Silence in the sky—but why?

PhysOrg ^ | 8/25/13

[Windflier]

A race that has a natural lifespan of 100,000 years or have beaten geriatric death would plan for the long-haul, they could think pointing a message at potential aliens that takes 50,000 years to get where they are is a good bet.

If we're ruling out the possibility of FTL interstellar travel, then I could see why an advanced civilization would send such a signal.

On the other hand, if advanced cultures on other worlds have achieved FTL travel, then they also must communicate with a technology that is faster than light. This is more of what I was referring to when I commented that METI and SETI were on the wrong frequencies.

[Windflier]

I've got 107 years of physics on my side, and you've got hope.

No, I've got 10,000 years of human history on my side, which shows that mankind has eventually unlocked the secrets to whatever physical universe problem he's ever tried to solve.

You've agreed to, and are locked into a theoretical dogma that you can't see your way out of, because you're using the rules of the only problem solving table you have.

Einstein isn't the final word on the truth of our universe. We simply haven't met the person who will knock him off his pedestal yet.

[Smokin' Joe]

On the other hand, if advanced cultures on other worlds have achieved FTL travel, then they also must communicate with a technology that is faster than light. This is more of what I was referring to when I commented that METI and SETI were on the wrong frequencies.

That makes sense to me, otherwise, the mail would arrive before the phone call.

Until we can communicate FTL or at least receive transmissions, we won't hear any incoming traffic any more than we'd hear FM radio tuned in to AM.

[FredZarguna]

This is why I'm rude to you: because you're completely ineducable. We've already "unlocked the secrets," and in addition to literally thousands of experiments which confirm the geometric facts of space-time [including the impossibility of superluminal travel] we have never seen an effect in the present produced by a cause in the future. Space travelers moving faster than light-speed would produce such artifacts.

This isn't an engineering problem. What you're saying is 100% equivalent to saying "Someday, we'll violate the Uncertainty Principle if we just set our minds to it," or "Someday, we'll create a Perpetual Motion Machine of the First Kind; 10,000 years of human history convinces me we will."

No.

We won't.

[Moonman62]

Well, go out and objectively examine the world we live in.

I looked up the total biomass (wet) of the Earth and divided that by the mass of the Earth and came up with a ratio of less than one part in one billion.

"Ubiquitous" and "full" as you use them are subjective terms.

[Nowhere Man]

I look at it this way. Back in the early 1800's, it was thought that if you went over 25 MPH, you would suffocate and die. The steam locomotive proved that wrong. I think there is a way beyond the light barrier, or over it, under it, ignoring it or whatever. We just have to find the way to do it, we already have theories, we need a way to put them in practice somehow. Same with time travel. Who knows, maybe some of this was done as early as World War II or sometime between the 1930's to now and it was covered up. Time travelling Nazis and U.S. Navy men and Roswell aliens aside, I admit I'd like to see proof, but there is and was a lot of high strangeness that needs to explained. My grandmother used to have books on a lot of these things.

Conspiracy theories aside and returning to face value, I do think there will be such breakthroughs, that is if we do not blow ourselves up first.

[Junior_G]

With the recent events in the Middle East, it may be too late to get off-world. There should have been a thriving moon colony by now.

Amen to that. I was pretty peeved when the media and GOP establishment types jumped all over Gingrich's head for talking about returning to the moon. Of course, that should have happened long ago and in a big way. And let's not forget Obama's abandonment of the Constellation program.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Jesus is the gate opening up to salvation, a gate open to everyone.— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) August 27, 2013

[Windflier]

I looked up the total biomass (wet) of the Earth and divided that by the mass of the Earth and came up with a ratio of less than one part in one billion.

I told you to go out and look, and you stuck your head in a book.

Now you're just arguing for the sake of arguing. We're not talking about the mathematical ratio of lifeforms to inorganic matter. We're talking about the ubiquity of life on the planet.

[Windflier]

you're completely ineducable. We've already "unlocked the secrets"

You sound like that clown who wanted to close the U.S. patent office 100 years ago, because "everything's been invented".

Your kind of thinking holds humankind back, because it rails against and resists exploration, query, and imagination. Your close-minded, dogmatic approach to the universe is literally suppressive to discovery and enlightenment. Science has advanced in spite of your type, not because of you. The great minds in our history fought people like you, every step of the way.

[HeadOn]

For the life of me, I can’t remember the title, but I once read a sci-fi short story about that. As I recall, a scientist developed a force field mechanism which could create a dome over cities to keep ICBM’s from getting through. He ended up finally succumbing to the urge to kill himself.

The end of the story either had someone figuring it out, or maybe the “creators” explaining it - we were some sort of experiment, and just as our biologists place poison at the edges of petri dishes to keep dangerous microbes from escaping, the “creators” planted suicidal impulses in anyone who might devise ways for us to cross certain lines.

[DManA]

I do think there will be such breakthroughs

That is a pure leap of faith, based on absolutely nothing. The breakthrough you foresee is the ability to step out of this space-time reality, onto some other reality and then step back in. That is pure fantasy.

[Moonman62]

I told you to go out and look, and you stuck your head in a book.

Where do you think the measurements for biomass and mass come from? What you're trying to do is to get me to substitute your subjective measure for my objective measure. Perhaps you don't know the meanings of the words.

[HeadOn]

Read a short story about that scenario. Guy in stasis wakes up to tend to course corrections, etc., goes back to sleep. Sees an un-explainable explosion behind the ship.

Wakes up before landing, with the rest of his crew, only to find a big reception from the folks that passed him and got there years ago, and decided to give the original “pioneers” a hero’s welcome...

Explosion was explained as another expedition which disappeared, and was never found. So, the old guys provided the explanation for that.

[Nowhere Man]

That is a pure leap of faith, based on absolutely nothing. The breakthrough you foresee is the ability to step out of this space-time reality, onto some other reality and then step back in. That is pure fantasy.

I think one day we will if we haven't already in the last 80 years or so. I guess even in science you do have to have some faith.

[Nowhere Man]

Amen to that. I was pretty peeved when the media and GOP establishment types jumped all over Gingrich's head for talking about returning to the moon. Of course, that should have happened long ago and in a big way. And let's not forget Obama's abandonment of the Constellation program.

We wasted 40+ years doing nothing much although at least we did see how long duration space flight would work although the Soviets had a head start on that one.

[DManA]

If it requires faith it is not science.

[FredZarguna]

Your analogy is inapt. What you are talking about is closer to the literally dozens of requests to patent perpetual motion machines that the patent office receives every year. Naturally, the patent office knows enough not to issue or even investigate them.

The same thing is true of superluminal travel. It violates basic laws of physics, concerning which there are no doubts.

Put your money where your mouth is, or go away.

[Windflier]

Fred, while I respect your advanced level of education in the area of physics, I also know that the physical sciences have never stopped advancing, and that history is strewn with examples of new discoveries that re-wrote science texts around the world. It’s happened again and again, and will continue to happen, as man increases his understanding of our universe.

Laws of nature that are now considered immutable, will one day be broken or bent by man to suit his will and purposes. Such has it ever been, and will always be.

[NYer]

: - ) Love his tweets. Thanks for the post and ping.