exch

Having things be complex and messy is hardly ideal, but I think Neil deGrasse Tyson's sentiment is important to keep in mind: The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.

But as cshimmin mentioned, we already unified electricity and magnetism. I am reasonably confident we'll find something equally nice and elegant for the rest. Maybe not tomorrow, or in a hundred years, but it'll happen. If only because we're too stubborn a species to let it be.

What does 'post human' mean? Unless we go extinct, we will always be humans, regardless of what species we evolve into. Our current species is "Homo Sapiens Sapiens", not "Human". Ergo, if we evolve into amorphous blobs of space goo, we will still be Human but not "Homo Sapiens Sapiens". Which means it is physically impossible for us to ever reach a "post-human" stage.

They do in my (marginal) experience. I have found it to be a very common idiom to keep word definitions in these languages as short as possible. Probably for this very reason.

You define new words for the sole purpose of keeping things short and to the point. This holds true for most languages (At least if you want readable and maintainable code), but a language like Factor, this becomes an absolute necessity.

I would not be surprised if this is the reason Factor is called Factor. Specifically when related to factoring in Algebra where you do much the same thing: "splitting" an expression into a multiplication of simpler expressions.

This is definitely one of my all time favourite games. The atmosphere and story are top notch. Good to see it being revitalized.

Not to mention the vastly better field of view and detail. Neither of which translate very well through a phone camera.

Not sure why you are getting down voted. These are all valid points.

Thank you! It seems my confusion arose from assuming this is a power generator, while it is a storage device.

As a completely non-technically-inclined person, can someone explain how this is intended to yield electricity as output?

From what little I do understand, the enormous surface area of the crushed gravel acts as a very efficient heat transfer mechanism, so it can cool(or heat) the Argon, depending on which chamber one is looking at.

The pistons are there to cycle the Argon between high and low pressure.. Presumably to keep the gas flow going. But can't this be done with just the pistons and without the pressure gradient? (edit: nvm this part; the heat energy is obviously generated by this pressure gradient).

Then comes the time to get the heat energy out for actual use. The article mentions that the gas flow can be reversed. So presumably the gravel that was previously being cooled, will now be heated. Isn't this just exchanging the heat between the gravel and gas? How does this yield net energy output?

Go would fit that definition quite nicely as well. It may be worth adding to your list of things to check out.

[unsubstantiated armchair physics ahead]

One benefit of this approach I can see is that you don't, in theory, need transmitters and receivers to be in line of sight for a clear signal. If you are doing standard radio transmissions, it helps if there isn't a planet between you and the transmitter. With entanglement equipment on both ends, this is irrelevant.

You will also not be bothered by signal degradation. The real head-scratcher of quantum entanglement lies in that it works over any distance. The 'transfer' of state between particles is identical, whether the twin is sitting 1 meter or a million light years away.

But as the other commenters mentioned, you are still very much bound by the speed of light. So propagating state changes between entangled particles separated by 1 light year, will still take 1 year.