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Alien life could be found within 40 years - really?

12346

Comments

  • #152
    Cú Giobach
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,772 ✭✭✭Cú Giobach


    Mickeroo wrote: »
    Yeah I've heard that quote before, I'm pretty sure its only meant to apply to laymen like myself not actual quantum physicists. I've only a basic understanding of the subject of course, i'm only going by what I've read or seen/heard physicists themselves say on the matter.
    Well you are wrong, it was said by Richard Feynman one of the greatest physicists of all time who did much of the work on QM and he included not just himself but anyone, because he actually knows something about the subject. Not one physicist will ever say they understand QM.
    Stating the obvious a bit there. I was just referring to how you used the gap in knowledge between the present and 1000 years ago to try give less credence to what we know now. Not to mention the sly dig that anyone disagreeing with you isn't well educated :D
    I'll ask you again in what way am I trying to give less credence to what we know now.
    You seem to be having difficulty in understanding the difference between dishing our present understanding and stating that our understanding can (and certainly will) change.
    Only the uneducated would think we have reached some sort of pinnacle of knowledge and people in the future would lament not having much left to learn.
    Using our "tiny" knowledge to suggest we know and understand nothing is pretty silly. Saying definitive statements based on what is considered scientific fact will be looked at as amusing and naive in the future only rings true if the facts of the present are proven to be erronous which nobody in existence has any way of knowing, just seems like a load of hot air to me. You could literally rationalise (for want of a better word) anything with that kind of thinking.
    And what strongly held tenet of modern physics have I said is wrong?
    It is not a scientific fact that it is impossible to get from one part of the universe to another faster than a beam of light, in fact it is theoretically possible, are you actually reading this thread or just taking the piss?


  • #153
    Reindeer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,076 ✭✭✭Reindeer


    We're starting to get wrapped up in semantics. The fact is many physicists believe FTL is possible with a sufficiently advanced civilization with our current theories. Also, even at less than FTL, aliens can still visit us as there are plenty of planets within a couple hundred light years. This means an alien, especially one that can easily maintain several G's of acceleration comfortably, can reach us within a human generation their time. A human generation may mean nothing to them. Or, they may have stasis systems. Hell, they might naturally hibernate. They won't likely be human after all.

    Any sufficiently advanced society will have been looking for life much longer than us. Whether for resources, visitation, curiosity, defence, offence, etc. But more importantly, they would be looking for a planet that could harbor their life. Even with the crude instruments we have today, we can find earth-like planets many light years away. In other words, not only would every other advanced life form out there be looking for such a planet, but they likely will be of a similar type of life form to us via the fact they are specifically looking at our planet. Most scientists agree that they will find our planet before they find our communications. However, if they were looking at our planet for curiosity or resources, the next step would be to investigate...

    The question of 40 years, though. I dunno. I personally believe that a sufficiently advanced civilization would purposefully avoid us. They have nothing to gain from visiting, and there are likely plenty of other unoccupied planets out there they could harvest for materials if need be, assuming they were advanced enough to reach us.


  • #154
    antodeco
    Registered Users, Subscribers, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,706 ✭✭✭✭antodeco


    If there's aliens watching us through telescopes miles away they wouldn't actually be seeing us. They'd be looking at dinosaurs.


  • #155
    Roadtrippin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 350 ✭✭Roadtrippin


    El Weirdo wrote: »
    What do you think?

    Sorry, meant to answer you earlier.
    Not very realistic if you ask me but it also depends what you define as "alien". I think probably they will discover alien lifeforms in the sense of bacteria etc. but not sure I'll be alive when they come across actual alien "beings" if you like.

    What's your take on this?


  • #156
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Cú Giobach wrote: »
    Well you are wrong, it was said by Richard Feynman one of the greatest physicists of all time who did much of the work on QM and he included not just himself but anyone, because he actually knows something about the subject. Not one physicist will ever say they understand QM.

    This is about the only thing you got right. However physicists dont mean they understand the mathematics of QM, but that it is as weird to them as it is to us. In practice.
    I'll ask you again in what way am I trying to give less credence to what we know now.
    You seem to be having difficulty in understanding the difference between dishing our present understanding and stating that our understanding can (and certainly will) change.
    Only the uneducated would think we have reached some sort of pinnacle of knowledge and people in the future would lament not having much left to learn.

