Are there Aliens from Space coming to Earth or Not? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

RonRyan85 · 03-01-2006, 01:10 PM

I have heard all kinds of stories about Roswell Saucer
crashes, Grey-big eyed saucer pilots abducting people,messages
being created overnight in wheat fields in the UK,(Cropcircles)
and big black triangles that move silently in the night skies
over the Earth but just when I get tired of reading,listening
to Art Bell and thinking there is REALLY nothing to all of the
UFO stories I read about UFO stuff the US Government has done
in all the years they told us it was all swamp gas,natural lights, and not to worry about it.

Well then LINDA MOLTON HOWE in her EARTH FILES says the govern-
ment was very interested in the UFOs and tried to shoot them
down during the years after WW2. Many of our own aircraft were
destroyed trying to do this and finally the order was repealed
as they failed to shoot down any UFO.

What is your opinion? Ever seen a UFO? Is it a bunch of hoowie
or do they really exist?

Willravel · 03-01-2006, 01:22 PM

Honestly, I'd need to see a great deal of proof before I started believing in extra terrestrial life, espically intelligent ets. I've not seen conclusive evidence yet, so I'll just wait.

Charlatan · 03-01-2006, 01:38 PM

I have no problem believing in extraterrestrial life. I do have a problem with believing that the speed of light can be surpassed. Until that happens (ie never) the distances are simply too great to travel.

The_Jazz · 03-01-2006, 02:17 PM

Direct answer to a direct question - no. For the same reasons Charlatan has.

If they do show up, I hope that their women are all tall and blond with 3 breasts.

MexicanOnABike · 03-01-2006, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

I have no problem believing in extraterrestrial life. I do have a problem with believing that the speed of light can be surpassed. Until that happens (ie never) the distances are simply too great to travel.

but it's only impossible because we don't understand it yet. once we reach that speed, i'm sure someone will say: "eh, i modded my spaceship with N0S and turbo. .. i can now go lightspeed +(L * .00001)" wooohoooo.

but seriously, what if the can manipulate time? worm holes? black holes?

Charlatan · 03-01-2006, 03:44 PM

I am with Einstien on this until otherwise proven wrong. We can get close but never meet or cross the speed of light.

Worm holes... interesting in theory but too unpredictable.

balderdash111 · 03-01-2006, 03:49 PM

Here's my opinion (expressed in a mad mish-mosh of ideas):

Are there aliens coming to earth? No. At least not currently. Otherwise we would have noticed (one would die, make a mistake and spill the beans, etc). Maybe one visited a long time ago before humans were around, but I'm not sure what would drive one to visit our young planet in particular

Are there aliens on other planets? I'm willing to say probably, based on the assumed enormous number of planets out there. SOme of it may even be intelligent, as we understand the term

But what are the odds that we happen to overlap a particular intelligent alien civilization? Some may have come and gone by now. Others may be yet to arrive. What are the odds we fall right in the sweet spot where we overlap with a civilization capable of reaching us?

Plus the whole can't-go-faster-than-light thing.

feelgood · 03-01-2006, 04:02 PM

Need evidence. Period.

Considering the vast number of planets that are capable of supporting alien life, I do believe there are species out there that are curious as we are.

Again, considering the number of possible planets capable of supporting alien species, how many of those are capable of technology? Lots. Some are less advanced than us, some are more advanced than us.

For each one of those that are technologically advanced than us, how many of those have the capacity to suppress the speed of light? Probably few of them, then again, our understanding of physics is relatively a scratch on the surface.

Now, consider this: Of those who are capable of travelling faster than the speed of light, what's the probabability of at least one of them visiting Earth? A lone planet in the vastness of space? Very low

I'm going with no

ObieX · 03-01-2006, 04:05 PM

The odds of there NOT being life on another planet other than our own are astronomical. There has got to be other life out there just due to the size of our universe. The building blocks for life are extremely common throughout our solar system/galaxy/universe. All it takes it that one spark to get it goin and in hte right conditions "its on".

Keep in mind that human beings have only really been paying attention to this stuff seriously for the past couple hundred years. Thats it. Up until now we have brushed aside any past encounters as "folks lore" or "myths". The history of ancient peoples are abound with descriptions of creatures and beings coming from the skies. Gods, angels, strange beasts.. we may not have been "alone" all this time.. its just that no one believes anyone when they tell their stories.

