Science talk ! : Fallout: New Vegas

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 3:55 am

Thank you for sharing this!! This is awesome! :celebration:

Michio Kaku is one of my Favorite scientists, he has done shows and video books for years and years - very respected in the scientific community. I think its Awesome that GameTrailers got him into an interview!

His views are most interesting, especially his description of America during the first two weeks. I think we all know that Ghouls (as we know them in the Fallout universe) could never be reality, but its still cool to hear him describe it all.

yes, Mr. Michio Kaku is also my favorite scientist!
He explains his theory in a comprehensible way......

Well, this mean many of us won't survive a global scale nuclear warfare....

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 1:11 pm

I really hated the interviewer after that one question:

Do you think it is possible for a nuclear exchange between countries(or something like that).

Really? Yes it could definately happen, wether it will is uncertain, but if its possible, 100% yes.

We have nukes, that means yes its possible to destroy the planet.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 9:54 am

I like Dr Michio Kaku, but my favourite scientist is Dr Brian Cox.

On a related side note, I thought most sceincy peeps were in agreement that nuclear winter is bunkum.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 1:54 am

high-rads turning you into a glowing ghoul is bunkum too, but let's not spoil a good plot-device :goodjob:

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 5:17 am

exactly. It's not the rads that affect plants or crops. It's 1) nuclear winter 2) lack of people to do the farmwork/forestry work. It would pick up eventually, nature is resilient.

Now the area around Las Vegas isn't going to suddenly become a lush tropical paradise, simply because of the lack of water anyway. However, DC is quite a green area, so 200 years after it would be well overgrown. No burnt trees and weedy brown grass, it would be like a thick forest almost. There is a mod for that, but it should have been taken into account at design time. Aaaaanyway...

While I agree with the fact it's more realistic nature takes over, I must say a wasteland with barely any plants and trees add to the creepy effect of a world swallowed by nuclear war.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 11:15 am

Michio Kaku is cool, but he cant touch Carl Sagan on making science awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc this a great musical mashup tribute to a great man.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 2:36 am

Plants are notoriously resilient, look at Bikini Atoll. The place is a lush Island, or Chernobyl the forest is eating the city all after nuclear explosions/ radioactive fallout. The ecosystem would be brutally affected but still alot would survive and be reborn.

Yeah I love the pictures of Pripyat, it's amazing how quickly it's been taken by nature, damn trees growing out of concrete roofs hah.

Agreed with most, nothing spectacular, doesn't really explain much and isn't exactly ingenious in his responses, may as well have got average joe to give an interview if it's gonna run like that...

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 3:48 am

Michio Kaku is cool, but he cant touch Carl Sagan on making science awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc this a great musical mashup tribute to a great man.

+1 here - Michio is Great, but Sagan was a legend.

I do think that Steven Hawking has him resoundly beat however, both by reputation and in coolness.

I got the impression that Aonaran was talking about the host (though I could be wrong.)

Really? I didn't get that impression but the post was vague-enough that I could have let it go. As a Kaku fan however, I felt compelled to defend him.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 2:21 pm

Hate to burst the good scientists bubble, but she is dead WRONG. I am a university student, and I had to do a long term study of the possible aftereffects of a LNC (Limited Nuclear Exchange) for an anthropology class that required in depth study on the aftereffects of nuclear accidents and acts of war. Most notably Chernobyl, Three mile island, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Chernobyl stuck out in my mind because traditional thinking states that extremely high levels of radiation would make most forms of life impossible in affected areas. What we see today however is that the area is practically a nature preserve. Animals that were supposed to be killed outright by radiation levels or at best sterilized (even mammals with complex reproductive systems) have seen their numbers multiply to levels unheard of as there is no longer human development in the area.

I have no reason to think that biologically speaking humans are any different from deer or rabbit or any other mammal that calls Chernobyl home. Yes a Nuclear war would be bad, 99% of the human population would die horribly as society collapses and environmental conditions render large scale agriculture impossible for a number of years (supposing a full scale nuclear engagement). Humanity would adapt just as any other complex mammal would. I would assume that evolutionary pressures present in a post nuclear would select for genetic traits coping with diseases and ailments and other pressures exerted by a drastically changed planet.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 8:44 am

Hate to burst the good scientists bubble, but she is dead WRONG. I am a university student, and I had to do a long term study of the possible aftereffects of a LNC (Limited Nuclear Exchange) for an anthropology class that required in depth study on the aftereffects of nuclear accidents and acts of war. Most notably Chernobyl, Three mile island, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Chernobyl stuck out in my mind because traditional thinking states that extremely high levels of radiation would make most forms of life impossible in affected areas. What we see today however is that the area is practically a nature preserve. Animals that were supposed to be killed outright by radiation levels or at best sterilized (even mammals with complex reproductive systems) have seen their numbers multiply to levels unheard of as there is no longer human development in the area.

I have no reason to think that biologically speaking humans are any different from deer or rabbit or any other mammal that calls Chernobyl home. Yes a Nuclear war would be bad, 99% of the human population would die horribly as society collapses and environmental conditions render large scale agriculture impossible for a number of years (supposing a full scale nuclear engagement). Humanity would adapt just as any other complex mammal would. I would assume that evolutionary pressures present in a post nuclear would select for genetic traits coping with diseases and ailments and other pressures exerted by a drastically changed planet.

The argument against that is those were minor incidents compared to what happens in Fallout. We're talking thousands of nukes, all over the world, in two hours.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 3:04 am

The music of this trailer is driving me crazy