    The way you call your opponents "uneducated" is a bit of a joke. You are not very well educated, a little knowledge etc. Nobody is saying we have reached a pinnacle of knowledge but that there is no way past the speed of light. Mass tends to infinity under the mathematics of the Lorenz contraction, energy tends to infinity. We can theorize massless particles which are faster than the speed of light, but sometimes a mathematical theory is just, well, maths. In any case we have no known way of getting information faster than light.

    C is essential to relativity. Causality cannot be preserved if information can travel faster than light. This is integral to the theory. C is also integral to quantum mechanics. Throwing the speed of light out the window throws relativity out the the window - despite what you say. It is an essential theory, if it is wrong, then all of the last century is wrong. We start back at 1904
    And what strongly held tenet of modern physics have I said is wrong?
    It is not a scientific fact that it is impossible to get from one part of the universe to another faster than a beam of light, in fact it is theoretically possible, are you actually reading this thread or just taking the piss?

    Relativity, despite what you say. If you think that "only the uneducated" think we - or an advance alien species - wouldn't find a way past the speed of light in the future, which is what you are saying, you are jettisoning Special Relativity. You don't realise that you are because you don't know much about it.

    The wormhole thing you are hiding behind is just a fig leaf hiding lack of knowledge or logic.

    1) Wormholes are theoretical, and we would have a hard job finding them to begin with which doesn't square with your advanced aliens having easy access to faster than light information - which is how this started.
    2) . The main thing is, though, that they are just shortcuts. Imagine there is a windy road, and on that windy road it takes 60 minutes to travel 60 miles from A-B at max speed in a car which cant - by design - go faster or slower than 60mph.

    One day we discover that the topology of the landscape is such that a shortcut exists from A - B, and it now takes 20 minutes because it is 20 miles. What does that tell us about the maximum speed of the car? It tells us that it is still 60 mph.


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  • #157
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Reindeer wrote: »
    We're starting to get wrapped up in semantics. The fact is many physicists believe FTL is possible with a sufficiently advanced civilization with our current theories.

    No, they don't. Are there books out there peddling this nonsense?


  • #158
    Reindeer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,076 ✭✭✭Reindeer


    Duggys Housemate wrote: »
    No, they don't. Are there books out there peddling this nonsense?



    I meant to post this in this thread a while ago, actually. If it is the case Michio Kaku's credentials do not compare to your own, I shall defer to you. Although, admittedly, assembling an atom smasher in your garage as a teenager is a bit of a feat to beat.

    Kaku was born in San Jose, California to Japanese immigrant parents. His grandfather came to the United States to take part in the clean-up operation after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. His father was born in California but was educated in Japan and spoke little English. Both his parents were put in the Tule Lake War Relocation Center, where they met and where his two brothers were born.

    At Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, Kaku assembled an atom smasher in his parents' garage for a science fair project. At the National Science Fair in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he attracted the attention of physicist Edward Teller, who took Kaku as a protégé, awarding him the Hertz Engineering Scholarship. Kaku graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1968 and was first in his physics class. He attended the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley and received a Ph.D. in 1972, and in 1972 he held a lectureship at Princeton University.

    During the Vietnam War, Kaku completed his U.S. Army basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia and his advanced individual training at Fort Lewis, Washington.


  • #159
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 96,468 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Wibbs wrote: »
    Liquid water is all very well and likely one of the biggest if not the biggest requirements for life as we know it. However, one theory goes that at the very beginning some of the building block compounds for life required the presence of liquid water to form, whereas others needed to be dry. The theory goes that is was in the massive tidal zones of the early earth when the moon was much closer is where life kicked off. So biochemical compounds were alternately inundated by the ocean and baked in the sun twice daily. If this theory has legs then Europa may be seedable with life, but may never have gotten off the ground there in the first place.
    Some solvent, ammonia might work too. Hydrocarbons might also work as long as there was trace amounts of water / ammonia / solvent cells could use.

    http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=699
    It is not easy to estimate how far away from the Earth the Moon was when it formed, but simulations suggest is was about 3-5 times the radius of the Earth, or about 19-30 thousand km.
    Tidal force is proportional to r cubed so very early tides could have been 1,000 times higher ? :eek:


  • #160
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Reindeer wrote: »


    I meant to post this in this thread a while ago, actually. If it is the case Michio Kaku's credentials do not compare to your own, I shall defer to you.

