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Any idea who this Paul Gilster is? Or Tau Zero? He says he was trained as a medievalist who later turned into flight instructor and now he's obviously fascinate
by the_af 2y ago
Any idea who this Paul Gilster is? Or Tau Zero? He says he was trained as a medievalist who later turned into flight instructor and now he's obviously fascinated with astronomy and exoplanets.
I'm always wary of sites like this, but this one seems to have a long history, starting in 2004, and as far as I can tell the articles are solid (or at least, not quackery). This article in particular seems reasonable, too.
- ant6n 2y ago> I'm always wary of sites like this I can't really think of much that is more legit than a special purpose blog distilling current research papers into long form blog posts, except perhaps the research papers themselves?
- lawlessone 2y agoAs long as they stay that way.
- ziddoap 2y agoFor every site doing that, there are 10 sites pretending to do that, with various levels of quackery. It makes sense to be wary at first.
- indoordin0saur 2y agoI feel like quackery and clickbait give strong vibes which can be detected immediately. This has the feel of an educated and deeply interested hobbyist or some astronomer's side project.
- the_af 2y agoAgreed that it has the right vibes. But it always pay to be a little wary, which is why I made my comment.
- the_af 2y ago> I can't really think of much that is more legit than a special purpose blog distilling current research papers into long form blog posts, except perhaps the research papers themselves? If that's what they are doing. But it's hard to tell without looking carefully and sifting through more than a couple of articles. Like I said, it seems legit.
- hnuser123456 2y agoApparently Tau Zero was created after a government program to investigate interstellar travel propulsion methods concluded, and the program manager wanted to keep it going, and it's a group of people who want to visit other stars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Propulsion_Physics_Program#Tau_Zero_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Propulsion_Physic...
- IAmBroom 2y ago> it's a group of people who want to visit other stars And I want a pet unicorn. And a male contraceptive pill. Only one of those things is ever going to happen.
- dsq 2y agoTau Zero is the title of an SF book by Poul Anderson in which humans make an STL interstellar voyage. They probably got inspired from that book.