"The end" ... best Scientific American issue ever!

It was such a bloody delight to read the Scientific American ...

This particular issue has some of the big issues of science in all its glory in a language that even I could understand. (editor: ahem, don't you often claim that you were a science/physics nerd?)

My favorite of all?  Actually not one but a few vignettes:
Danny Hillis writes about how we are fully into "the age of digital entanglement," and notes that whether we like the digital dependencies or not--he refers to networks, and not just the gadgets--"our destinies are entangled with one another's and with our technologies."

Edward Felten says we are in a different time period all together--"The era of infinite storage."  He does not refer to the junk that your grandma has stashed away in every nook and cranny, but the possibility that pretty much our entire lives can be videotaped and archived, for instance.  And then when we forget something, a quick digital rewind of the chip and "no longer will you have to struggle to remember the name of the restaurant where you ate three years ago in Cleveland." Ah, excuse me, Cleveland? Couldn't pick a better city?

Christof Koch says we will soon have "An answer to the riddle of consciousness."  I am excited all the more because a few years ago, I had an opportunity to ask the physicist Brian Greene what he thought might be a tough science question for this century. "Consciousness" was his reply. I wonder if within my lifetime it will really be possible to know whether a dog is "aware of itself as a thinking being."

Speaking of lifetime, in a lengthy essay, George Musser discusses the question "Could time end?" incorporating both physics and philosophy. The explanation I liked the best is this: "Time is inherently bidirectional; the arrow we perceive is simply the natural degeneration of matter from order to chaos" ... which implies that once we reach maximum chaos, well, time ends when the arrow reverses for us mortals :)

So, when time reverses, will all country music songs become upbeat and chirpy about getting the boyfriend, the pickup, the dog, ...? muahahaha

Ok, one last favorite from the issue ... this is all about what happens to us after we die. As in the biochemistry. It apparently happens in four main stages. The discussions are just truly gory facts presented as, hey, this is what happens. I am glad that I will never know this experience because (a) I will be dead!, and (b) I will be cremated before all the rot begins :)

So, I lied; I have one more that I liked. This one is an exploration of an (you will soon see the pun) "age old" question: "Why can't we live forever?"  My first thought was why anybody would want to; that is just insane. Anyway, I shall leave you with a cliffhanger: the author writes that "when your death occurs, only a tiny number of your cells will continue this immortal lineage into the future" ... what is that survivor?

Can't wait for all these to unfold. Hopefully, a solar superstorm will not happen anytime soon; if it did, well, our economic activities will come to a standstill, and we will all be on equal footing ...

You still here? What are you waiting for? Go get a copy and start reading!