No races that can travel intergalactically in star trek

Minime2.5 · 24-02-2020 5:00pm #1

There doesnt seem to be any races in star trek that can travel intergallactically . Am I wrong? The traveller can but Im talking about star ships doing it .

odyssey06 · 24-02-2020 5:04pm

In a TOS episode, the Kelvan Empire from the Andromeda Galaxy can do this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_Any_Other_Name

Inviere · 24-02-2020 5:08pm

You'd have to imagine Species 8472 have that ability....to leave fluidic space wherever they please.

seamus · 24-02-2020 5:26pm

TOS as usual established a number of really bogey things, one being a galactic barrier.

Star Trek in general tends to be galaxy-centric for the obvious reason that once you go outside of that scope, you find yourself in a whole heap of trouble trying to keep distances and facts half-right. You also introduce a load of questions that have to be answered. Imagine the Enterprise finds itself ten galaxies away, and then Q appears. You'd be thinking, "Hang on, there are trillions of galaxes, each with trillions of stars, countless civilisations, and yet here is an omnipotent being just so happens to be toying with a human".
It's still mad on a galactic scale, but at least slightly believable.

Plus, it adds questions - if there are omnipotent and/or non-coporeal beings, why do they hang around our galaxy? Maybe they're not as omnipotent as they claim to be.

Quick calculations suggest that to reach Andromeda using quantum slipstream drive from Voyager would take about a year running the drive continuously. Experiences of it so far though suggest it has a very limited operational life and can only be run for short periods. That's a lot of time for a ship to be in intergalactic space with absolutely nothing nearby. So on the whole intergalactic travel is maybe just not feasible for typical corporeal life.

TheValeyard · 24-02-2020 9:36pm

seamus wrote: »

TOS as usual established a number of really bogey things, one being a galactic barrier.

Star Trek in general tends to be galaxy-centric for the obvious reason that once you go outside of that scope, you find yourself in a whole heap of trouble trying to keep distances and facts half-right. You also introduce a load of questions that have to be answered. Imagine the Enterprise finds itself ten galaxies away, and then Q appears. You'd be thinking, "Hang on, there are trillions of galaxes, each with trillions of stars, countless civilisations, and yet here is an omnipotent being just so happens to be toying with a human".
It's still mad on a galactic scale, but at least slightly believable.

Plus, it adds questions - if there are omnipotent and/or non-coporeal beings, why do they hang around our galaxy? Maybe they're not as omnipotent as they claim to be.

Quick calculations suggest that to reach Andromeda using quantum slipstream drive from Voyager would take about a year running the drive continuously. Experiences of it so far though suggest it has a very limited operational life and can only be run for short periods. That's a lot of time for a ship to be in intergalactic space with absolutely nothing nearby. So on the whole intergalactic travel is maybe just not feasible for typical corporeal life.

I've a feeling the Q are not as powerful as they admit. Even a couple of Voyager episodes alluded to that.

Also, why did the Borg not try traverse the galaxies?
Maybe the Sphere builders could or any extra dimensional beings like 8472 mentioned earlier.

Didn't Voyagers Caretakers come from another Galaxy?

The Traveler in TNG could?

pixelburp · 24-02-2020 9:44pm

What do astronomers reckon is the distance between galaxies though? The Milky Way is itself almost inconceivably large, the distance between ours and the closest next galaxy is probably exponentially times the size of either galaxy, not to mention the follow up question of what exists between galaxies. Feels like even warp travel would struggle to cross distances that vast.

Honestly, they're better off sticking with one playground

AMKC · 24-02-2020 10:19pm

So who here thinks there must be more intelligent life in our Galaxy than just us. I for one think there has to be. Our Galaxy is made up of trillions of stars and worlds so there has to be more intelligent life out there or maybe its only us in this Galaxy and then one set of intelligent being in say the Andromeda Galaxy and the same with all the other Galaxy's.
That would seem like an awful waste of space then do and if that was the case and one of them races had got interstellar travel its no wonder they don't want to visit our planet because they were probably like us once fighting over petty stupid things like Religion, land and oil and are probably about a thousand years ahead of us so we would be like insects to them.

Slydice · 24-02-2020 10:55pm

I googled a few guesses about this one.

I thought for sure the Iconians or maybe the Voth... maybe even the Cytherians but nothing to say they were for sure.

