Space Halo

I found this in a newspaper I was reading the other day. Credit goes to William Hartston for writing it.

The energy company npower is reported to have attatched its name to 328 stars to become the first brand to spell out its name in a constellation.

1) Anyone can buy a star. The International Star Registry will register a star under your name for only £49.95. (Details from www.starregistry.co.uk)
2) With approximately the same number of stars in the sky as grains of sand on Earth’s beaches, there are easily enough to go around.
3) When Dom Perigon invented champagne in 1693, he supposedly called his fellow monks by urging them, ‘Come quickly, brothers, I am tasting the stars’.
4) The nursery rhyme Twinkle twinkle little star was written by Jane Taylor in 1806 and called The Star.
5) US President Dwight Eisenhower had two pairs of pyjamas bearing the five stars of an army general.
6) The nearest star to Earth (apart from the Sun) is Proxima centauri.
7) Despite being the nearest star, its light still takes 4.3 years to reach us.
8) It is estimated that 80 per cent of the stars in the universe are red dwarfs - less than half the size of the sun and much cooler.
9) The 328 npower stars are all in the constellation of Hercules.
10) The Greek astronomer Ptolemy divided the stars into 48 constellations. There are now 88 recognised.

In contrast to the timeline I linked to previously, the following website offers an astonishingly detailed insight into the future. Page after page of information covers the technalogical advances of the 21st century, all the way to the end of the universe in the year 10(100).

There are two parts to the content - the timeline and the perspectives. This is explained in more detail on the website, but it basically separates fact from fiction. Political ideas and fantacy-like technologies are simply speculation, wheras colonising outerspace or developments such as AI are likely possibilities.

A lot of the content is cited from sources such as books and articles. This boosts the reliability to a further extent by taking into consideration different ideas and opinions.

Anyway, check it out - I’m sure it will keep you occupied for a while:

http://www.jrmooneyham.com/future_history_timeline.html

I was thinking of starting my own future timeline… Unfortunately I lack the scientific knowledge required to know what is and what is not possible. What I would predict is mere fantacy, not fact. I also stumbled upon other sources that have already done so, and with sufficient complexity.

I may, however, start a community-driven timeline once I have set up the forums, and gained a few more visitors. It would be great to compare the views expressed by different people.

For now you can ponder over the following page depicting a combination of opinion and fact as to how the future may unfold. A very interesting read:

http://humanknowledge.net/SocialScience/Futurology/Timeline.html

You must remember that this timeline is only fiction - while most of the predictions seem likely, nothing is true until it happens…

“Most of humanity is using a common currency descended from the American dollar.”

“English is the native language of 90% of humans.”

Something tells me that the author of this timeline is American.

That is a very good question. In fact, futurology thrives on that very prediction. For those of you unaware of what the term means, it is quite literally the study of the future.

Futurologists are commonly asked to predict the future based on current and historical events. Most of it, however, is simply a matter of opinion - this is what makes the subject of futurology so facinating. One may think the future as spaceships, nano technology and artificial inteligence; whereas another may only think there to be an advancement in material goods and technologies.

It depends entirely on the time span you analyse - the former possibility is likely to be a reality in say, a thousand years time. However, during my lifetime I would lean more towards the latter. Even still, nobody knows…

I will be taking this subject deeper in later blog posts - keep checking back for updates!

Ok, I confess, I’m talking blogging to myself. Time to face reality - nobody is reading this. The extra hit from that unknown source turned out to be GoogleBot. That makes a total of two unique hits: me being one of them.

Well, it’s not all that bad… I mean, most (if not all) philosophers talk to themselves on a regular basis. It’s natural, it keeps us as humans entertained. A mouth with thought is better than a mind without. Actually, that’s not a bad quote to have made up while writing a meaningless entry. Infact, that is precisely why life is meaningless - it invented the abbreviation ‘blog’.

Nah, I just need to announce it that’s all. Nobody except me even knows that this website exists. Apart from you. Yes, that’s right, you know who you are… How did you find this website? Why are you even reading this? Questions, questions… Philosophy! You see, it’s fool proof. It works for every potential individual reading this entry.

Should this article belong in ‘Philosophy’ or space? Philosophy because I asked a question; space is just another alternative.

Oxford English dictionary definition:
“the physical universe beyond the earth’s atmosphere.”

Not to me it doesn’t. What space really means is freedom. When I look up at the stars at night, I think the world as a cage. Man’s freedom on his own soil is the first step to a new frontier. Space, the man said, is another question.

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Just a short taster for what you might expect on this website. Might I remind you that unless I explicitly quote a source, everything you read on this website is of my own writing.