Networks: Final Day of Research

I feel very proud of myself today. Yesterday I didn't do much, but today I made up for it by finding some quality sources that my group could use to inform our work and help us write our individual 1000word texts.

Sifting through the research I've got it's evident that modern day society is extremely dependent on electricity. However, the technology we have now--such as our GPS, power grids, satellite transmissions and so on--is vulnerable to severe space weather such as strong solar storms (Phillips, 2009). As of 2012, we are heading in to a solar maximum, which predicts strong solar storms to follow (Jaggard, 2008). So for us making a small scale model of an alternative system is quite relevant I think.

There was one website that I did not accept as one of my sources at all because frankly I thought it was ridiculous. It takes a little bit of scientific fact but leaves out all the details and blows it out of proportion. I saw that particular article as fear-mongering to be honest. It made out that a solar flare would blast Earth into oblivion saying that "thousands would die within the first week". It's like certain people being paranoid over a nearby dying star going into its supernova stage. Naturally, supernovae are pretty destructive because of the amount of power they put out, but the thing is, for a supernova to have any effect on Earth at all it has to be within 26 lightyears from Earth. There are NO dying stars that are anywhere near 26 lightyears from us.

Always question information you find. Question the source, be critical of how they got that data and the context in which it is written. It would be incredibly stupid of anyone to believe anything they read even if it appears to be written formally.


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Reference list

Jaggard, V. (2008). Magnetic-Shield Cracks Found; Big Solar Storms Expected. Retrieved March 21, 2012, from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/12/081217-solar-breaches.html

Phillips, T. (2009). Severe Space Weather--Social and Economic Impacts. Retrieved March 21, 2012, from http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/21jan_severespaceweather/