V'ger was the only one with 'whole galaxies':

AMKC wrote: »

So who here thinks there must be more intelligent life in our Galaxy than just us.

Guaranteed! 100% Not a doubt.

AMKC · 24-02-2020 11:05pm

I suppose the Planet killing machine that was in the TOS episode ''The Doomsday Machine'' was from a race from another Galaxy and came from another Galaxy but no one knows what that race was or from what Galaxy it came from.
There was also the race that took over the Enterprise and wanting too use it to get back to their Galaxy but it would take 300 years for them.

pixelburp · 24-02-2020 11:12pm

AMKC wrote: »

So who here thinks there must be more intelligent life in our Galaxy than just us. I for one think there has to be. Our Galaxy is made up of trillions of stars and worlds so there has to be more intelligent life out there or maybe its only us in this Galaxy and then one set of intelligent being in say the Andromeda Galaxy and the same with all the other Galaxy's.
That would seem like an awful waste of space then do and if that was the case and one of them races had got interstellar travel its no wonder they don't want to visit our planet because they were probably like us once fighting over petty stupid things like Religion, land and oil and are probably about a thousand years ahead of us so we would be like insects to them.

To paraphrase a famous line whose originator I can't recall: either we're alone in the universe, or we're not. Either outcome is terrifying.

Heck, we may not be the only life in the solar system, if Europa or Enceladus prove theories correct. I await the probes to the former with geeky anticipation.

Statistically there's simply no way planet earth is the only one in the entire universe with life. Just no chance, those are (pardon the pun) astronomical odds. Now, whether that life is capable of interstellar travel? That's where I'm sceptical we might ever make contact, or if there are species with that degree of scientific advancement. Something else to consider is that for many of those stars in the sky, the light took millions of years to reach us. Many of them are already dead, many more newly formed and whose light has yet to reach us.

The universe is tooling away with its plans in its own time, we're so far behind the cosmic news it's humbling.

AllForIt · 25-02-2020 1:03am

Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. No matter what inventions in the future for space travel it is proven to be impossible to travel faster than the speed of light.

Our Milky Way galaxy is roughly 100,000 light years across. So even light would take 100,000 years to travel from one side to the other.

So, if you had a star ship that could travel as fast as the speed of light, it would take 100,000 years to traverse it from one side to the other. That's a lot of Star Trek episodes.

So it makes sense the keep the Star Trek universe galaxy centric, rather then jumping from galaxy to galaxy. Star Wars was based in a different galaxy to ours.

This is one of sad things about space discovery and the search for life. The physics of the universe are such that it is so big that it is physically impossible to travel between galaxy's at any kind of speed that would be useful.

Minime2.5 · 25-02-2020 1:38am

seamus wrote: »

TOS as usual established a number of really bogey things, one being a galactic barrier.

Star Trek in general tends to be galaxy-centric for the obvious reason that once you go outside of that scope, you find yourself in a whole heap of trouble trying to keep distances and facts half-right. You also introduce a load of questions that have to be answered. Imagine the Enterprise finds itself ten galaxies away, and then Q appears. You'd be thinking, "Hang on, there are trillions of galaxes, each with trillions of stars, countless civilisations, and yet here is an omnipotent being just so happens to be toying with a human".
It's still mad on a galactic scale, but at least slightly believable.

Plus, it adds questions - if there are omnipotent and/or non-coporeal beings, why do they hang around our galaxy? Maybe they're not as omnipotent as they claim to be.

Quick calculations suggest that to reach Andromeda using quantum slipstream drive from Voyager would take about a year running the drive continuously. Experiences of it so far though suggest it has a very limited operational life and can only be run for short periods. That's a lot of time for a ship to be in intergalactic space with absolutely nothing nearby. So on the whole intergalactic travel is maybe just not feasible for typical corporeal life.

I get that and ive heard and read all that before but my question wasnt geared towards the federation having that technology otherwise it would have to be utilised in most episodes which would have caused the problems you mentioned above. My question was geared toward an alien race whose tech is far beyond that of the federation or any other species in the milky way which would only require a few episodes

Evade · 25-02-2020 1:21pm

The Travellers are capable of intergalactic travel as are the Cytherians from Nth Degree and I wouldn't have put i past the Iconians either.

It would take about 2,500 years to get to the Andromeda Galaxy at Voyager's 1,000 lightyear per year estimated pace. Something doesn't exactly add up there since the star maps of the Federation show it to be a few thousand lightyears across and it doesn't take years to get from one side to the other.