Now remember again that humans have really only had electricity and technology that can really be called technology without a chuckle attached for the past 200 years or so. Before that time there were BILLIONS of years. Billions of years that other entire races and civilizations could have sprung up, burned out, and died. BIlLIONS of years where other life forms could have evolved up through the sludge to become sentient.

Now some have used this arguement to say "well if thre's all those billions of years why havent we seen them yet?" I say we have seen them. They've been here before.. and really may just not give a flying fuck. We would be nothing compaired to a race that can traverse time-space the way they could. Even now we'd be the equivalent of amoeba to them. They would most likely enter our orbit, study our primitive asses briefly, then move on to check out the other countless worlds that are twirling around the nearly endless vastness of this existance. Sure they may have a few stick around to watch us or pop in and out to check on us.. but really what reason would they have to contact us at all? What would they POSSIBLY want or need from us that they dont have?

I have heard the stores of US planes sent to shoot down alien craft before as well. I've also seen a few video accounts from US pilots who were sent to do it. Each of them will tell you that they were flat out out-classed when it came to speed and maneuverability. They could kick on the full burn and the aliens would fly circles around their sorry asses. At the very least we're a joke to them. At most.. entertainment.

ASU2003 · 03-01-2006, 05:36 PM

I'm one of the people that likes to think what is out there. Maybe there have been really advanced species that came up with a way to travel at the speed of light, or could shut down for millions of years and awake at their destination as if no time had passed at all. Maybe we are thinking inside the box, try telling George Washington about computers, cell phones, and rockets. None of those inventions happened without a technical advance. And no one could have really imagined them 100 years before.

There have only been organisms capable of discovery signals or aliens for the past 50 years out of 4 billion for the age of the Earth. And I'm not sure exactly how long humans will be around on planet Earth and what advances we will discover before our extinction.

feelgood · 03-01-2006, 05:49 PM

I should point out that lot of people thought that the speed of sound couldn't be broken...

xepherys · 03-02-2006, 01:13 PM

Well, experiments have been done that can make light move faster than the speed of light (or specifically, faster than c). The most noted one was done at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton by tunneling light through a cell filled with cesium gas. At any rate, we continue to show, year after year, how little we really now regarding physics. We're learning, but it's a slow pace in reality.

Secondly, logically it makes sense that in a universe as large as ours, there would be other intelligent life.

Now, whether they've ever been here or not... I have no clue. *shrug*

Willravel · 03-02-2006, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xepherys

Secondly, logically it makes sense that in a universe as large as ours, there would be other intelligent life.

I think I need someone to explain this one to me. I've always heard from the optimistic scientist "it make sense that there is intelligent life out there". How could that conclusion be made? Just because there are billions of stars and millions of planets? Well, there are hundreds of billions or trillions of variables that are necessary in the creation of life, let alone intelligent life. I see no basis for guessing if there is or is not intelligent life, personally. Until ET comes down from his ship, there is no basis.

xepherys · 03-02-2006, 01:20 PM

Also, on note #2... the vastness of the universe... I think some people, even really intelligent people, fail to understand how utterly massive the UNIVERSE is. I mean, our galaxy alone is so gargantuan in size as to be almost imperceptably large for human imagination... then to kick that up by 1000x + the space in between visible galaxies? Maybe it should be explained more simply... I think Douglas Adams put it best in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"The Universe is Big. Really big. It may seem like a long way to the corner chemist, but compared to the Universe, that's peanuts."

It's overly simplistic, but the true size of the universe-at-large is just mind-numbingly, brain-explodingly, life-destroyingly big.

Edit: http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home...bbin/cosmo.htm

Willravel · 03-02-2006, 01:27 PM

Did some looking, there could be 30 billion Earth sized planets out there. I'[m still not sure that answers my question. Since there are no figures on other planets having life (Mars doesn't count because a lot of us are thinking life on earth came from Mars...but I digress), so how do we plug in statistics on othre planets having life? We can't, by my understanding.

xepherys · 03-02-2006, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

I think I need someone to explain this one to me. I've always heard from the optimistic scientist "it make sense that there is intelligent life out there". How could that conclusion be made? Just because there are billions of stars and millions of planets? Well, there are hundreds of billions or trillions of variables that are necessary in the creation of life, let alone intelligent life. I see no basis for guessing if there is or is not intelligent life, personally. Until ET comes down from his ship, there is no basis.

Alright, I'll throw my logic out there.

Situation #1: The universe is, in fact, infinite...