    He is one physicist, and it is clear that he is fighting all the other scientists - he keeps complaining about other scientists being naive. Seems like a populist.

    And plenty of what he is saying is rubbish.General relativity does not supercede Einstein, for one. Its his theory. And it doesn't have faster than light mechanisms, and as for unified theory - to speculate that a yet unknown theory will have faster than light travel is just that. Speculation.

    As for credentialism, my degree is in mathematics. What matters here, unless Kaku pops in, is my credentialism vs yours, not his versus mine. And his vs everybody elses. If we are arguing to authority.


  • #161
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 96,468 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Meteorites from Mars have landed here, and presumably visa versa.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_meteorite

    it's possible for bacterial spores to survive an meteorite impact, as long as they are on the inside which stays cold - only the outer layers get burnt up on re-entry http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103500965436

    so it's possible that a meteorite that hit this planet in the last four billion years not only ejectect viable bacterial spores but that celestical mechanics and encounters and sunlight pressure might have even caused some material to have left the solar system. In which case there was plenty of time to reach nearby stars and planets.


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  • #162
    Reindeer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,076 ✭✭✭Reindeer


    Duggys Housemate wrote: »
    As for credentialism, my degree is in mathematics. What matters here, unless Kaku pops in, is my credentialism vs yours, not his versus mine. And his vs everybody elses. If we are arguing to authority.

    I have a degree in Industrial design, with a minor in linguistics, concentration in German. I do have university level physics and mathematics/calculus as I had switched from Electrical Engineering to industrial design late in my college career. However, this is where my linguistics training trumps your maths:

    We are not arguing credentials or numbers. We are discussing physics and aliens. If you wish to argue credentials, I think there's a thread for that in 4chan. If you wish to argue physics, I suggest you argue about physics. Michio Kaku is a world reknown and accomplished physicist. Arbitrarily dismissing the statements about physics from a man whose credentials shadow yours before he even graduated college his second time doesn't hide the fact he is far more accomplished than any of us in the conversations are in theoretical AND practical physics. You had no idea he had made such statements previously, which also means it is likely you have no idea who else in physics believes in FTL.

    To quote Richard Feynman "...there is also an amplitude for light to go faster (or slower) than the conventional speed of light. You found out in the last lecture that light doesn't go only in straight lines; now, you find out that it doesn't go only at the speed of light! It may surprise you that there is an amplitude for a photon to go at speeds faster or slower than the conventional speed, c."

    There are some that do not believe, and have some proof, that the speed of light is not a constant. Or are you also going to try and tell me I should quote myself and not Feynman?

    Semantics...

    Moving right along; Kaku made another statement that I felt was pertinent. Why would a species advanced enough to travel to visit us even bother? The likelihood of us being ants by comparison is high.


  • #163
    Strawberry Fields
    Closed Accounts Posts: 611 ✭✭✭Strawberry Fields


    Reindeer wrote: »



    Moving right along; Kaku made another statement that I felt was pertinent. Why would a species advanced enough to travel to visit us even bother? The likelihood of us being ants by comparison is high.

    They've been visiting for years so they could build the pyramids, test our nuclear capabilities in roswell you know like the yanks in Iran etc..

    If we found alien life on a planet how long before curiousity demanded we get there? India, Russia, US in a race to do it.


  • #164
    Latchy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 21,190 ✭✭✭✭Latchy


    karma_ wrote: »

    The universe is big, really big.
    Actually it's even much bigger than that again ...;)

    A recent tv programe I watched on the universe suggests that of all the new planets and stars being discovered,it's only a question of 'when' and not 'if ' a planet similar to earth is discovered .