Zulu · 25-02-2020 1:35pm

AllForIt wrote: »

Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

...well, that we know of. Current understanding suggests that, but that is our current understanding and not a definitive certainty.

No matter what inventions in the future for space travel it is proven to be impossible to travel faster than the speed of light.

....bound by our current understanding.

AMKC · 25-02-2020 9:35pm

pixelburp wrote: »

To paraphrase a famous line whose originator I can't recall: either we're alone in the universe, or we're not. Either outcome is terrifying.

Heck, we may not be the only life in the solar system, if Europa or Enceladus prove theories correct. I await the probes to the former with geeky anticipation.

Statistically there's simply no way planet earth is the only one in the entire universe with life. Just no chance, those are (pardon the pun) astronomical odds. Now, whether that life is capable of interstellar travel? That's where I'm sceptical we might ever make contact, or if there are species with that degree of scientific advancement. Something else to consider is that for many of those stars in the sky, the light took millions of years to reach us. Many of them are already dead, many more newly formed and whose light has yet to reach us.

The universe is tooling away with its plans in its own time, we're so far behind the cosmic news it's humbling.

Well said and I agree with all that. It amazing to think that why you look at the sky and see and star that that star might not be there anymore so in some ways when we look at the sky we are looking back in time.

either we're alone in the universe, or we're not. Either outcome is terrifying.

I am nearly sure that was by the brilliant and legendary Stephen Hawking.

Evade · 25-02-2020 9:40pm

It was Arthur C. Clarke

AllForIt · 26-02-2020 1:55am

OSI wrote: »

Bit meaningless though given the whole premise of Star Trek is based off humans achieving faster than light space travel via the warp drive.

Okay. Well I wouldn't say 'the whole premise'...but how much faster? I did some Star Trek 'research' and apparent Warp 1 is the speed of light.

Warp 9.9...

However, travelling at a warp factor of 9.9 from one end of the Milky Way galaxy – a body of hundreds of billions of stars that may stretch 150,000 to 200,000 light-years wide, according to a recent study – to the other could take 96 years. That's almost a decade longer than an average human life span today.

Obviously all this can be fixed by speeding up the capability of the 'warp core'.
Traveling from galaxy to galaxy though is whole other problem. Cue worm holes and alien technology.

AllForIt · 26-02-2020 1:58am

Zulu wrote: »

...well, that we know of. Current understanding suggests that, but that is our current understanding and not a definitive certainty.

....bound by our current understanding.

No. Our current understanding if final. It is a definite certainty. Einstein proves there is no way to travel faster than the speed of light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2JCoIGyGxc

Zulu · 26-02-2020 10:22am

AllForIt wrote: »

No. Our current understanding if final. It is a definite certainty.

Well, no. Its not. It's bound by our understanding. Another understanding may also exist. To suggest that there is no other possibility from our very, very limited position, is ignorant.

Johnny Storm · 26-02-2020 10:52am

AMKC wrote: »

So who here thinks there must be more intelligent life in our Galaxy than just us. I for one think there has to be. Our Galaxy is made up of trillions of stars and worlds so there has to be more intelligent life out there or maybe its only us in this Galaxy and then one set of intelligent being in say the Andromeda Galaxy and the same with all the other Galaxy's.
That would seem like an awful waste of space then do and if that was the case and one of them races had got interstellar travel its no wonder they don't want to visit our planet because they were probably like us once fighting over petty stupid things like Religion, land and oil and are probably about a thousand years ahead of us so we would be like insects to them.

To quote God on Twitter: " the other 400 billion stars are just for show"

seamus · 26-02-2020 11:10am

AllForIt wrote: »

No. Our current understanding if final. It is a definite certainty. Einstein proves there is no way to travel faster than the speed of light.

There are many people throughout history who have declared humanity's understanding of physics and other scientific branches to be nearly complete and final.

And then half a century later a whole heap of other crap falls out and it turns out we know nothing.

The speed of light and all of that fun is it not as simplistic as it's made out to be and my brain melts when you start adding in reference frames.

The basis of warp speed in the ST universe for example is that the ships form a field that removes the normal boundaries of space-time, thus allowing one to travel faster than if they were bound by space time. I typically picture it as a vehicle trying to drive through a foot of snow versus the same vehicle with a snow plough attached. For less energy you can move faster.

