Posted on 12/18/2003 8:37:33 AM PST by KevinDavis
When Star Trek's U.S.S. Enterprise hit the television screen in 1966, the science fiction series had trouble finding its own space and time slot.
Decades later, a similar visionary zeal to seek new worlds and new civilizations is a factual enterprise for a new generation of galactic explorers. They are taking on spacetime and hoping to boldly go where no spacecraft has gone before -- out to far-flung stars and the planets that circle them.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Nothing goes slower that the speed of light in this universe--from some viewpoint or another.
Maybe. Huxley published Brave New World in '32, written in '31. He said in '61 he should have included nuclear power since everyone was talking about it. No surprise.
One could much broader (and more precise) and say that we've never seen information (in the abstract sense, which covers everything) exceed the speed of light. Ever. Which is what the rule really says.
The speed of light is an extremely tough problem. One that has the potential to be uncrackable because it is far more fundamental than most people realize (particularly when properly re-phrased as the "speed of information"). Saying that there is a way around everything in nature is almost as naive as saying there is no way to emulate everything found in nature.
No. As Sagan taught us, we are the last and dumbest. If intelligent life is common, all the extant civilizations are thousands--or millions--of years ahead of us. We only developed radio in the last century or so. We're the primitives. Sol is a third-generation star; there has been ample time for highly-sophisticated civilizations to evolve and spread. Imagine our technology level if we reach 1000 or 10,000 years longevity as a technical civilization. Societies like that are everywhere IF intelligent life is common. We see no trace; ergo they are not there or interstellar travel is impossible even for civilizations with god-like technology.
--Boris
Sure.
Suppose there are thousands of super-advanced civilizations. One of them says "stay away from Earth". 99.9% of the others agree. 0.1% say "Go tentacle yourself" and land on the White House lawn.
If there is a "Federation" that for some reason has put us off limits, what is the possibility that all super-technological civilizations belong...or agree to its dictums? Look at Earth. Does everybody obey the U.N.?
WHY would such a ban be imposed? Do aliens obey the Prime Directive? Why? Do all alien civilizations concur?...
Such arguments ("We're in a game preserve") involve projecting HUMAN thought modes, ethics, morals, and so forth into every single possible intelligent alien life form. It is "argument from Twilight Zone Episode 62."
Etc.
--Boris
Gravity waves are projected (in theory) and accelorated towards by [sic] the vehicle... the gravity wave is constanty moved forward ahead of the vehicle, projected by that vehicle... and constant acceloration continues at one g, say 35 feet per second per second [one g is 32.174 ft/s/s or 1.032 light years per year2]... at the point where near light speed is attained, a "controlled" black hole is the result, and the light, matter and energy of the object move into an induced "fold" in space time fabric.
knowing how to fold gravity and such... is very likely where we will be able to do it. normal propulsion won't work. or it's derivatives.
we observed birds and learned to fly.
we observe LIGHT being too slow to escape from gravity wells... and learn how to exert and expend and invest forces that are more powerful than that of light...
If gravity wells can suck in light waves, packets or energy that are already travelling lightspeed, they could theoretically be used, projected and calculated to do accelorate and direct other matter, even that which is going near light speed.
It functions much like the horse with a stick attached to it's back and a suspended carrot on a string, JUST beyond the horses grasp."
Bafflegab. As Wolfgang Pauli would say, "It's not even wrong."
I take it you have not had much college, especially physics. Your post demonstrates a stunning misunderstanding of relativity, both special and general.
Put it in numbers. Equations. Not just blather about "folding gravity".
--Boris
Maybe we just haven't figured out what to look for yet.
I'm not saying you're wrong. You might be right. I don't have sufficient data to tell. But I find your logic less than compelling, since it depends entirely on us primitives having interpreted all the (lack of) evidence correctly.
I think Sagan was an arrogant condescending, liberal, PBS lover, who did not do very good physics either. This is the guy who came up with nuclear winter. This is the guy who said since there are billions and billions of galaxies, there must be billions and billions of civilizations. I think he was on the global warming band wagon too.
Energy does not have to be conserved over (typically very short) finite time intervals. This is correct.
However, there is still no way for information to be transmitted faster than the speed of light. All known "faster than light" phenomenon are not capable of carrying information faster than light, and therefore do not violate this basic rule.
By analogy, the frequency with which a CPU can retire machine code instructions does not put a limit on how fast the transistors that make up the CPU can switch. Quite the opposite in fact, even if the transistors are capable of switching at much faster speeds than the nominal processor speed.
Ah, once again a blind man proves there is no such thing as light. I find most of your posts quite clever, but I am sad to say that this is one of the most simple-minded things I have ever read.
But the first generation solar systems didn't have heavy elements, so there were no Earth-like planets in them. The second generation would still have had proportionately fewer heavy elements. We may be part of the first crop of experiments in Earth-like conditions.
I assume it's in a discipline like Dr. Jerry Pournelle's, who flaunts his PhD in history as credential to bloviate on all manner of technical disciplines. Third-tier school?
--Boris
The second generation should still have generated lots of intelligent ET civilizations if life is common and intelligence a common end-point of evolution. Remember the 'billions and billions' argument.
Furthermore, even supposing that only 3rd-generation stars can bring forth intelligence, there is no reason to suppose that genesis and evolution proceed at the same rate everywhere.
For example, even though life on Earth is over 3 billion years old, for most of that time it was microbes. In fact, if the "snowball Earth" hypothesis proves true, then WE have descended from only 600 million years of interrupted evolution, not 3 billion years. (Snowball earth killed off something like 99.96% of all organisms extant prior to the climate catastrophe).
--Boris
Yeah, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Occasionally he got something right. He was right--IMHO--about us being the latest, most recent, new kids on the block.
I've never seen or heard anyone disprove the contention, or offer even a plausible reason it might be wrong.
--Boris
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