If this universe is actually inifinite, as some still propose, then there is infinite probability that intelligent life exists elsewhere. Though, one could also make the argument that there is infinite probability that there is NO intelligent life elsewhere. It's murkier than it seems on the surface.

Situation #2: The universe is not, in fact, infinite... just really, really big

In this case it's a crap shoot. However, "billions of stars and millions of planets" may be short sighted. First, though there are MANY stars, especially is star-birth clusters, that have no orbiting matter, stars that DO often have as many or more planets than our own solar system. Regardless, see my above post about the absolute size of the universe. If it IS even measurable, humans cannot possibly even really grasp it's complete size and encompassment... and this assume only the four dimensions that we as humans can perceive in a natural environment. Hell, we've known about gravity for how many millenia? We still don't understand how IT works. There are many, much larger things at play. Who's to say that our laws of physics even apply in other solar systems or other galaxies? Who's to say that a universe isn't jsut the next biggest alotment of star groups, and ours in only one of billions of universes? Since we DON'T have answers to those, reason would have it that we just don't really get all the forces at work here. Right now, the creation of life seems amazing... but not as amazing as it did 2000 years ago. Hell, we can BUILD new life in ways never before thought humanly possible. How long before we just manufacture new breeds of animals as we see fit? Who knows for sure we weren't just some genetic experiment by aliens from somewhere far away? I guess my answer is... I don't know... but neither do you...

fresnelly · 03-02-2006, 02:44 PM

It would have to be a pretty jaded or insular species to ignore us if they knew about us. Look at how excited we get over a bit of permafrost on Mars.

Here's a question: How would you react to incontravertible proof of the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?

If an honest to goodness alien ship landed in my backyard, I would probably run like hell.

I wonder how the human race would react as a whole?

Willravel · 03-02-2006, 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fresnelly

Here's a question: How would you react to incontravertible proof of the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?

Champagne. Then massive amounts of studying their culture, technology, science, language, etc. That is a bandwagon I'd want to be on. Can you imagine the amount of cultural trade we could do? I'd also look into their music.

MexicanOnABike · 03-02-2006, 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Champagne. Then massive amounts of studying their culture, technology, science, language, etc. That is a bandwagon I'd want to be on. Can you imagine the amount of cultural trade we could do? I'd also look into their music.

hmm. fuck ya! imagine their technology?! wow. if they could cure all the deseases we have. (cancer. etc. ) and if they're humanoid in shape, maybe their woman would be hot! i still wish for an alien race to show themselves.

But their would also be the crazy redneck who would be afraid and shoot at them with his shotgun.

ASU2003 · 03-02-2006, 07:47 PM

I doubt aliens would know about us as a technological species. Radio waves are one of those signs of intelligence, and we have only been sending those out since the last century.

The stars we see and the radio waves/laser beams from alien civilizations would be millions or billions of years old. Would they even still be around? Would they be able to spread to neighboring star systems or anyplace in the universe?

And what would we consider life? I would think that a species of robots that can learn, program themselves, and are smart/curious, who have huge lifespans would be around for a lot longer than biological life.

I'm not so sure that their technology would cure us, unless they are very similar to us (which is unlikely), they might not have cancer, viruses, etc. And I know that there would be a bunch of people that would want to spread religion to them. But, it would be interesting to hear what they came up with first. The question I would want an answer to is, have they found any other intelligent life?

Are they here? I don't think so, unless they can stop time and safely move around the universe without aging(if biological). And they will have to find us, which wouldn't be easy. Having to navigate at speeds faster than light would be a challenge as well. The stars would be in different spots than what you can see.

xepherys · 03-02-2006, 08:07 PM

culture? technology? science? language? These things could be utterly foreign to them. The simple fact that they got here doesn't mean they have technology... at least by our standards. Vikings sailed across the ocean... it didn't make them technologically advanced, even for their time. Our assumptions are that they assumed the same limitations that we have... perhaps they just saw things a different way?! This is akin to assuming they'll be bipedal, two-armed, one-headed, two-eyed creatures. Maybe they have no ability to produce voice. Perhaps they communicate psychicly, maybe even in a way in which they could not "interface" with us. Maybe they have neither and communicate via writing? We think that sounds silly becasue things would develop so slowly, but perhaps they are adept at writing and reading at a rapid pace?

Culture? Again, pushing human assumptions on them. Perhaps they are communal in a very primitive sense. Maybe they don't have emotional motivation to create culture, or perhaps they have no concept of emotion at all, which would make them grossly different from us.