  • #165
    Wibbs
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,331 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Duggys Housemate wrote: »
    2) . The main thing is, though, that they are just shortcuts. Imagine there is a windy road, and on that windy road it takes 60 minutes to travel 60 miles from A-B at max speed in a car which cant - by design - go faster or slower than 60mph.

    One day we discover that the topology of the landscape is such that a shortcut exists from A - B, and it now takes 20 minutes because it is 20 miles. What does that tell us about the maximum speed of the car? It tells us that it is still 60 mph.
    +1. Loathe though I am to put any absolute down in pixels I can't see any species breaking the speed of light or even close to it, but I can see how in theory at least they could find the shortcut. The shortcut is (as much as we know)an engineering problem not something that breaks the laws of nature. Kinda like if you went back in time(don't go there DH :D) and met Newton and asked him if theoretically a trip to the moon was possible, he'd likely say yes, even calculate the speeds and orbit trajectories required, but at the turn of the 16th century with the best will in the world the engineering would be impossible, even if you went back with the blueprints for a Saturn V.

    Even going at half light or quarter light speed there are serious issues going on. A golfball sized rock hitting the earth at half light speed would make one helluva dent, so you'd need one helluva shield.

    I think if we do encounter interstellar travelers they won't be biological(unless they warp wormholes by collapsing stars and such). They'll be the "machine" descendants of their biological creators. The problem with such huge distances is time. We simply don't live long enough. A machine intelligence would have no such constraints. Neither would biologically suitable habitats. Energy requirements would be very low too. They might even suck sustenance for the quantum foam/ether. They could seed their galaxy(or beyond) with relatively slow moving intelligences, small "neurons" in a vast spreading interstellar internet communicating at the speed of light that only boot up when the individual neurons reach a point of interest. In the deep cold of interstellar space only pretty basic anti entropy systems would be required for their long(to our minds) journeys. One could almost imagine that after the type I, II and III civilisations some have mooted, there is another, a type IIII, that turns an entire galaxy into an interconnected conscious "mind" hoovering up information, constantly evolving as it went. It would be the ultimate survivor of life(but not as we know it Jim) and vey resilient to extinction. If it/they continued to spread beyond their galaxy into others over the trillions of years that the future holds one might end up with a near universal intelligence. Maybe at that point of unimaginable knowledge and intelligence they/it could start to seed new universes at the quantum level and big bangs in other dimensions may be born. Maybe this has happened "before" and that's where this universe came from? At that point the Atheists may have to think again. Well... just a little anyway :D

    Many worry about Artificial Intelligence. I worry far more about Organic Idiocy.



  • #166
    Mickeroo
    Administrators, Computer Games Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 32,704 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Mickeroo


    Wibbs wrote: »
    +1. Loathe though I am to put any absolute down in pixels I can't see any species breaking the speed of light or even close to it, but I can see how in theory at least they could find the shortcut. The shortcut is (as much as we know)an engineering problem not something that breaks the laws of nature. Kinda like if you went back in time(don't go there DH :D) and met Newton and asked him if theoretically a trip to the moon was possible, he'd likely say yes, even calculate the speeds and orbit trajectories required, but at the turn of the 16th century with the best will in the world the engineering would be impossible, even if you went back with the blueprints for a Saturn V.

    Even going at half light or quarter light speed there are serious issues going on. A golfball sized rock hitting the earth at half light speed would make one helluva dent, so you'd need one helluva shield.

    I think if we do encounter interstellar travelers they won't be biological(unless they warp wormholes by collapsing stars and such). They'll be the "machine" descendants of their biological creators. The problem with such huge distances is time. We simply don't live long enough. A machine intelligence would have no such constraints. Neither would biologically suitable habitats. Energy requirements would be very low too. They might even suck sustenance for the quantum foam/ether. They could seed their galaxy(or beyond) with relatively slow moving intelligences, small "neurons" in a vast spreading interstellar internet communicating at the speed of light that only boot up when the individual neurons reach a point of interest. In the deep cold of interstellar space only pretty basic anti entropy systems would be required for their long(to our minds) journeys. One could almost imagine that after the type I, II and III civilisations some have mooted, there is another, a type IIII, that turns an entire galaxy into an interconnected conscious "mind" hoovering up information, constantly evolving as it went. It would be the ultimate survivor of life(but not as we know it Jim) and vey resilient to extinction. If it/they continued to spread beyond their galaxy into others over the trillions of years that the future holds one might end up with a near universal intelligence. Maybe at that point of unimaginable knowledge and intelligence they/it could start to seed new universes at the quantum level and big bangs in other dimensions may be born. Maybe this has happened "before" and that's where this universe came from? At that point the Atheists may have to think again. Well... just a little anyway :D

