Heads Up -- Horizon tonight

[JamesF]

BBC2, 9pm. The last section being the particularly relevant bit:

An examination of the varying uses being made of the huge amount of information now available in databases. In Los Angeles, police officers are taking part in an experiment to predict crime before it even happens, one City of London trader believes he has found the secret of making billions with mathematics, and astronomers in South Africa are attempting to catalogue the entire universe.

James

[jonathan]

Hmm, very interesting indeed. *runs off to create a massive database*

[Stargazer_00]

Minority Report for real, a man selling the secret for something he doesnt have and a bunch of scientists looking for a grant That's a hell of a mash up for Horizon, what's the show about this week? I think i have it on series link, ill check.

[SnakeyJ]

Cataloguing the entire universe? We could certainly start, but surely even the currently observable part is an endless task?

I'm intrigued so will watch or record

[Stargazer_00]

Cataloguing the entire universe? We could certainly start, but surely even the currently observable part is an endless task?

I'm intrigued so will watch or record

As I understand it the observable universe is getting smaller as things accelrate away from us still. I read ina theme in a few sci fi books where generations ahead of us catalogue the sky so that the future generations would have a record of what we used to be able to see because in that time period there would be nothing but endless blackness beyond the stars visible in our own galaxy. Sci fi from the authors I read (predominately alastair reynolds lately) usually have a foot squarely in curent understanding and generally accepted science princinples extrapolated out a bit to make them enjoyable. Hard Sci fi i think it's called.

[starman1969]

Thanks for the heads up. I'll put it on the Vbox.

[Stargazer_00]

Quite enjoyed this show actually. Have read a number of articles about the SKA but that short bit about it really helped put it into scale. That should really deliver some fantastic astronomy and I find it really good that man kind invests such large amonts of money into astronomy still.

Did get me thinking how they decide to place them, why aren't they in a grid of some kind? I know they use the rotation of the planet to provide aperture using a drift technique so they try not to put scopes on the same exact latitude line but I'm sure I saw many that were.. anyone know what the logic is for radio telescope placement?

[kirkster501]

"Big data" and its processing is a communications and computing industry megatrend at the moment and a top of mind for most CIO's in industry.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MadAlbert]

I really enjoyed this program. The concepts are nothing particularly new but processing power, bus speed and storage are now starting to keep up with the maths!

[E621Keith]

Arrr, It's Scorpius not Scorpio !!!

Well he is a professional, so you can't expect him to know the name of constellations or where thing is.

Interesting they chose for Antares as an example of a red giant, most programs seem to choose Betelgeuse.

[Kropster]

Beware another management and IT fashion trend being 'bigged-up' by journalists who know rather less than they appear to.

They will be onto another story by now and will have the same limited amount of time to absorb all there is to know about that topic.

Give it time (the best filter) for the hype and management rhetoric to die away and see what it is really all about in five years time.

(Sorry about the cynicism!)

[Vince1963]

Thanks for that James... will set to record

[Stargazer_00]

Arrr, It's Scorpius not Scorpio !!!

Well he is a professional, so you can't expect him to know the name of constellations or where thing is.

Interesting they chose for Antares as an example of a red giant, most programs seem to choose Betelgeuse.

I thought this too. I put it down to them being in South Africa. the production crew probably were not astronomers so relied on local expertise/talent for their facts. They would pick the red giants they know the most.

[E621Keith]

I thought this too. I put it down to them being in South Africa. the production crew probably were not astronomers so relied on local expertise/talent for their facts. They would pick the red giants they know the most.

I see, I forgot they were in South Africa. Indeed Antares will be a more obvious target there.