce!!! I demand a 1hour vsauce speciaaalll
I did not expect so much to not be the way I think it is and also I did not expect Michael here. Pretty cool to see YT channels working together though!
Holy crap, Vsauce is in a Mental Floss video.
My life is complete.
I guess this is the first guest host everyone agrees with :)
there was one mentalfloss with hank green, and i'm fairly certain that many people enjoyed hank as a guest host.
This could also be titled “models have limitations and unless you didn’t pass 3rd grade science, 5th grade science, 6th grade science, forgot about it in 8th grade science, and had your ears covered in high school, you already knew that.”
Ikr
VSauce!!!! I love his channel so much.
Not that I don't like John Green, but I was just thinking "Man, I'm really in the mood to hear Michael talk - he needs to upload another video." I'm so pleased.
First time seeing a mental floss video. When I clicked the thumbnail and saw Michael on the screen, I immediately pressed the subscribe button.
Its strange watching Michael without the weird vsauce music in the background!
Its like watching someone twerk with no music.
I was just about to comment the same thing.
is that just a green screen of john's salon?
Yes. They live in different states.
ES50678 Actually, not to be technical, but Michael lives in Britain, which isn't a state :P
***** I've been telling them to get further away from their green screen so there isn't any reflection of the color on the host. Eventually, they'll listen.
doctorzimgaming I actually thought he lived in the US in New England somewhere so no biggie lol
If you died and were cloned, would the clothes you take off of the original cadaver be second hand?
No, but you may want to clone the clothing just to be sure.
I like how you think. :-) I would say yes, they would be second-hand. Even though you are genetically identical, your clone would still be a second, seperate human being than the original you.
Another example of that logic: You're married, and your wife is fully aware the clone exists and can tell the difference between you two. If she and the clone have sex (without an agreement that clone-sexing is okay with you) that would be adultery. She's not having sex with *you*, right?
That's the question isn't it? It wasn't so much the clothes so much as the ulterior question of what exactly is 'you'.
Ahh.. yeah, that's pretty tricky. (Again, I love hypotheticals like this!.:-) So, thanks for posing it, Christopher! ) Apologies in advance for the length of this post, but this is pretty heavy topic.
- For the sake of this argument, let's define a clone as a human not only genetically identical to you, but also aged-up to be equal in age, and imprinted with your memories and experiences. That way you're almost equal in all facets of life. (After all, genetics are only part of what makes "you" - experiences are also a big factor in who you are.)
-Also, let's define "You" as being the original copy (the supplier of the DNA used to create the clone.) You are still a seperate being from your clone. I'm basing this on the logic that identical or conjoined twins are two seperate people, despite being genetically identical or sharing a body. If someone punches CloneYou in the face, you won't feel it. If You have sex with your clone, it's not masturbation. If you both wanted to take a trip by plane, you'd have to buy two tickets.
-Imagine yourself sitting next to your clone. While you would likely feel a strong connection with your clone (they know you best!) you wouldn't feel like the two of you are one singular person, right? So it makes sense that any posessions, and future life experiences belong to the one who has them.
-In legal terms, this would also be the case. You couldn't commit murder and send CloneYou to jail to serve the sentence because you are technically "both You." It's also likely that Original You would be entitled to all possessions, since it could be argued that CloneYou didn't even exist when You bought those items. They would also have to be assigned a seperate Social Security Number and all other legal docs.
--Now if you want to get into deeper moral implications like Souls, or if CloneYou trying to rekindle a relationship with an Ex-lover would be commiting fraud (since they technically did not date, despite CloneYou having felt they shared that original experience) that's completely different. I don't feel qualified enough to even entertain those right now...
-But I would assume that - if you're both existng at the same time - it's probably a lot better to be the Original You than the Cloned You. And if you're planning to have yourself cloned after death, write your future cloned self into your will just to be safe. Odds are, they would be considered a seperate entity.
A clone is exactly like an identical twin. So your question is "If you died but had an identical twin, would the clothes he takes off your cadaver be second hand?". Sounds a bit less profound that way, doesn't it? What you really mean is "copy", not "clone".
This video felt like one long run-on sentence.
OH MY GOD ITS MICHAEL WHAT A PLEASANT SURPRISE 2 AWESOME CHANNELS IN ONE!!!