    Pretty sure you just described The Borg there Wibbs :D


  • #167
    Shryke
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,199 ✭✭✭Shryke


    I would urge anyone to give a read of the following short story if they are interested in the kind of thought that Wibbs alludes to. Not for any major reason other than that it's very good.
    It's called The Last Question and it's by Isaac Asimov. Nuff said really.

    http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm


  • #168
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Reindeer wrote: »
    I have a degree in Industrial design, with a minor in linguistics, concentration in German. I do have university level physics and mathematics/calculus as I had switched from Electrical Engineering to industrial design late in my college career. However, this is where my linguistics training trumps your maths:

    We are not arguing credentials or numbers. We are discussing physics and aliens. If you wish to argue credentials, I think there's a thread for that in 4chan. If you wish to argue physics, I suggest you argue about physics. Michio Kaku is a world reknown and accomplished physicist. Arbitrarily dismissing the statements about physics from a man whose credentials shadow yours before he even graduated college his second time doesn't hide the fact he is far more accomplished than any of us in the conversations are in theoretical AND practical physics. You had no idea he had made such statements previously, which also means it is likely you have no idea who else in physics believes in FTL.

    I did point out that he is a maverick. A bit more searching and I find him on a video with Deepak Chopra and out and out charlatan. I now see Kaku as a charlatan, as does this guy, quoting that interview. It was you who mentioned his credentialism. The fact is that his ideas are not mainstream, not accepted by anybody else in Physics because they are wrong. And I pointed out his flaws, General relativity moved past Einstein. My ass.

    And why should I know charlatans? That video was a Discovery type channel, a reduction of the physics for the untrained. There are no books with actual mathematics which dispute Special Relativity. Posting one guy is like an Intelligent Designer posting his science guy on the Discovery channel.
    To quote Richard Feynman "...there is also an amplitude for light to go faster (or slower) than the conventional speed of light. You found out in the last lecture that light doesn't go only in straight lines; now, you find out that it doesn't go only at the speed of light! It may surprise you that there is an amplitude for a photon to go at speeds faster or slower than the conventional speed, c."

    This is just an artifcact of wave propagation. Same as shadows can go faster than light, it is meaningless to the general theory and cancels out after trivial distances. Feynman was not disputing special relativity.

    As for general relativity I think that Kaku is being economical with the truth. The universe has probably expanded faster than light before, there is no restriction on the universe expansion, the speed of light is the restriction within the universe. Maybe that is what he means. Its meaningless as we are all growing with the universe, and within it bound by the laws of physics.
    There are some that do not believe, and have some proof, that the speed of light is not a constant. Or are you also going to try and tell me I should quote myself and not Feynman?

    You don't understand what Feynman is saying, that is what I am saying.
    Semantics...

    Semantics my arse. You cherry pick one Physicist who has gone to the dark side and dumbed down for a popular audience, and selectively quote another.


  • #169
    Cú Giobach
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,772 ✭✭✭Cú Giobach


    Duggys Housemate wrote: »
    This is about the only thing you got right. However physicists dont mean they understand the mathematics of QM, but that it is as weird to them as it is to us. In practice.



    The way you call your opponents "uneducated" is a bit of a joke. You are not very well educated, a little knowledge etc. Nobody is saying we have reached a pinnacle of knowledge but that there is no way past the speed of light. Mass tends to infinity under the mathematics of the Lorenz contraction, energy tends to infinity. We can theorize massless particles which are faster than the speed of light, but sometimes a mathematical theory is just, well, maths. In any case we have no known way of getting information faster than light.

