On this page of Ingersoll Lockwood's website there is at the bottom a animation that begins at a building and scrolls out in one continuous stream, basically out to the end of the universe. Most likely this is a cool generated graphic, but at this point, who knows. It was a very well done graphic, with changes in albedo you would expect based on distance and position with respect to the sun etc., so it used a physics engine at the least.
Regardless, I took a few screenshots as it was scrolling out and found it on Google Earth. The building it starts at is Energie-Wende-Garching; what appears to be geothermal energy plant. The building itself can be seen from the front (as opposed to the top on google earth) in the first picture.
It doesn't really look like the image from Ingersoll Lockwood, though it is the same size, and that may have been done at a time prior to the addition of the solar roof (which makes it look pyramidal from the top).
What I found interesting is that right next door is the Max Planck institute of Quantum Optics, as well as other various places of interest like an observatory, Max Planck Institute of Extraterrestrial Physics, etc.
Just thought I would share something interesting. No connection to anything really, except of course that IF a system that can see possible futures exists it could very well have been developed at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics.
I have not read Slaughterhouse Five. If I find the time perhaps I will. It is of the same genre of many other books I have read.
I'm not sure what you mean by softer sciences. There is science, that is the iterative approach of making measurements and creating better and better models that fit all the measurements we have taken. And there is philosophy, where we create models without measurements but based strictly on axioms.
Physics does both (all sciences do both, but its easy to see in physics). It creates models based on measurements that uses strictly the language of math, and overlays other models based on clearly stated axioms in an attempt to describe what the math says using logic. Usually it does both the endeavors simultaneously, one driving the other.
Some of the "sciences" like psychology or political science, etc. attempt to do the same thing, but really are based on so many unprovable, obscure and/or even conflicting axioms that they are more akin to people in a dark room trying to find the door for just the chance at a single photon to bring them hope of a larger world.
In other words, it is the misuse of axioms that drives too many endeavors in these attempts at elucidation that obfuscates the entire model creation process, and creates useless models. If one can not, or does not, completely describe their axioms one can not understand their own model. This is what is most frustrating about things like "climate science" which is a complete oxymoron imo (as practiced).
Their models are all mathy, and look sciency, but really there are so many "obvious" axioms injected (usually without even realizing it) that have nothing to do with reality that all models must produce flawed results, which is why they ubiquitously have so little predictive power.
Climate science is the lie of hidden axioms. Most soft sciences are. That doesn't mean they have to be, that is just how they are often practiced (and taught). Sometimes someone exceptional comes along and does it correctly. I have read some treatise that really shine as examples of how to approach such complicated systems by clearly stating their axioms, and attempting to justify them. It helps define the system, which limits its use, but makes it an honest approach with potentially usable models.
If only it was taught that way.
Slyver, you help me grow, in wonderful ways. THANKS! GBY & your loved ones!