And here I was thinking his name was "Hey VSauce, Michael Here". Silly me.
Michael wtf you doing here .....Vsauce needs a new video..
I love Micheal's videos. He is coming to Mumbai, India where I live but I can't get to meet him since all tickets are sold out. :( I wish I could. I have following his channel since last year and he has really inspired me. I hope he reads this.
Michael is rather popular in India and Japan and France!
Tom Miller Really? I mean, I don't know. I wish he visits India again. Or I go to UK.
My face when I realized Michael was hosting this Mental Floss video: =D
Awesome, it's been awhile since there was a good Mental Floss episode
The electron diagram isn't really wrong it just takes some explanation. No chemistry professor points out that diagram and says "this is exactly what electrons look like around the nucleus" usually a good bit of explanation comes with that diagram talking about energy levels and orbitals and so on.
I much prefer the illustrations that actually just show the electron clouds for the orbitals, though naturally on a per orbital basis.
I have a question for Mentle Floss: Why do cords/cables always get tangled up?
Because entropy. Everything in the universe tends to go to less order state it can have. Thus just headphones get tangled
Fernando Franco Félix that is…not what entropy is at all.
i sincerely hope you were kidding.
victryismin89 You want entropy try this. The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five-dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:
Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.
Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough. So Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share in the glory that was Multivac's.
For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth's poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both.
But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.
The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.
Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public functions, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.
They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.
"It's amazing when you think of it," said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. "All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever."
Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. "Not forever," he said.
"Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert."
"That's not forever."
"All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Ten billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?"
Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. "Ten billion years isn't forever."
"Well, it will last our time, won't it?"
"So would the coal and uranium."
"All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can't do that on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don't believe me.
"I don't have to ask Multivac. I know that."
"Then stop running down what Multivac's done for us," said Adell, blazing up, "It did all right."
"Who says it didn't? What I say is that a sun won't last forever. That's all I'm saying. We're safe for ten billion years, but then what?" Lupow pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. "And don't say we'll switch to another sun."
There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov's eyes slowly closed. They rested.
Then Lupov's eyes snapped open. "You're thinking we'll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren't you?"
"I'm not thinking."
"Sure you are. You're weak on logic, that's the trouble with you. You're like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one."
"I get it," said Adell. "Don't shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too."
"Darn right they will," muttered Lupov. "It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred million years. The sun will last ten billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last two hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all."
"I know all about entropy," said Adell, standing on his dignity.
"The hell you do."
"I know as much as you do."
"Then you know everything's got to run down someday."
"All right. Who says they won't?"
"You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said 'forever.'
It was Adell's turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can build things up again someday," he said.
"Never."
"Why not? Someday."
"Never."
"Ask Multivac."
"You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can't be done."
Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?
Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?
Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.
Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
"No bet," whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.
By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten the incident.
Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright shining disk, the size of a marble, centered on the viewing-screen.
"That's X-23," said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.
The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of insideoutness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, "We've reached X-23 -- we've reached X-23 -- we've --"
"Quiet, children." said Jerrodine sharply. "Are you sure, Jerrodd?"
"What is there to be but sure?" asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.
Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspatial jumps.
Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship. Someone had once told Jerrodd that the "ac" at the end of "Microvac" stood for ''automatic computer" in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.
Jerrodine's eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. "I can't help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth."
"Why, for Pete's sake?" demanded Jerrodd. "We had nothing there. We'll have everything on X-23. You won't be alone. You won't be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great-grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded." Then, after a reflective pause, "I tell you, it's a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing."
"I know, I know," said Jerrodine miserably.
Jerrodette I said promptly, "Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world."
"I think so, too," said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.
It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father's youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors, had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.
Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth's Planetarv AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible.
"So many stars, so many planets," sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. "I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now."
"Not forever," said Jerrodd, with a smile. "It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase.
"What's entropy, daddy?" shrilled Jerrodette II.
"Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?"
"Can't you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?"
"The stars are the power-units. dear. Once they're gone, there are no more power-units."
Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. "Don't let them, daddy. Don't let the stars run down."
"Now look what you've done," whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.