    C is essential to relativity. Causality cannot be preserved if information can travel faster than light. This is integral to the theory. C is also integral to quantum mechanics. Throwing the speed of light out the window throws relativity out the the window - despite what you say. It is an essential theory, if it is wrong, then all of the last century is wrong. We start back at 1904



    Relativity, despite what you say. If you think that "only the uneducated" think we - or an advance alien species - wouldn't find a way past the speed of light in the future, which is what you are saying, you are jettisoning Special Relativity. You don't realise that you are because you don't know much about it.

    The wormhole thing you are hiding behind is just a fig leaf hiding lack of knowledge or logic.

    1) Wormholes are theoretical, and we would have a hard job finding them to begin with which doesn't square with your advanced aliens having easy access to faster than light information - which is how this started.
    2) . The main thing is, though, that they are just shortcuts. Imagine there is a windy road, and on that windy road it takes 60 minutes to travel 60 miles from A-B at max speed in a car which cant - by design - go faster or slower than 60mph.

    One day we discover that the topology of the landscape is such that a shortcut exists from A - B, and it now takes 20 minutes because it is 20 miles. What does that tell us about the maximum speed of the car? It tells us that it is still 60 mph.
    Since you seem incapable of understanding basic English is there another language you would feel more comfortable conversing in?
    Does your computer/phone block out where I say it is impossible to travel through space FTL and substitute the opposite, or is there another reason for the crap you have claimed above? :confused:

    It would be great if you could please explain how me saying it is impossible to travel through space faster than light and that wormholes are theoretically possible is against relativity, I have said this numerous times but you keep ignoring it, if you refuse to acknowledge or ignore this this once more I will report you for trolling.

    By the way if you do a quick look through my posting history I think you will find I know quite a bit about Special and General Relativity. ;)


  • #170
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Cú Giobach wrote: »
    Since you seem incapable of understanding basic English is there another language you would feel more comfortable conversing in?
    Does your computer/phone block out where I say it is impossible to travel through space FTL and substitute the opposite, or is there another reason for the crap you have claimed above? :confused:

    It would be great if you could please explain how me saying it is impossible to travel through space faster than light and that wormholes are theoretically possible is against relativity, I have said this numerous times but you keep ignoring it, if you refuse to acknowledge or ignore this this once more I will report you for trolling.

    By the way if you do a quick look through my posting history I think you will find I know quite a bit about Special and General Relativity. ;)

    Trolling? Lol, you are losing the argument. It's clear you are saying what I say you are saying. I have dismissed the idea that worm holes travel faster than light in my last 3 posts.

    I can understand English. What you think you know about relativity seems to avoid the mathematics of it:

    You said for instance. (Your quotes in italics.)

    Getting around it [speed of light] however could indeed just be a matter of time and technology.


    That was on it's own without reference to worm holes, which you brought up later when challenged. Not only - as I have pointed out 3 times already, which is 2 times too many, and 3 times after this explanation - are they just theoretical, and probably impossible to find, but worm holes don't say anything about going faster than the speed of light. I even gave a thought experiment about a car finding a short cut in 3D space, while stuck on a speed limit.

    In general your main argument is however that we cant judge the technological powers of aliens thousands of years ahead of us, in reponsed to questions about their electomagnetic communications. You implied they would move on from electromagnetic spectrum and we couldnt possibly imagine the future, to think we were at the "pinnacle " now is a mistake, etc. This is to assume that relativity and c are stepping stones on the way to find out the rest of physics, they are essential to modern physics.

    The most fantastical idea espoused here is your belief that we have practically reached some pinnacle of understanding regarding the nature of the universe. Relativity allows for circumventing the light speed problem, an "Einstein-Rosen Bridge"...

    Despite your claim that these wormholes allow us to travel "faster than light" they don't, they are - once again - shortcuts in 4D space, no more mysterious than shortcuts in 3D space. You don't go faster, you travel less.

    But back to the claim of "misreading": original response to my claim that we would never beat the speed of light is


    Wow, you really are stuck in "the present". I can imagine you having a conversation 500 years ago. "But man will never be able to travel faster than a galloping horse, do you think we could put a saddle on a cheetah or something, stop talking nonsense"

    which is in response to me saying

    Please dont speculate about aliens using faster than light technology for communication. That can't happen.


