Area 51

[aychamo_aycono]

Originally Posted by Torrid

You're forgetting one. ETs could be very aware of us, perhaps even having a colony in this system, but choosing not to contact us.

I don't think people put much thought into what might happen if suddenly an ET appeared on CNN. They wouldn't even be able to have so much as a casual conversation with us without destroying our culture. Their equivalent of an elementary grade school textbook would make the LHC look like a quaint toy. You think nuclear science makes dangerous things? What happens when "How to make anti-matter in your basement" gets posted online?

So what are ETs going to do? Speak to us and deliberately avoid discussing matters that would be on the level of their children's education? Then why bother making contact to begin with? Imagine humanity's most brilliant insights instantly becoming trivial as EVERY WORD uttered by every ET is reported and analyzed like the utterings of some sort of oracle. Some humans would probably end up worshiping them. Which may be easier after they tell us we believe in fairy tails. (Jesus)

Our culture would rapidly morph into a human flavor of theirs. Maybe they are simply waiting for us to develop further so that we may approach them as equals. (or at least, closer to equals)



Agreed. Of course, sub-light velocities are sufficient to colonize the galaxy, albeit those colonies would end up isolated unless something exotic like wormholes were made possible.

I love science, but sometimes scientists let their egos get in the way. Just 15 years ago searching for extra solar planets was considered taboo. "Heavier than air vehicles will never fly." Etc. etc. I could name a couple dozen examples. If you don't search for a solution, it becomes near impossible to find it. Even if FTL does end up to be impossible, the search itself would no doubt lead to other discoveries.

I'd almost like to believe something like that if aliens landed on earth, they couldn't communicate with us because our language and vocabulary are so stupid that it's the equivalent to them farting.

[The Edge]

Originally Posted by Tea on tuesday

The only correct answer is that it's possible, though unlikely.

I don't think we need to stop there, though. I won't argue the physical aspect of propelling something, using rocket boosters or what have you, to anywhere near the speed of light. But I will argue that FTL travel will be a reality one day because it is a necessity. If we ever want to explore the universe, we will have to come up with something. And at that time, we will. I have no doubt.

It will likely take the form of what some here have already described. Folding space, creating wormholes, warping space, etc. So even though the ship itself won't be going very fast, it will cover great distances instantly, therefore making the light speed barrier obsolete.

This might just be an argument of semantics, but just to make the point clear, traveling from the Earth to Jupiter in 10 seconds is essentially faster than light travel. Regardless of how it's achieved.

[Korioni]

One would imagine that bending spacetime would tend to have negative repercussions.

[ToeMissile]

Every time I've seen 'FTL' anything in the thread, i cant' help but think 'for the lose' and chuckle a little on the inside.

[Dumar]

any scholar of science knows that science is anything but consistent. we have method and observation, but if you look back at the majority of discoveries throughout human history (even from the enlightenment) they're all almost by accident. they didn't use the scientific process to come up with a theory first in most cases. usually they stumbled upon it by chance or luck, then the theory was formed around the then obvious discovery.

science is wrong almost all the time. calling something unlikely or impossible at that level, at the level of ftl, with our current ability and knowledge makes you not just a shitty scholar of science, but of history.

[Zaniel]

Originally Posted by Torrid

I don't think people put much thought into what might happen if suddenly an ET appeared on CNN. They wouldn't even be able to have so much as a casual conversation with us without destroying our culture. Their equivalent of an elementary grade school textbook would make the LHC look like a quaint toy. You think nuclear science makes dangerous things? What happens when "How to make anti-matter in your basement" gets posted online?

So what are ETs going to do? Speak to us and deliberately avoid discussing matters that would be on the level of their children's education? Then why bother making contact to begin with? Imagine humanity's most brilliant insights instantly becoming trivial as EVERY WORD uttered by every ET is reported and analyzed like the utterings of some sort of oracle. Some humans would probably end up worshiping them. Which may be easier after they tell us we believe in fairy tails. (Jesus)

Why? Your scenario is no more likely than any other hundreds of scenarios.

Let's say tomorrow some scientist wakes up with the answer to a 10 or 13 or 50 dimensional unified theory of gravity which, after a bit of playing around, says "by twisting a graviton in a magnetic field just so we delete gravity and coincidentally also delete local time-space which has the neat side effect of reducing distances between two specified points to zero". Voila galactic teleportation.

Then we go visit thousands of other planets armed with good ol' fashioned bullets and internal combustion vehicles etc (a la Stargate).

By the same token we might be ten thousand years from now where the whole system is populated by the most ludicrously advanced super-civilisation, yet still essentially confined to one solar system because it never accidentally discovered some non-extrapolatable super theory (or it's not possible).

[SalaciousTunare]

Originally Posted by Korioni

One would imagine that bending spacetime would tend to have negative repercussions.

Yeah it is called gravity.