It's a fudge, of course, a magic plot device. But given that we already know that spacetime can be manipulated with energy fields, warp drive is not outside of the bounds of normal reality like, e.g. magic.

You're both correct; that is to say that Einstein's proof is final, and also that it is restricted to what we currently know about reality.

Newton's laws are final and remain unchanged since they've been formulated. But only within the bounds of the reality that Newton understood at that time. Once you move outside of classical mechanics, Newton's laws break down.

I'll admit that the desire for FTL is as much aspirational as it is theoretical, but it would be wrong to say that we know beyond doubt from now until the end of time that it is not possible to travel faster than light.

Zulu · 26-02-2020 11:40am

Well considering that we can conceive of slowing time and rationalise the same where gravity is excessive.
And consider that we have successfully transported a particle.
And consider that we are potentially existing within a multiverse.
Perhaps, given the technology, we could remove a body from this verse, and return it again.
Perhaps, we could return that body at another point in this verse.

Should that point be a distance from the origination point greater that the distance light would have traveled in the same time, we'd have achieved FTL.

This would adhere to Einsteins theory (note theory), but achieve a conflicting result.

Imagination is a wonderful thing, and is probably the reason we stopped believing that the earth was flat, and the centre of the universe.

TheValeyard · 26-02-2020 4:43pm

AllForIt wrote: »

No. Our current understanding if final. It is a definite certainty. Einstein proves there is no way to travel faster than the speed of light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2JCoIGyGxc

Well then we'll just resort to this!

Evade · 26-02-2020 5:14pm

seamus wrote: »

There are many people throughout history who have declared humanity's understanding of physics and other scientific branches to be nearly complete and final.

And then half a century later a whole heap of other crap falls out and it turns out we know nothing.

The speed of discovery seems to be slowing down which to me indicates one of two possibilities. Either we've already solved most of the secrets of the universe or we've gotten about as far as our capacity to understand will allow. The latter seems far more likely to me.

Zulu · 26-02-2020 8:23pm

Evade wrote: »

The speed of discovery seems to be slowing down which to me indicates one of two possibilities. Either we've already solved most of the secrets of the universe or we've gotten about as far as our capacity to understand will allow. The latter seems far more likely to me.

Oh I strongly disagree. Quite the opposite I'd suggest.

We went thousands of year relatively discovering feic all. In the last few decades we are learning more and more.... ....and leveraging that to learn more again!

Evade · 26-02-2020 8:35pm

Zulu wrote: »

Oh I strongly disagree. Quite the opposite I'd suggest.

We went thousands of year relatively discovering feic all. In the last few decades we are learning more and more.... ....and leveraging that to learn more again!

I was thinking in a more recent time frame. There seemed to be big leaps from around the mid 19th to mid 20th century often by small teams or individuals and since then it seems like it's been very incremental needing huge teams of people.

It might not seem that way because manufacturing has caught up and everyone has the internet in their pocket but that's really just applying a refined version of a torpedo guidance system from the 1940s.

AMKC · 26-02-2020 11:12pm

Zulu wrote: »

Well considering that we can conceive of slowing time and rationalise the same where gravity is excessive.
And consider that we have successfully transported a particle.
And consider that we are potentially existing within a multiverse.
Perhaps, given the technology, we could remove a body from this verse, and return it again.
Perhaps, we could return that body at another point in this verse.

Should that point be a distance from the origination point greater that the distance light would have traveled in the same time, we'd have achieved FTL.

This would adhere to Einsteins theory (note theory), but achieve a conflicting result.

Imagination is a wonderful thing, and is probably the reason we stopped believing that the earth was flat, and the centre of the universe.

But the World is not flat and nor is it at the centre of the Universe.

We stopped thinking or believing the World was flat because it was proven wrong.

Zulu · 27-02-2020 11:04am

AMKC wrote: »

But the World is not flat and nor is it at the centre of the Universe.

We stopped thinking or believing the World was flat because it was proven wrong.

...thats kinda my point.

seamus · 27-02-2020 11:28am

Evade wrote: »

I was thinking in a more recent time frame. There seemed to be big leaps from around the mid 19th to mid 20th century often by small teams or individuals and since then it seems like it's been very incremental needing huge teams of people.

It might not seem that way because manufacturing has caught up and everyone has the internet in their pocket but that's really just applying a refined version of a torpedo guidance system from the 1940s.