    This is clearly someone who has no clue about the restrictions of relativity on communication, communication cant go faster than c as it violates causality,.

    So I can clearly read English, you however, either cant write it very well, or dont understand the limitiations of relativity on communications, or both.


  • #171
    Micky Dolenz
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 44,079 ✭✭✭✭Micky Dolenz


    Mod

    Come on lads, keep it civil.


    I've watched every episode of Star Trek and Star Trek the next generation. I'm a bit of an expert.


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  • #172
    Cú Giobach
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,772 ✭✭✭Cú Giobach


    Duggys Housemate wrote: »
    Trolling? Lol, you are losing the argument. It's clear you are saying what I say you are saying. I have dismissed the idea that worm holes travel faster than light in my last 3 posts.

    I can understand English. What you think you know about relativity seems to avoid the mathematics of it:

    You said for instance. (Your quotes in italics.)

    Getting around it [speed of light] however could indeed just be a matter of time and technology.
    That was on it's own without reference to worm holes, which you brought up later when challenged.
    No, I brought it up earlier, stop lying just to make your argument appear to have some validity. "*Difference between going around something and going through it" ie using a wormhole.
    I love your "cherry picking" by the way, the only way you can continue arguing (which is quite sad), how about reading the rest of the post you "quote", here.
    Not only - as I have pointed out 3 times already, which is 2 times too many, and 3 times after this explanation - are they just theoretical, and probably impossible to find, but worm holes don't say anything about going faster than the speed of light. I even gave a thought experiment about a car finding a short cut in 3D space, while stuck on a speed limit.
    If something is "probably impossible" then you cannot (scientifically) say it can never happen. As for this "just theoretical" business, what was Special Relativity in 1905? A comment like that when discussing Theoretical Physics would make anyone question how much you actually know on the subject.
    And yes you do keep repeating yourself, because you can't understand when someone distinguishes between moving through space FTL and traveling from one place to another FTL.
    In general your main argument is however that we cant judge the technological powers of aliens thousands of years ahead of us, in reponsed to questions about their electomagnetic communications. You implied they would move on from electromagnetic spectrum and we couldnt possibly imagine the future, to think we were at the "pinnacle " now is a mistake, etc. This is to assume that relativity and c are stepping stones on the way to find out the rest of physics, they are essential to modern physics.
    The most fantastical idea espoused here is your belief that we have practically reached some pinnacle of understanding regarding the nature of the universe. Relativity allows for circumventing the light speed problem, an "Einstein-Rosen Bridge"...
    Despite your claim that these wormholes allow us to travel "faster than light" they don't, they are - once again - shortcuts in 4D space, no more mysterious than shortcuts in 3D space. You don't go faster, you travel less.
    If you read my posts properly you would understand I distinguish between "traveling FTL" and "Getting from one part of the universe to another FTL", a quite obvious distinction that seem to go right over your head. Woosh!!!!
    But back to the claim of "misreading": original response to my claim that we would never beat the speed of light is
    Wow, you really are stuck in "the present". I can imagine you having a conversation 500 years ago. "But man will never be able to travel faster than a galloping horse, do you think we could put a saddle on a cheetah or something, stop talking nonsense"
    which is in response to me saying
    Please dont speculate about aliens using faster than light technology for communication. That can't happen.
    This is clearly someone who has no clue about the restrictions of relativity on communication, communication cant go faster than c as it violates causality,.
    You made a definitive statement which is unscientific because (as you yourself said) wormholes are theoretically possible.
    So I can clearly read English, you however, either cant write it very well, or dont understand the limitiations of relativity on communications, or both.
    Obviously as I have shown above you are having a little difficulty here.


  • #173
    Andy!!
    Site Banned Posts: 1,678 ✭✭✭Andy!!


    El Weirdo wrote: »
    What do you think?

    You seem to be insulted by the concept of someone asking you for your opinion without them offering theirs first, I've noticed this in several threads... what's your hang-up about?


  • #174
    Micky Dolenz
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 44,079 ✭✭✭✭Micky Dolenz


    Andy!! wrote: »
    You seem to be insulted by the concept of someone asking you for your opinion without them offering theirs first, I've noticed this in several threads... what's your hang-up about?

