For Idea #1, this is extremely hard to do, but fun to think about. Information from 1913 is already 100 light years away, so it would be impossible to send a craft today to be able to capture that information. Here is an article that takes this idea to the extreme:
http://rein.pk/gravitational-lensing-to-observe-ancient-eart.../
- For Idea #1, this is extremely hard to do, but fun to think about.
Yes, it was just a thought experiment. Nothing more.
And the article you linked is amazing. Thanks for sharing!
Um, what? The "time machine" of sediments is exactly analogous to the time machine of redshift. There is even the same fossils, e.g. the uncovered "relic" of the cosmic microwave background as (re)combination happens. There is even a familiar spottiness in the astronomical sediments, due to absorption from molecular clouds et cetera.
Since none of the two suggested ideas are physically realizable I'm not going to bother with them.
But I have one nitpick:
"For example we need to gain a better understanding of the following: ... Effects of the Lake Toba supervolcanic eruptions on human migration and evolution".
Since the null hypothesis is that no effect is observable, and AFAIK no effect is observable, I don't see why this item made the list. We can't add observations (such as the Lake Toba eruption) if there is no known correlation to migration and evolution.
- The "time machine" of sediments is exactly analogous to the time machine of redshift. There is even the same fossils, e.g. the uncovered "relic" of the cosmic microwave background as (re)combination happens. There is even a familiar spottiness in the astronomical sediments, due to absorption from molecular clouds et cetera.
It is not exactly analogous. When astronomers look at Andromeda they are actually seeing Andromeda as it was 2.5 million years (or so) ago. They aren't observing a "fossil" or a "relic" Andromeda. They actually get to see it as it was. Evolutionary scientists have no such opportunity. In my research I got to study chimpanzees and infer from the behaviour what we can possibly start to say about ancient pre-hominids and the transition to hominid existence. But I can't take out a telescope and study ancient hominids; as astronomers can take out a telescope and study Andromeda.
- Since none of the two suggested ideas are physically realizable I'm not going to bother with them.
I concluded that the first idea was not possible directly in the article:
- But as it turns out, it isn’t that simple. Because planets move very quickly and a telescope requires a long exposure time to collect enough photons to form an image, whatever we saw on the 1 million year old Earth would be incredibly blurry. That’s no fun.
So it looks like astroanthropology is prohibited by the laws of physics.
What more would you like me to add?
Furthermore, the second idea is realizable. We already run primitive ancestor simulations and will possess the computational ability to run more complex ancestor simulations in the not-to-distant future.
- Since the null hypothesis is that no effect is observable, and AFAIK no effect is observable, I don't see why this item made the list. We can't add observations (such as the Lake Toba eruption) if there is no known correlation to migration and evolution.
I was listing things that we currently do not have a good understanding of. We need to collect more evidence of this event - and the whole point of the article was to get people thinking about the types of things paleoanthropology, primatology, and genetics can and can't help us understand. To gain a better understanding of the Lake Toba eruption we would need more data on the actual distribution of hominids and modern humans 75,000 years ago in South Asia and Southeast Asia. There is a genetic bottleneck that occurred at sometimes between 60,000-80,000 years ago that is still unexplained - so if we don't keep trying to answer these questions, they will obviously never get answered.
"It is not exactly analogous. ... They actually get to see it as it was."
Fair enough, I overstated. We seem to agree on its existence.
On the other hand it means astronomers have a smaller samples of today's galaxies et cetera.
"Furthermore, the second idea is realizable. We already run primitive ancestor simulations ...".
Yes, we can research some questions by simulations. But we can't simulate what happened, know all the missing factors et cetera, up to the point that it equals what astronomer's observations reveal.
the basic problem with the idea #1 is that even if you could build a telescope capable of resolving human-sized targets from 100,000 light years away, you'd still need to spend 1,000,000 years to travel there, assuming you could travel at 10% of the speed of light.
Yes, this is true. It would require some form of teleportation.
It's fascinating thinking that modern man has been around for two hundred million years, and written history/civilization extends to... what six thousand years ago?
Also, if you could build a telescope the size of a solar system, maybe it's possible that the telescope could move with the planet it's trying to get an exposure of?
- It's fascinating thinking that modern man has been around for two hundred million years, and written history/civilization extends to... what six thousand years ago?
Modern humans have been around for 200 thousand years. Our genus has been around for 2 million. The first agricultural city-states started to form 10,000 years ago; with writing around 6,000-7,000 years ago.
- Also, if you could build a telescope the size of a solar system, maybe it's possible that the telescope could move with the planet it's trying to get an exposure of?
Well, there may be a way around the exposure problem but I doubt it would be able to move in accordance with a planet over 1 million light years away. Who knows, if any intelligence ever builds such a device they will obviously be able to solve problems that we find incomprehensible.