Yeah, but it's easy to get a condensed version of history when you're looking at it retrospectively. And when you already know what the "next step" is going to be. You have a list of dates and achievement, and the downtime between them is not visible.

The oft-quoted one is the fact that humans went from learning how to fly, to landing on the moon inside of 60 years. And in the fifty years since we haven't advanced much.
Aeronautical engineers would probably disagree. We haven't gone further, but we have learned how to do it way more efficiently and safely. SpaceX have managed to return rockets from Space and land them nose up on a barge in the middle of the ocean. A feat that would seem almost like magic to the engineers who landed on the moon; something out of sci-fi.

The torpedo guidance system from the 1940s isn't that impressive. It's just a refined version of Babbage's difference engine from 1822.

The singularity is one topic that always interests me. Because it's often touted as a point where we suddenly know everything immediately (or in a really short space of time). In reality it's a logarithmic scale charting the pace of invention/discovery. 10 years ago, Internet in your pocket was only starting to become a big thing. 10 years before that, Internet was only starting to take off, as were mobile phones.
10 years before that there was no Internet or mobile phones (not in widespread use anyway).
Think about how much life has changed every decade for the last fifty years, and how dizzying that would appear to someone from 1800, whose life wasn't very different at all from his parents and grandparents. We're in the singularity right now. The pace of change and innovation is constantly speeding up. But it's very hard to see when you're standing in the middle of it.

Evade · 27-02-2020 11:50am

seamus wrote: »

The oft-quoted one is the fact that humans went from learning how to fly, to landing on the moon inside of 60 years. And in the fifty years since we haven't advanced much.
Aeronautical engineers would probably disagree. We haven't gone further, but we have learned how to do it way more efficiently and safely.

That's kind of my point the boundary is set, we can just get there a little easier now. That seems to be the only progress we're making

Zulu · 27-02-2020 12:08pm

I think it was pop scientist Michu Kako who likened development to sand in an hour glass.

The sand slowly piles up in a cone, higher and higher (we learn, develop, implement, learn, develop...) until there is a big shift and a little landslide happens (a significant breakthrough, a monumental development). It then resumes the slow piling up until the next breakthrough.

It's probably over simplistic as there are different breakthroughs happening in different areas all the time, but consider that we are in a "learn, develop, implement" cycle just before a major shift.

Quantum computing?

seamus · 27-02-2020 1:53pm

Quantum computing is really still in the theoretical stage. There have been a number built, but these serve to prove hypotheses and to test the engineering, rather than actually "do" anything.

At the moment quantum computing is roughly where digital was just before the second world war using vaccuum tubes and such. There will be a number of breakthroughs needed in the theory and engineering before quantum computers get out of the theoretical physics labs at universities.

Inviere · 27-02-2020 5:17pm

AllForIt wrote: »

No. Our current understanding if final.

I think that's the most arrogant presumption a human being can actually make (no offence intended, but it's beyond arrogant to think we've all the answers to the physics of the universe). As a civilization, we've broken every limit & barrier ever put in front of us thus far, and while 'the speed of light' might seem like the ultimate limit (which is probably is), given enough time and will, humans will figure something out, as we always have. These are literally the earliest of early days when it comes to interstellar propulsion though, we've a loooooong way to go.

All the great thinkers seem to think out of the box. If the speed of sound is 343 meters per second, could we ever have a real time conversation with someone on the other side of the world? Of course not, sure that's insanity...basic physics dictates that a real time conversation is impossible given the distances. Queue the invention of the telephone, whereby sound was converted to electricity, electricity having a much higher speed limit, and then converted back to sound again on the other side of the world. Job done, all the naysayers left in a grumble.

I'm not saying humans could be converted to electricity (not that that'd solve the problem , electricity is also bound by the speed of light too), but who knows what's going to happen in 100, 500, 1000 years time? Some of the recent military patents for mass-reduction tech are interesting, and while they're too bound by the same limits, again, we're only at the start of the journey. Plus, whatever is filed for patent for publicly, the MIC with its black budget is certainly guaranteed to be decades ahead, if not more, in terms of tech.

Minime2.5 · 29-02-2020 6:14pm

Theres a big difference between developing a probe that can travel the speed of light compared to a ship carrying humans and travelling that fast.Thats the biggest challenge

Minime2.5 · 29-02-2020 6:19pm

Inviere wrote: »

but who knows what's going to happen in 100, 500, 1000 years time?