    Mod

    Read the charter regarding thread starting.


  • #175
    Cú Giobach
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,772 ✭✭✭Cú Giobach


    Thanks Duggys Housemate for finally giving me the kick to do something I have been considering for a while, and that is genuine not sarcasm. Bye folks.


  • #176
    blatherskite
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 38 ✭blatherskite


    http://www.scalesolarsystem.66ghz.com/

    This is why aliens have never found us. The earth is simply too small and insignificant in space to be found, and what's more they'd have to just happen to land here in the exact same short period of the earth's history in which we inhabit it.


  • #177
    blatherskite
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 38 ✭blatherskite


    Wibbs wrote: »
    +1. Loathe though I am to put any absolute down in pixels I can't see any species breaking the speed of light or even close to it, but I can see how in theory at least they could find the shortcut. The shortcut is (as much as we know)an engineering problem not something that breaks the laws of nature. Kinda like if you went back in time(don't go there DH :D) and met Newton and asked him if theoretically a trip to the moon was possible, he'd likely say yes, even calculate the speeds and orbit trajectories required, but at the turn of the 16th century with the best will in the world the engineering would be impossible, even if you went back with the blueprints for a Saturn V.

    Even going at half light or quarter light speed there are serious issues going on. A golfball sized rock hitting the earth at half light speed would make one helluva dent, so you'd need one helluva shield.

    I think if we do encounter interstellar travelers they won't be biological(unless they warp wormholes by collapsing stars and such). They'll be the "machine" descendants of their biological creators. The problem with such huge distances is time. We simply don't live long enough. A machine intelligence would have no such constraints. Neither would biologically suitable habitats. Energy requirements would be very low too. They might even suck sustenance for the quantum foam/ether. They could seed their galaxy(or beyond) with relatively slow moving intelligences, small "neurons" in a vast spreading interstellar internet communicating at the speed of light that only boot up when the individual neurons reach a point of interest. In the deep cold of interstellar space only pretty basic anti entropy systems would be required for their long(to our minds) journeys. One could almost imagine that after the type I, II and III civilisations some have mooted, there is another, a type IIII, that turns an entire galaxy into an interconnected conscious "mind" hoovering up information, constantly evolving as it went. It would be the ultimate survivor of life(but not as we know it Jim) and vey resilient to extinction. If it/they continued to spread beyond their galaxy into others over the trillions of years that the future holds one might end up with a near universal intelligence. Maybe at that point of unimaginable knowledge and intelligence they/it could start to seed new universes at the quantum level and big bangs in other dimensions may be born. Maybe this has happened "before" and that's where this universe came from? At that point the Atheists may have to think again. Well... just a little anyway :D

    mind = blown!


  • #178
    Mickeroo
    Administrators, Computer Games Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 32,704 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Mickeroo


    blatherskite wrote: »
    http://www.scalesolarsystem.66ghz.com/

    This is why aliens have never found us. The earth is simply too small and insignificant in space to be found, and what's more they'd have to just happen to land here in the exact same short period of the earth's history in which we inhabit it.

    I don't think finding the planet would be the hard part, it's finding our solar system in the first place that would be the problem.


  • #179
    swimming in a sea
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 937 ✭✭✭swimming in a sea


    well considering if the earth stayed tilted one way it would make one of the hemispheres uninhabitable it shows how finally balanced life on earth is. So is there another place like this in the universe, well i suppose if the universe is infinite then the odds say yes.

    But then should we assume they need a planet like earth? oh its all very confusing, aliens! maybe


  • #180
    Snake Pliisken
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 237 ✭✭Snake Pliisken


    Here's an explanation for why we haven't seen any galactic civilizations knocking about our part of the universe, it's called the Transcension Hypothesis.

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


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  • #181
    Mr Benevolent
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,433 ✭✭✭✭Mr Benevolent


    Cú Giobach wrote: »
    Thanks Duggys Housemate for finally giving me the kick to do something I have been considering for a while, and that is genuine not sarcasm. Bye folks.

    Meh. They always come back.


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