The Greatest Human Achievements | Hacker News Reader

The Greatest Human Achievements

lbrandy.com

Re: Landing on the moon

National Geographic's special Aftermath: Life After People was rebroadcast last night. It examines what would happen if humans simply disappeared from the planet. It was sobering because it seemed like Earth would recover and heal itself, in time, without us.

Day 14 after humans: Diesel backup generators that kept the cooling pools pumped at Nuclear power plants run out of fuel, causing catastrophic nuclear steam explosions, releasing multi-Hiroshima levels of radiation locally.

100-150 years after humans: Earth absorbs the excess CO2 that was generated by humans and the baseline level returns back to normal.

500 years: The outer shell of cellphones made of plastic still look like they were made a couple years ago.

100K+ years after humans: The only sign that humans existed on planet earth would not be on planet earth but on the moon (the flag, the footprints, the TV camera, the rovers).

> 500 years: The outer shell of cellphones made of plastic still look like they were made a couple years ago.

Then why does the one I bought four years ago look like crap? Damnit!

What about Guttenberg and his printing press. We may not be having this discussion right now if it weren't for him.

That could also be said about Tim Berners-Lee and his crazy idea called the World Wide Web.

"Steve Guttenberg," unless there is a much more intellectual seventh _Police Academy_ sequel uncovering his secret time traveling invention, probably didn't contribute very much to the printing press.

"Johannes Gutenberg," in spite of not appearing in _Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow_ or kissing Sharon Stone in _Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol_ (the true highlight of the series, as many aficionados will readily attest), probably deserves our thanks instead.

You got me! Edited. Thank you.

I think just the human ability to record thoughts for future generations and a strong communication system.

Without the ability to effectively communicate we wouldn't have achieved anything else.

Then we should go all the way back to papyrus and stone chisels. Information storage, while not unique to humans, is definitely more prolific in our species.

What other species stores information?

I put animals that mark their territory in this category. Bears scratch the bark off trees. Dogs pee on fire hydrants. These animals are storing ownership information in the form of scents they leave behind.

Eurocentric some? Thanks for the sagan quote, though, and the thoughts about euclid, ramanunjan, siddartha, bodhidharma, proudhon, and the vague admiration for people's names that i don't know, people who comprehended before there were equations, people who saw that all of life is emergent transformation, recognized not only introverted and extroverted states, but what people are today calling 'flow' and what some ended up calling 'zazen', and 3000 years ago they said was the third state, oh - and the fourth state, i supposed we don't have that here yet....but oh, still, love for arabic mathematicians and mayans obsessed with time. before we get to 'greatest' the question arises, greatest at what? if efficiency is the game, perhaps another read of brave new world and a reminder about The Ford is in order. if ability is the game, perhaps we should smile again at oppenheimer yelling that he is shiva. if the quality of human experience, the joy of living is the game, then is it really the internet, or is that just a medium through which we can share the real wealth? i got my gitosis working, made me smile, gotta love the internet - was walking to my car when she smiled and made small talk, gotta love the internet, but true wealth is somewhere between wisdom and that girl's smile.

Relentlessly pursuing our dreams.

s/Plank/Planck/

Quantum theory

Wikipedia is static

Wolfram Alpha is dynamic

Google is the linker

We need all of them, but if you ask me ten years from know who will be the unifier, I'd go with W|A, but google has the money.

Wikipedia? Sounds a bit pre-WolframAlpha to me :)

[EDIT] Wolfram seems to be doing the same job as Wikipedia but with dynamic data rather than linkable data. But I'm sure wikipedia is a source for WA too.

[EDIT: I removed the word "Coz"] I just read that WolframAlpha is able to answer a question like "Why did the chicken cross the road?" by saying "to get to the other side".

P.S: I'm not sure if it's just an easter egg or the brilliance of the AI system of the Alpha. I read it here: http://mashable.com/2009/05/17/wolfram-easter-eggs/

As the database is hand curated it is highly unlikely an AI response. just simply the programmed response.

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