This

TheValeyard · 29-02-2020 9:58pm

Minime2.5 wrote: »

This

Even Shredder looks terrified

Inviere · 01-03-2020 5:00am

Minime2.5 wrote: »

Theres a big difference between developing a probe that can travel the speed of light compared to a ship carrying humans and travelling that fast.Thats the biggest challenge

There's also a pretty big difference between sending smoke signals and making a video call. With enough time, mad stuff happens

Calibos · 09-03-2020 3:33pm

Alcubierre Drive. Google it.

pixelburp · 09-03-2020 3:39pm

Calibos wrote: »

Alcubierre Drive. Google it.

I've read of this before, and it's a fascinating concept; straight out of Futurama really, in terms of effectively hacking the universe to achieve FTL. Feels like the sort of thing that could have horrible, universe collapsing side-effects if it went wrong.

Last I heard though, its power requirements are so vast it's still not even provable on a conceptual basis - though I might have got the wrong end of the stick there. Certainly I've got the impression there are dissenting voices if it's even real.

AtomicHorror · 09-03-2020 6:23pm

pixelburp wrote: »

I've read of this before, and it's a fascinating concept; straight out of Futurama really, in terms of effectively hacking the universe to achieve FTL. Feels like the sort of thing that could have horrible, universe collapsing side-effects if it went wrong.

Last I heard though, its power requirements are so vast it's still not even provable on a conceptual basis - though I might have got the wrong end of the stick there. Certainly I've got the impression there are dissenting voices if it's even real.

There's a NASA-associated lab doing work on it, apparently. I gather they're seen as very fringe though. Possibly even borderline embarrassing/pitiable.

From my very limited understanding, the Alcubierre drive requires us to have a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanism of gravity, and the capability to manipulate it to warp spacetime, as well as a deep understanding of dark energy (or any understanding of it, for that matter) and the capability to manipulate that to cause localised inflation effects.

If any of that is even possible, it's hard to see us managing it in decades, or even in centuries.

TheValeyard · 09-03-2020 7:19pm

Everythings impossible until someone's goes and does it.

AMKC · 09-03-2020 9:22pm

TheValeyard wrote: »

Everythings impossible until someone's goes and does it.

Exactly.

Inviere · 10-03-2020 5:36pm

AtomicHorror wrote: »

If any of that is even possible, it's hard to see us managing it in decades, or even in centuries.

Decades? Highly unrealistic I would say. Centuries? Perhaps. The rate of innovation we have as a race is pretty staggering....from the first powered flight, to the moon, in 60 years. Who knows what the next five hundred years holds for us as a race.

AtomicHorror · 10-03-2020 8:09pm

Inviere wrote: »

Decades? Highly unrealistic I would say. Centuries? Perhaps. The rate of innovation we have as a race is pretty staggering....from the first powered flight, to the moon, in 60 years. Who knows what the next five hundred years holds for us as a race.

And yet those two milestones didn't rely on fundamentally different models in physics. You could do both without Einstein's help.

I agree though, that time will change a lot of what we understand.

TheValeyard wrote: »

Everythings impossible until someone's goes and does it.

Not really. Breaking the sound barrier was considered impossible by laypeople ignorant of physics, not by the scientists who hypothesized and theorized and who implemented the mechanisms by which that feat was achieved.

Similarly, circumnavigation of the world. Considered impossible by sailors who also had weird ideas about women, horseshoes and albatrosses. Not by the thinking people of the day.

So I think this saying conflates the dismissive stance of many laypeople with scientific skepticism, when they're really drastically different things.

Some things may genuinely be impossible, and the best minds in science consider FTL to be impossible, while laypeople generally assume otherwise. History teaches us that the scientists are not always right, but usually they are.

I'd be delighted if they were wrong, by the way, but they seem certain about it to a troubling extent.

Zulu · 11-03-2020 10:47am

AtomicHorror wrote: »

History teaches us that the scientists are not always right, but usually they are.

I'd be delighted if they were wrong, by the way, but they seem certain about it to a troubling extent.

Good news, I think you are!

I think your being far too kind to "scientists*".

What the old adage - "all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares". Those who have been right, may have been scientists, but the majority of scientists across time? Not so much.

* scientist is a relativity modern term, whats a scientist but a person pursuing and developing on the common thought of the time

AtomicHorror · 11-03-2020 1:11pm

Zulu wrote: »

Good news, I think you are!

