Humans are the weirdest aliens?

There's a post on Tumblr along those lines which mentions both rabbis trying to figure out when the Sabbath begins and ends on a space station and everyone trying to pretend the spaceship is derelict when the Space Mormon missionary pods show up. :::PPP

 

Also, how do you pray towards Mecca five times a day in low Earth orbit?

 

If you're space muslim, which way is mecca?

 

General consensus seems to be towards Earth if you're in deep space, from what I can find. That might be inconvenient, though. What if you're on a planet surface and it's directly overhead?

 

what if you're in an orbiting space station zipping around the earth at high speeds?

 

... *sigh* Okay, I have now been nerd-sniped. Gimme a few.

 

Hm, it seems that the portions of this problem which can be addressed by physics, can be addressed fairly easily. There seems to be some flexibility on exactly when the prayer must be performed, so the person praying could (if need be) choose to pray while the station is on the opposite side of the planet from Mecca. That would keep the change in angle small, ten to twenty degrees over the course of a ten-minute prayer. (To visualize: hold your hand out at arm's length and spread your fingers. "Toward Mecca" might start out by the tip of your thumb and move, over those ten minutes, over to the tip of your smallest finger. Its path might be straight or somewhat curved.) The direction itself might be a bit tricky to figure out by eye unless one were uncommonly good at geography, geometry, and/or astronomy, but a computer program could give you a direction based on "landmarks" in the room or capsule where you are praying.

Here, though, are some questions that secular physics cannot answer:

• What is the acceptable margin of error on "toward Mecca"?
• Is it correct to measure the direction to Mecca in a straight line, through the Earth if necessary, or on a great circle path around the surface? I assume prayers on the surface are directed along a great circle path, because of the inconvenience of praying at a sharp downward angle, but an orbiting Muslim would be in freefall so the straight-line option would become practical.
• If a ten degree error is too much, the person praying would need to rotate during the prayer. Is it preferable for the person to rotate themselves or to be assisted mechanically?
• On what schedule should the prayers occur? The natural "day" of a space station is its orbit around the planet, and five prayers per ninety minute orbit seems unlikely. Would prayers be timed according to the astronauts' daily schedule? That's tricky because, while the ISS usually operates on Greenwich time, when it's docked with a space shuttle it adapts to the shuttle's mission time, based on the time zone where it was launched from. Or would the prayer schedule be chosen for religious or cultural significance - Mecca time, say, or the time zone of the mosque the astronaut usually attends?

I assume the same thing as if you're on this planet's surface and Mecca is underneath you - ignore the vertical angle and pray in whatever horizontal direction comes closest. (On Earth, this is equivalent to the great circle direction mentioned above.)

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim_astronauts#Praying_towards_Mecca_in_space

Edit: https://www.wired.com/2007/09/mecca-in-orbit/

In particular, it appears that the time is determined by the port from which the astronaut is launched, that the great circle method is preferable, and that prayer should not include movement other than the required posture changes so as to focus on the prayer itself - if it's not possible for the astronaut to not move, or even to not change positions because of gravity, that's fine, because the priority is what is reasonable.

 

*facepalm* I can ask myself two dozen questions, but not "gee, is it likely that someone has solved this problem already?"

 

That was a much more sensible answer than I was imagining. Also, when you talked about the location of mecca moving I imagined someone praying on a giant rotating platform that was programmed to move exactly as fast as mecca did.

 

My grandfather is a huge nerd about the ISS and sent me the article several years ago, I just happened to remember that the question sounded familiar. Otherwise I wouldn't have had the slightest clue.

 

I was just reminded of this thread's existence so I'm gonna put that here, from the really weird thing on your mind thread:

Things about humans:

• Will occasionally pretend they have psychic powers when in immediate proximity to an automatic door
• Will typically get frustrated when an urge to clean their airways spontaneously disappears
• Have a caring instinct that can get triggered by things including, but not limited to, non-human lifeforms, automated tools, inanimate objects, astronomical features, abstract concepts, and fictional depictions of any of the aforementioned
  
• Will sometimes give other humans reflective rocks and metals as a show of affection
  
• Occasionally use explosives as a musical instrument
• Consider pain a type of flavor, and often use substances inducing it in their food
• Can use previously-agreed-upon violent fights for fun, both by participating and by watching them
• Transfer ideas and cultural elements between individuals in a manner that has been likened to genetic transmission
  
• Use advanced computing systems for playing games, and watching other people play games
• Will, when told something tastes terrible, immediately attempt to taste it to check

 

'consider pain a type of flavour' it is only one very specific type of pain that is a flavour and it is the kind usually associated with a chemical that helps prevent food from going off and is also poisonous to pretty much every mammal except us and pigs (although not to birds), which is probably why we evolved to enjoy it

 

I can't find anything about that for most pungent substances, though? Piperin might apparently have insecticid properties, but none of the plants that produce it are naturally found in East Africa, and I can't find anything about toxicity to specifically non-human mammals for any of the substances I can find.

 

capsicain

 

Well, yeah, that's the first one I checked, but it's only naturally occuring in America. It's also not particularly more toxic for other mammals than for humans, though it does repel insects.

 

Alien crewmember to human companion: "I've been doing the sensitivity reading, but I think my handout was defective. There's some stuff that got mistranslated and I was hoping you could help me resolve it?"

Human: "Sure thing dude. Waddya need?"

Alien: "Well, this concept of 'sucker bait' sounds pointless. The explanation is completely nonsensical. What even is it?"

*Human sighs, pulls out a poster, scribbles on it and hangs it on a random valve in the hallway*

Alien: "What are you-" *is pulled firmly but insistently into a convenient hidey nook*

Alien: "I don't-"

Human: "Shhhh!"

Within minutes, a human crewmember strolls through the hallway. They spot the sign, halt, and do a double take. The sign reads "Please Do Not Lick." The crewmember glances surreptitiously around, leans forward and gives the valve a thoughtful lick. They immediately pull back in revulsion. They glare at the offending valve and stomp off, gagging slightly. The alien boggles. The human sighs and covers their face in despair.

"That," the human says, slightly muffled through their own hands, "was sucker bait."

 

"The last sound on earth will be someone saying, 'Ooh, I wonder what this button does?"
- Terry Pratchett

 

For the record, I didn't even know about the Nintendo thing when I wrote this.

 

i found a blog dedicated to this