"How was I to know it would frighten them?" Jerrodd whispered back,
"Ask the Microvac," wailed Jerrodette I. "Ask him how to turn the stars on again."
"Go ahead," said Jerrodine. "It will quiet them down." (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)
Jerrodd shrugged. "Now, now, honeys. I'll ask Microvac. Don't worry, he'll tell us."
He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, "Print the answer."
Jerrodd cupped the strip or thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, "See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don't worry."
Jerrodine said, "And now, children, it's time for bed. We'll be in our new home soon."
Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.
VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, "Are we ridiculous, I wonder in being so concerned about the matter?"
MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. "I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion."
Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed.
"Still," said VJ-23X, "I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council."
"I wouldn't consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We've got to stir them up."
VJ-23X sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More."
"A hundred billion is not infinite and it's getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years --
VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for that."
"Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problem of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions."
"Yet you wouldn't want to abandon life, I suppose."
"Not at all," snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, "Not yet. I'm by no means old enough. How old are you?"
"Two hundred twenty-three. And you?"
"I'm still under two hundred. --But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this GaIaxy is filled, we'll have filled another in ten years. Another ten years and we'll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we'll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known universe. Then what?"
VJ-23X said, "As a side issue, there's a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next."
"A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year."
"Most of it's wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those."
"Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in a geometric progression even faster than our population. We'll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point."
"We'll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas."
"Or out of dissipated heat?" asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.
"There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC."
VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.
"I've half a mind to," he said. "It's something the human race will have to face someday."
He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.
MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of submesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite its sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.
MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, "Can entropy ever be reversed?"
VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, "Oh, say, I didn't really mean to have you ask that."
"Why not?"
"We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't turn smoke and ash back into a tree."
"Do you have trees on your world?" asked MQ-17J.
The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
VJ-23X said, "See!"
The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.
Zee Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity. --But a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.
Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.
Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.
"I am Zee Prime," said Zee Prime. "And you?"
"I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?"
"We call it only the Galaxy. And you?"
"We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?"
"True. Since all Galaxies are the same."
"Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different."
Zee Prime said, "On which one?"
"I cannot say. The Universal AC would know."
"Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious."
Zee Prime's perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrank and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the original Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.
Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and he called out: "Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?"
The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor led through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.
Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.
"But how can that be all of Universal AC?" Zee Prime had asked.
"Most of it," had been the answer, "is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine."
Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a Universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.
The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime's wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.
A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. "THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN."
But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Lee Prime stifled his disappointment.
Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, "And is one of these stars the original star of Man?"
The Universal AC said, "MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS A WHITE DWARF"
"Did the men upon it die?" asked Lee Prime, startled and without thinking.
The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TlME."
"Yes, of course," said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.
Dee Sub Wun said, "What is wrong?"
"The stars are dying. The original star is dead."
"They must all die. Why not?"
"But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them."
"It will take billions of years."
"I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?"
Dee Sub Wun said in amusement, "You're asking how entropy might be reversed in direction."
And the Universal AC answered: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
Zee Prime's thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a Galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime's own. It didn't matter.
Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.
Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.
Man said, "The Universe is dying."
Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.
New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars built, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.
Man said, "Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years."
"But even so," said Man, "eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase forever to the maximum."
Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC."
The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and nature no longer had meaning in any terms that Man could comprehend.
"Cosmic AC," said Man, "how may entropy be reversed?"
The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
Man said, "Collect additional data."
The Cosmic AC said, 'I WILL DO S0. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TlMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT.
"Will there come a time," said Man, 'when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?"
The Cosmic AC said, "NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES."
Man said, "When will you have enough data to answer the question?"
The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
"Will you keep working on it?" asked Man.
The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL."
Man said, "We shall wait."
The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.
One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.
Man's last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.
Man said, "AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?"
AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
Man's last mind fused and only AC existed -- and that in hyperspace.
Matter and energy had ended and with it space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer [technician] ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.
All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.
All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.
But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.
A timeless interval was spent in doing that.
And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.
But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too.
For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.
And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
And there was light --
q
METAL1ON i felt obligated to read that entire thing, for some reason
I am totally okay with Michael.
Went to another tab before the video started and thought I clicked on a Vsauce video by mistake. I was seriously questioning reality for a second lol
That solar system scale is pretty freakin amazing
What's the longest recorded exposure for a photo? I've gotten to 7 hours myself, but the photo turned out pretty bad...
