[Q&A+] Flammable Titan, Jupiter Gravitational Lens, Max Photon Energy | Q&A 352

Hi Fraser, wouldn't we need to know the mass of an object to put something in orbit around it? Catch 22 to determine the mass? These QnA shows present you with so many opportunities to do more than just answer the Q - you could answer follow on Q's or provide more details. We want to know more. Listeners can just do their own research when your answers create more questions, but I think these shows would be even better if you doubled the length and provide more detail 😊

Fraser, your discussion about AI slop killing YouTube suggested another question to me. If you were in charge of YouTube, what would you do to make sure the AI-slop channels were de-emphasized/shadow-banned? I have a couple of ideas. First, new channels shouldn't be promoted during the first month. Then, unless their videos get a certain number of Likes while maintaining a minimum Like/Dislike ratio, the channel wouldn't be eligible for promotion. My other idea is to use fire to fight fire. I hate myself when I click on an AI slop video, but it's usually pretty obvious that it is AI slop. When that happens, I stop the video and hit the dislike button. If AI slop is obvious to me and obvious to you, it should be possible to train an AI to identify AI slop. If YouTube stops suggesting AI slop to people, there will be much less incentive to upload it. Feel free to answer this question on a question show or just reply here.

The question about whether Fraser would visit a Lunar colony reminded me of something I have wondered. How realistic is the idea that the Moon will someday (in the not-so-near future) replace Florida as a highly favored retirement destination? Perhaps The Villages will establish a Lunar colony. I ask because the 1/6th gravity that might be harmful to humans in the long term might be perfect for seniors struggling with mobility issues on Earth.

One of the things I really appreciate about Superman (1978) is that when Superman catches Lois as she falls from the top of the Daily Planet, he descends before continuing to fly up. The same thing happens when he catches the helicopter. I am not sure he descended long or far enough for Lois and the pilot to avoid injury. I clock the descent at a little less than a second and about 1 story. However, the fact that he descended at all makes it one of the more realistic superhero movies.

"realistic science fiction like the expanse"... as far as I can tell they just don't use artificial gravity. the rest is "aliens did it". that's such a let down. nothing realistic about that. I would love a good sci-fi that wasn't about aliens.

There is a Planck wavelength is considered the smallest meaningful wavelength, though it's not a physical impossibility for a shorter wavelength to exist, but rather a limit of our current understanding of physics; below this scale, gravity and quantum mechanics dominate, and spacetime itself breaks down, making it impossible to measure or even define shorter distances or wavelengths, weird how that all works. or doesn't idk. I know you said "photons" bending - they don't (photons don't exist!)

If you want to be REALLY technically correct, the sun IS burning. There is oxygen in/on the sun (not so much formed, but was formed in the precursors to the sun we have now) - and there is hydrogen, and there are parts of the sun (very small parts statistically) where these gases exist as non-plasma so actual CHEMICAL oxidization DOES happen on the sun. So technically correct the sun IS burning. It's a minute part of the system but it is burning. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Youtube definitely tried pushing me AI slop at some point, watched a few vids - went "wtf is this", stuck to the 'good' creators. Gotta say, YT stopped recommending me AI slop relatively quickly.. just stick to Fraser/Anton/Cool Worlds/PBS spacetime and so forth and the algorithm will listen to you soon enough in my experience.

You may know I was born and raised in a small village, called Jojiro in Sukumaland Tanzania. For 20 years growing in that village we had minor 3 earthquakes and grannie joked about earth shaking. We had three tornadoes which did not cause any death. But then when I worked at Shinyanga, Tanzania I noticed there was a spot on the ground with warm water flowing all the time. But villagers were not concerned why water was warm or hot at that spot. Now I am US and reading the wonders of the world, the warm water at Shinyanga is hitting me hard. There must have been hot magma that was heating water there.

I stopped watching you on YouTube. 🖖

Hi Fraser, thank you for your comments re. AI slop

Would chlorine support combustion on Titan? Could you have fire in a chlorine atmosphere? And don't photons above a certain energy form electron-positron pairs, i.e. pair-instability core-collapse supernovae?