Inauguration Day for Alien Signal-Hunting Telescope

Space.com ^ | 11 October 2007 | Seth Shostak

[Kevmo]

Is it a duck? It looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, sounds like a duck and it ain’t a goose. It’s probably a duck.

Redneck Spelling Test:

MRDux. MRNot. MR2, CMWangs? LIB, MRDux.

Thank you for validating one of my points in what I call an inductive triangle: Evolution/abiogenesis is becoming a religion.

[Alamo-Girl]

If your parallel lines meet at infinity, your geometry collapses to a point, a dimensionless point.

Rather like a pole - as in nothing South of the South Pole. Or like a black hole or singularity.

In Hebrew, the term for God the Creator of space and time is Ayn Sof - timeless, spaceless - or from Whom all being emerges and into Whom all being dissolves.

As to the overall geometry of the universe, posters may be interesting in reading NASA's article on WMAP: WMAP Cosmology: 101

And to the geometry of space/time:

Introduction to Differential Geometry and General Relativity

Gravity is geometric. Indeed space and time is geometry. That is the central insight of General Relativity, e.g. high positive gravity regions are indentations of space/time - and conversely (in theory) negative gravity regions are outdents.

This is particularly evident wrt time even in Special Relativity. For instance, while you traveled at the speed of one earth's gravity (equivalence principle) for 25.3 years - 5x10¹⁰ years would elapse on earth.

It was Einstein's dream to transmute the base wood of matter into the pure marble of geometry.

Indeed, a number of theories propose that particles in our four dimensional space are massless - and instead are shadows of extra-dimensional momentum components. In Wesson's 5 dimension/2 time theory - the particles in our 4 dimensions could be multiply imaged from as little as a single particle in the fifth time-like dimension.

The Higgs field/boson has not yet been detected or created despite repeated attempts by FermiLab and CERN. Perhaps it may yet be detected - but even if it is, it only explains some 5% of the critical density of the universe. Hence so many new theories involving the geometry (also supersymmetry.)

[Kevmo]

Alamo-Girl:

Thanks for the post. I’m afraid this topic is going over my head. It all started because does not accept 10^50 as the definition of impossible. So then, what does he accept as the definition of impossible, especially as it pertains to the Drake equation?

Like you said, there are 10^80 particles in our universe. The chances of choosing the exact correct particle is impossible. Normal, rational people can see this. Normal, rational people can also see that when the Drake equation gets discussed, the folks who criticize the values plugged in are the same ones who are NOT putting in values for us to utilize. They are operating outside of the inductive triangle, offering silence rather than data.

[RightWhale]

• Indeed space and time is geometry. That is the central insight of General Relativity

  It is an analogy. Neither space nor time are geometry.

[RightWhale]

• there are 10^80 particles in our universe

  There are there are 10^80 bosons inside the Hubble radius. This doesn't count fermions.

[Alamo-Girl]

Precisely so, dear Kevmo! Thank you for all of your insights.

[Kevmo]

offering silence rather than data.

[aculeus]

Cargo Cult thinking + Phds + lots of money = SETI

[Alamo-Girl]

It is an analogy. Neither space nor time are geometry.

Then I look forward to your book explaining your cosmology and philosophy - anticipating your rebuttal to Special Relativity and General Relativity and all current theories that particles in four dimensions are massless, e.g. "their apparent masses correspond to extra-dimensional momentum components we can't as yet detect."

[RightWhale]

Don’t even try to rebut any cosmology, but also don’t mash them all together. They can be neither proven nor denied no matter how much they conflict with each other. That’s the beauty of it: gingerbread and sugar palaces to be admired.

[Alamo-Girl]

One more link before I must head out. It's not worth the effort to format the excerpt - but scroll down to the bottom for a quick look at an example for estimating the number of particles in the universe: Notable Properties of Specific Numbers

[RightWhale]

• anticipating your rebuttal to Special Relativity and General Relativity and all current theories that particles in four dimensions are massless, e.g. "their apparent masses correspond to extra-dimensional momentum components we can't as yet detect."

  I won't be writing about that.

[copperisme]

I heard that a ship that landed is Roswell had magnets around it, then another set across from it, and that the magnets could be the way that they flew. Do you think that this could be the way that they travel? To think that they would use our way of traveling in space is ridiculous. It takes a lot just to get to Mars. And if they do use a fuel, what is it, and how do they keep it from running out

Personally, I think that the magnets make perfect sense. The magnetic forces that space offers is infinite, in the theory of the never-ending universe. That would be a perfect way to travel. Never having to refuel.

[DungeonMaster]

Carl Sagan was a liberal idealist who believed that the universe was populated with benignly pacifist NPR listeners. SETI research have long since abandoned the idea that anyone would gratuitously yell "I am here!" to a universe of potential hazards. Instead, Allen and his crew are looking for accidental radio leakage. Capturing just one second of some alien equivalent of "I Love Lucy" floating around in the heavens would prove their point.

An undirected, low powered, densely modulated signal!! What a laugh. They would need an antenna the size of the earth.