Could Betelgeuse Go Boom? 383
An anonymous reader writes "The answer is No. In space, nobody can hear you scream. However, it might go supernova in the near future, if it hasn't already. I wanna see that, even if it would permanently disfigure Orion. Ka freaking bam!"
Wow, Great Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it THAT slow of a news day, or could no one else possibly outdo this clown of a submitter?
wow (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wow, Great Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the editors or owners of Slashdot are either 1) Trying to increase viewership by appealing to a lowest denominator (Star go boom! Big word scary! Chemicals are mean! Vroom vroom car!) or 2) Trying to deliberately weaken the readership for purposes I can only speculate that. That second theory is bolstered by the clumsy rolling out of 'features' during the past few weeks - breaking things that once worked, adding new features that don't, and in general doing their best to make the site almost more trouble to read than it's worth.
Does anyone else have any suggestions or inside information? It's almost a meme now that 'Slashdot is self-sabotauging', but lately it's just gotten noticibly worse.
Re:Wow, Great Summary (Score:2, Insightful)
That is one heck of a summary. I really like how a line and a half of text is qualifying as a story these days. Is it THAT slow of a news day, or could no one else possibly outdo this clown of a submitter?
or you could just lighten up.
Re:Wow, Great Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no inside information, but it's apparent to me that Slsahdot is trying to be the new 'Facebook' or 'MySpace' for geeks. Or something. I'm expecting any day now the ability to add tacky photos, weird fonts and poor layouts to your journal pages.
Furthermore, I think that much of the original geek crowd is gone or mostly in lurk mode. So they are doing their best to attract a younger audience.
Re:Wow, Great Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
"Show us your Warcraft main".
Your case is proven.
Relitivity (Score:4, Insightful)
However, it might go supernova in the near future, if it hasn't already
It hasn't already, because we haven't seen it go boom yet. Even if it is half a millennium away in terms of light travel time, from our frame of reference it will only go boom when we observe it to.
Near future (Score:2, Insightful)
[Betelgeuse] might go supernova in the near future
Might blow in the near future? Or might have blown a few million years ago and we could find out soon?
Re:New doomsday scenario? (Score:4, Insightful)
The neutrinos from a core collapse supernova would be lethal to humans at the distance of Jupiter.
I think if you're that close to a supernova, you've got much, much bigger problems than neutrinos.
Re:Wow, Great Summary (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Nova Post! (Score:3, Insightful)
Also it would take 520 years to get here anyway...
The thing about distances measured in lightunits, causality propagates at that same speed. So if we see it happening now, for us, causally (not casually) speaking, it is happening now.
It's just futile for us to try to do anything to stop it, because it is impossible for our reaction to have an effect on it for another 520 years (like sending a radio signal saying, "Frood, it appears that your star's just exploded! Are you all right?").
Re:ANTHROPIC principle (Score:3, Insightful)
It's called the antrhopic principle [wikipedia.org].
At least you got it right in the link and subject. That's what really matters.
The mistakes we most regret are the ones we make while correcting others. I know; I've done it too.
Re:We should get rid of the AC -1 modifier (Score:5, Insightful)
If you get rid of AC you'll get rid of lots of noise, true.
you'll also get rid of people who post inside info...
-nB