[aychamo_aycono]

from digg, blows my mind

(hmm a brain bj. sounds nice)

[Arative]

On the subject of ET's visiting Earth, the History Channel called Ancient Aliens. Its hypothesis was that aliens visited earth in ancient times and you can see it in various carvings and such. Some that showed men with strange helmets that appeared to be what modern day space suits look like, others that showed men in what appeared to be rocket ships.

One thing that stood out in my mind was a map drawn on gazelle hide dated to 1513. The map was drawn by Piri Re’is, an admiral of the Turkish fleet. Now what makes this map so strange is that it showed a detailed coast line of Antarctica. The coast of Antarctica is under ice a mile thick, the last time it was ice free was more than 6000 years ago and the continent wasn't discovered until more than 250 years after Re'is drew his map.

So that map could be a sign that ET's visited earth and drew a map of the entire Earth and gave it to man or there were advance ancient civilizations that drew maps of the entire Earth but then were lost to time but passed knowledge down.

[Heylel Teomim]

The ancient alien crap is based pretty heavily on BS like Jeremiah Sitchin's books. I really liked History Channel a lot better when it stuck with actual history.

[aychamo_aycono]

Originally Posted by Arative

On the subject of ET's visiting Earth, the History Channel called Ancient Aliens. Its hypothesis was that aliens visited earth in ancient times and you can see it in various carvings and such. Some that showed men with strange helmets that appeared to be what modern day space suits look like, others that showed men in what appeared to be rocket ships.

One thing that stood out in my mind was a map drawn on gazelle hide dated to 1513. The map was drawn by Piri Re’is, an admiral of the Turkish fleet. Now what makes this map so strange is that it showed a detailed coast line of Antarctica. The coast of Antarctica is under ice a mile thick, the last time it was ice free was more than 6000 years ago and the continent wasn't discovered until more than 250 years after Re'is drew his map.

So that map could be a sign that ET's visited earth and drew a map of the entire Earth and gave it to man or there were advance ancient civilizations that drew maps of the entire Earth but then were lost to time but passed knowledge down.

I saw that program, all two hours of it. I know they kept talking about it showing the antarctic coast line, but I don't think they showed an overlay of the map on the antarctic coast line. They showed the map overlap south america or whatever, but not antarctica (as best as I remember.) They did show pictures of antarctica itself. A lot of the drawings and "proof" were so abstract that it could have led to any one of a hundred conclusions.

The big thing I agree with that the program stated was that people back then weren't stupider than we are today, they were just naive. They didn't understand the world as we do today.

I agree with Heylel, the HISTORY channel needs to focus more on facts and not some of the retarded bullshit. Or, they need to at least be a lot more "fair and balanced."

When an "alien astronaut" guy comes out and says something retarded, like: "A big group of us were deep in the caverns of an ancient pyramid, and I pulled out my lighter and it wouldn't light because there was no air, so the ancient egyptians must have had working electricity and light bulbs", they need to show an expert come back and say "if there wasn't enough oxygen to light a lighter then how the hell was an entire group of people breathing fine?"

[Eomer]

heh, you don't need an expert to point that out. Not to mention, lighting an open flame in enclosed spaces underground is about the dumbest fucking thing you could possibly do.

[aychamo_aycono]

Originally Posted by Eomer

heh, you don't need an expert to point that out. Not to mention, lighting an open flame in enclosed spaces underground is about the dumbest fucking thing you could possibly do.

Yeah no shit right? If the thing would have exploded then he could have said that was the alien's spaceship trying to escape them cause they almost found them!

[SalaciousTunare]

It is so large, it technically shouldn't exist according to current physics theories.

If I had a nickel for every time a girl told me that.

[GuyJantica]

Originally Posted by Tea on tuesday

I always use to get drunk and convert my units to retarded/ obscure units for homework. Minutes of March per microfortnights and what not.

Ah, the joys of alcohol and physics. I think we did millifurlongs per microfortnight... and I also recall a fairly continuous two week discussion on Ninja Chromodynamics. Good times. I think my favorite wtf units though were hbar=c=1.

As far as the FTL discussion I think you've pretty much hit it. With our level of understanding it doesn't look too likely. Some people tote the notion of "folded spacetime" and controlled singularities like it's a simple matter of coming up with the energy/technology (time). If any of that is even possible to harness, we're a long, LONG ways off. And even if we find ourselves with unprecedented control of reality, there's always the laws of nature (as they actually are) to contend with. Sure, there are some fancy solutions to Einstein's equation where you get stuff like wormholes or Einstein-Rosen bridges, but a solution to the maths does not necessarily equal a physical phenomenon. Or if it does it's not always valid. As a quick example, look at Bessel's equation in cylindrical coordinates. The solutions come in two classes. One of them is defined (has a finite value) for r=0... the other blows up (->infinity) which isn't very physical. Sometimes in physics you have to throw out sets of solutions because they aren't physical. Math is a tool in physics, but it isn't necessarily in line with reality. We won't know until we have some observations.

Last paragraph not really directed at Tea, though it may read that way.