There is a photographer in Germany who used a pinhole camera to capture the construction of a shopping centre. The exposure lasted around 3 years.
I'm pretty sure the y green-screened Michael into the Mental Floss background...
I think so too. The lighting looks strange. It's different on his head than it is in the background.
What determines our favourite colours?
Personal taste, I'm guessing.
Xzazazazia
Mh, the question is more profound than that. Personal tastes don't appear ex nihilo, they come to life and through life, and the question is : how? :)
Many people create associations between the colors they enjoy and positive memories or thought. Color is simply a subject that psychologists have been trying to understand and study for years. Therefore no true answer.
I have seen it, but that is not my question. That is about how we perceive ccolour and are alone in our own minds.
MrSideliner As in, we all like the same color. We just call them different things. (That's what i'm guessing he's saying)
Michael from vsauce on mental floss. It's like my two favourite RUclips shows mated!
Awesome facts! Michael should do more. I've always liked his presentation style. :)
Michael from Vsauce? Instant like!
Mental Floss, I have come to expect at least a bare minimum of fact checking from you. That is not a Mercator projection. There is no such thing as a "Gail-Peters" projection; the one you're thinking of is the Gall-Peters, and mentioning it is a sure sign that you don't know what your talking about.
In order to atone, I challenge you to make a new video that actually shows the strange and wondrous projections that exist, like the Littrow projection, the Butterfly projection, and the Dymaxion projection. Only then shall you be cleansed.
But isn't Mental Floss just a research team and not a bunch of scientists? So, although their content is reliable, we cannot be totally sure that it is 100% reliable, right? And also, this research team is using mostly Internet for this research, compiling information from other equally not-so-100-percent reliable websites, so even with well-known sources, we couldn't know for sure if ALL this is true.
Mental Floss is a team of educators. They gather interesting information and share it with people. Given that, you would expect them to do some basic fact checking. Knowing how calamitously wrong they got this, how can I have faith in anything else they post?
SergeiAndropov you do know they did that on purpose right? before you chastise, YOU do some research..
virustwin are you sure?
Ramix09 nop. not as sure as i am that there was no moon landing, a magic bullet hit jfk, there were aliens at roswell and the elvis is in the bahamas with michael jackson and tupac
While inaccurate illustrations are sometimes a problem, taking illustrations like the march of progress, and the illustrations of the planets, literally just means you haven't understood the subject at all.
Another great and informative video from Mental Floss
Combination of my two favorite things YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. And of course he had to say, "And always, thanks for watching."
I thought the title of the video was 15 Inaccuracies Found In Common Sense. Through the entire video I though, 'well, it's interesting, but none of this has to do with common sense.
Please do a video about things that are considered common sense but are wrong. I need to see a video about this, now.
+highdough im dis lecsic 2
Daulton Baird 2 shay.
+Daulton Baird *Dyslexic
+highdough *Touché
Mike Stolting Unable to get joke.
In fact, the Velociraptor in Jurassic Park isn't based on a Velociraptor at all. I can't remember its name, but the actual Velociraptor is a lot smaller than the dinosaur (that did however exist) depicted in the movies.
Deinonychus... And when Michael Crichton wrote JP there was a misspelling of the species of an Utahraptor discovered those years, putting it under the 'velociraptor' genus. So he tough velociraptors were huge. And Spielberg didn't bother to correct it... Well, I like to see it as that Ingen created messed up dinosaurs.
3:20
just go here for an accurate representation of the scale and size of our solar system.
joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html
it is really quite humbling to see how insignificant we actually are.
I *love* Michael! Seriously, one of my favorite people in the world!
Interesting note about Da Vinci's anatomical drawings: During the times he didn't have access to human bodies, he would also dissect, study, and draw animal structures. Several sketches of structures, which were drawn inside a human shape, more likely were drawn from (and resemble to a zootonomist) ox hearts and uteri, among other structures from other animals. The distinction between anatomy and zootonomy in Da Vinci's time were seen as comparable, and in many cases, identical, to just about anyone, including surgeons and doctors (many of whom never really got to poke an human viscera because of taboo).