Oh dear....

[Arthes]

[url:fgpldc87]http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,,1698619,00.html[/url].....
I couldn't help but wonder at the comment
"It was a most unfortunate and regrettable accident but we are glad that the visitor involved was able to leave the museum unharmed" does that mean he was not attacked by the curator....! :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Tarbicus]

The vases had been placed - rather optimistically, perhaps - on a windowsill on a staircase.

Hmmm... Like asteroids and extinction; we can all hope and pray, but it's gonna happen one day. :roll:

[Gaius Honorius Felix]

Sad, such a senseless loss. But it was bound to happen eventually, they placed it on a windowsill? Guess they havent figured out that windowsills aren't the best place to place things. I guess thats why in the U.S. they put almost everything behind glass and such. So do you really think humanity will die out eventually, I know its inevitable but I just cant picture a universe without humanity living on in some form or another.

[Tarbicus]

So do you really think humanity will die out eventually, I know its inevitable but I just cant picture a universe without humanity living on in some form or another.

Yup, the asteroid's gonna happen, no doubt about it, it's a regular event just as certain as the Sun rising tomorrow, but way way nowhere near as regular. As for how long before it does, that's anyone's guess. Currently though, we can only expect it to be a relative surprise, but enough of one to catch us with our pants down. Sorry to be a neg-waver but it's a plain and simple fact. :wink:

Probability statistics actually put the risk of an asteroid impact capable of mass extinction as almost zero. Here's the problem; it's more than zero. And I'm a great believer in Murphy's Law. If it can happen, it will happen, and at the worst possible time. Does your computer never crash when you really, really need it not to, but it had been blissfully fine when you didn't need it that much?

[Aedon]

So do you really think humanity will die out eventually, I know its inevitable but I just cant picture a universe without humanity living on in some form or another.

Khairete,

I don't know about an asteroid blasting us out of existence, but I do know that Mr. Sun is halfway through his lifetime and will eventually go out, as will all the other stars. The ultimate fate of the universe is darkness and displaced, inactive energy. If we are still around when that happens... we won't be, but IF we were, there would be nothing we could do to save ourselves.

But a more direct threat to the humanity right now is humanity itself. I don't think it will take cosmic forces to destroy us, we can do that from home, if a new virus doesn't do the job.

But a cosmic force that could threaten us in the relatively near future is a red supergiant star nearby called Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse, which lies in Orion, has run out of it's central hydrogen fuel source. This means that it will soon turn into a supernova, perhaps in our lifetime. If this happened Betelgeuse would be visible even during the day. The influx of EM (electromagnetic radiation) caused by this supernova could possibly render our atmosphere incapable of supporting us. Betelgeuse is 425 lightyears away, so humanity could quite possibly be gone in less than 1,000 years. But since it is 425 LY away, the light we see now is 425 years old, so it may have already happened. The forces of our demise might already be on their way here! Once again, there is nothing we can really do. I hope our atmosphere holds against this onslaught, but some doubt it can.

Humanity is so fragile and temporary in the great scheme of the universe. But that makes humanity all the more beautiful.

Khairete,

-Aedon

[Tarbicus]

Oh boy. Now I'm even depressed.

[Aedon]

Oh boy. Now I'm even depressed.

Khaire Tarbicus,

I'm sorry, I tend to have that effect on people. But cheer up, maybe our atmosphere will hold, maybe the astronomers are wrong, who knows, what do we really know?

Such is the way of it all.

Khaire,

-Aedon

[Arthes]

I suppose we will be doing what in ancient times, others did....travelling to another planet looking for a new home, or living underground and travelling above in special spacesuits...
Maybe shades of Highlander II with the huge dome!
Oh well, at least when visiting ruins, they will not be full of tourists....hehe
regards
Arthes

[Robert Vermaat]

But it was bound to happen eventually, they placed it on a windowsill? Guess they havent figured out that windowsills aren't the best place to place things.

Another article says they had been there for a good 40 years - about as old as I am.
I agree with tarbicus - a fluke. But if you wait long enough.... I guess even carfully stored objects are prone to damage from earthquakes, plain crashes - what do you think was lost during WWII!

Anyone know this object?

The British Museum, for example, is still smarting from the case of the Portland vase, a violet-blue Roman glass urn found in the tomb of Emperor Alexander Severus, deliberately vandalised and shattered to pieces by a ruffian in 1845, but so impeccably restored that it is impossible to tell.

Or these:

At the Museum of Antiquities, which safeguards the famous Roman coin from the River Tyne with the Emperor Hadrian on one side and the imperial barge on the other, the main concern is for Hadrian's Wall itself, "Which," says Lindsay Allason-Jones, the director of archaeological museums, "is a much bigger artefact, but in many ways much more delicate than many of those in the museum." Over the years a couple of items have gone walkabout "two brooches", she recalls, "when there were workmen in ... but we got them back."

[john m roberts]

I believe my old 1955 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica had a good pic of the Portland vase, but they're stored away. IIRC the Portland vase was a great inspiration for Wedgewood pottery.

[tlclark]

So do you really think humanity will die out eventually, I know its inevitable but I just cant picture a universe without humanity living on in some form or another.

I don't know about an asteroid blasting us out of existence, but I do know that Mr. Sun is halfway through his lifetime and will eventually go out, as will all the other stars. The ultimate fate of the universe is darkness and displaced, inactive energy. If we are still around when that happens... we won't be, but IF we were, there would be nothing we could do to save ourselves.

This was a plot device of the novel "Contact" not seen in the movie version. Entropy is the greatest threat to any civilization, so the greatest resource is intelligence, so all the intelligent lifeforms got together to work on the problem and recruited others to join them. The whole point of the "contact" was to get us working on the problem of surviving the end of the universe. The book has an interesting twist on that problem that I won't spoil, but it's really cool.

I hope that we have the physics to escape into the "multiverse" when this universe dies.