I think your being far too kind to "scientists*".

What the old adage - "all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares". Those who have been right, may have been scientists, but the majority of scientists across time? Not so much.

Across all of time? Absolutely yes. In rare instances when a scientific revolution occurs, of course there's an initial majority of skeptics. Evolution and relativity are good examples. But 99.999-whatever percent of science is not revolutionary but incremental.

And here's a really, really important point. Despite the fact that the skeptical majority were dead wrong about relativity and evolution, they were right to be skeptical the vast majority of times that someone proposed revolutionary theories.

That's as it should be. Einsteins and Darwins are rare.

A better adage for you would be Sagan on Bozo the Clown.

Zulu wrote: »

* scientist is a relativity modern term, whats a scientist but a person pursuing and developing on the common thought of the time

A scientist is one who builds and tests models using the scientific method to add to the body of human knowledge. Scientists have an overlap with the group you're describing, but they're not the same as them nor a subset of them.

ted1 · 11-03-2020 5:40pm

AllForIt wrote: »

Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. No matter what inventions in the future for space travel it is proven to be impossible to travel faster than the speed of light.

So, if you had a star ship that could travel as fast as the speed of light, it would take 100,000 years to traverse it from one side to the other. That's a lot of Star Trek episodes.

So it makes sense the keep the Star Trek universe galaxy centric, rather then jumping from galaxy to galaxy. Star Wars was based in a different galaxy to ours.

This is one of sad things about space discovery and the search for life. The physics of the universe are such that it is so big that it is physically impossible to travel between galaxy's at any kind of speed that would be useful.

Fold space and you and can cover distances faster than light can travel

Inviere · 12-03-2020 5:59pm

AtomicHorror wrote: »

the best minds in science consider FTL to be impossible

The good-best minds in Science would go and say FTL is impossible "based on our current understanding". A lot of scientists will just flat out say "it's impossible". Big difference between the two for me.

FTL isn't just another barrier to be broke, like the sounds barrier was. This requires a fundamental shift in our understanding of the universe. It's impossible today, but again, who knows in 500/1000 years time.

AllForIt · 13-03-2020 2:17am

Inviere wrote: »

I think that's the most arrogant presumption a human being can actually make (no offence intended, but it's beyond arrogant to think we've all the answers to the physics of the universe). As a civilization, we've broken every limit & barrier ever put in front of us thus far, and while 'the speed of light' might seem like the ultimate limit (which is probably is), given enough time and will, humans will figure something out, as we always have. These are literally the earliest of early days when it comes to interstellar propulsion though, we've a loooooong way to go.

No, we don't have all the answers but there are things we don't know for certain.
You say we've broken ever limit but we have not. We haven't for example live longer

All the great thinkers seem to think out of the box. If the speed of sound is 343 meters per second, could we ever have a real time conversation with someone on the other side of the world? Of course not, sure that's insanity...basic physics dictates that a real time conversation is impossible given the distances. Queue the invention of the telephone, whereby sound was converted to electricity, electricity having a much higher speed limit, and then converted back to sound again on the other side of the world. Job done, all the naysayers left in a grumble.

I'm not saying humans could be converted to electricity (not that that'd solve the problem , electricity is also bound by the speed of light too), but who knows what's going to happen in 100, 500, 1000 years time? Some of the recent military patents for mass-reduction tech are interesting, and while they're too bound by the same limits, again, we're only at the start of the journey. Plus, whatever is filed for patent for publicly, the MIC with its black budget is certainly guaranteed to be decades ahead, if not more, in terms of tech.

I think you misunderstood me somewhat. I never said there was no way around the problem but I do insist that to devise a way around the problem you have to understand and accept the facts first, otherwise you could never devise a way around it.

Inviere · 13-03-2020 8:39am

AllForIt wrote: »

I think you misunderstood me somewhat. I never said there was no way around the problem but I do insist that to devise a way around the problem you have to understand and accept the facts first, otherwise you could never devise a way around it.

Oh definitely, otherwise we'd be a bunch of dreamers going nowhere

Apologies if I misunderstood you!

uck51js9zml2yt · 13-03-2020 9:14am

AllForIt wrote: »

No. Our current understanding if final. It is a definite certainty. Einstein proves there is no way to travel faster than the speed of light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2JCoIGyGxc

And yet the speed of light does change!!

No races that can travel intergalactically in star trek

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