What would I do? That would depend a LOT on the situation. If they landed in my back yard, and baby-sized humanoids came out waving and saying "G'day mate!" I might just kinda stare in awe. If something shot down into my backyard (ala the War of the Worlds remake) and came out as a 10-legged, gnarled beast with saliva (or some equivalent) dripping off of fangs, I'd probably just get eaten.

highthief · 03-03-2006, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xepherys

Well, experiments have been done that can make light move faster than the speed of light (or specifically, faster than c). The most noted one was done at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton by tunneling light through a cell filled with cesium gas. At any rate, we continue to show, year after year, how little we really now regarding physics. We're learning, but it's a slow pace in reality.

Agreed. Some people hold fast to Einstein the way mullahs cling to the Koran.

I would imagine that at some point, somewhere, here or elsewhere, some bright boy will figure a way around the speed limit.

macmanmike6100 · 03-03-2006, 09:14 AM

This is a total thread-jack, but I thought that you guys might be interested in the history behind breaking the speed of sound: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcr...12barrier.html

Correctly, feelgood notes that we didn't think the speed of sound could really be broken...calling it something of a wall...interesting transcript...thank god for PBS!

xepherys · 03-03-2006, 09:31 AM

macmanmike - not a thread-jack at all. Info like this supports the theory that the lightspeed barrier can be broken. As humans, are ability to discover things are very linear. We then take that linear ability and apply it to the universe as a whole. I think this is where we really fall short. When we start to understand the reality of other dimensions (if they exist) then options that seem far-fetched to us now may start to become possible (time travel, lightspeed+ travel, et cetera).

xepherys · 03-03-2006, 09:37 AM

I think my question would be... not IF we can surpass the speed of light, but WHAT happens when we do. We all know about sonic booms from crossing the sound-speed barrier. What will be the wave lashback from breaking the light-speed barrier?

ASU2003 · 03-04-2006, 09:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xepherys

I think my question would be... not IF we can surpass the speed of light, but WHAT happens when we do. We all know about sonic booms from crossing the sound-speed barrier. What will be the wave lashback from breaking the light-speed barrier?

Hopefully we will be in space, so there hopefully won't be any wave when in the vacuum of space. My concern would be how do you avoid all of the rocks, planets, stars, and black holes?

paulskinback · 03-04-2006, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ASU2003

Hopefully we will be in space, so there hopefully won't be any wave when in the vacuum of space. My concern would be how do you avoid all of the rocks, planets, stars, and black holes?

Exactamundo my friend! I have never got my head around the sci-fi fakeness of "warp-speed" etc. Even if you could accelerate your particles to the speed of light, how the hell can you see where you're going, plot where you're gonna stop and avoid the rocks and dead satelites etc

Perhaps everything goes in super slow motion to our concept of time at the speed of light much the same way as astronauts being able to travel way out into space, come back and there being a 40 minute time difference.

Anywho if there are aliens travelling through space why would they want to come to this planet? After all we are just like cockroaches destroying an otherwise perfect planet.

xepherys · 03-05-2006, 03:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ASU2003

Hopefully we will be in space, so there hopefully won't be any wave when in the vacuum of space. My concern would be how do you avoid all of the rocks, planets, stars, and black holes?

Well, there WILL be some sort of wave in space. Sound waves exist in space, but there's not enough matter for them to bounce around to hear. If light waves stopped in space, they'd never get to Earth. Therefore, exceeding the speed of light WOULD, in fact, cause some distraction. In the event it's similar to a sonic boom, it would be caused by exceeding the speed of light reflecting from the forward facing areas of the vehicle.

As for the avoidance... who's to say that it would matter at that point? Of course we still don't have a firm grasp of how black holes work anyhow, but we also have no clue how lightspeed all plays out either. Maybe at the speed of light, passing though a rock just wouldn't be a big deal. *shrug* Since no matter, that we are aware of, has gone that fast, maybe matter gets converted to energy. There's just no telling...

xepherys · 03-05-2006, 03:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulskinback

Exactamundo my friend! I have never got my head around the sci-fi fakeness of "warp-speed" etc. Even if you could accelerate your particles to the speed of light, how the hell can you see where you're going, plot where you're gonna stop and avoid the rocks and dead satelites etc

Perhaps everything goes in super slow motion to our concept of time at the speed of light much the same way as astronauts being able to travel way out into space, come back and there being a 40 minute time difference.

Granted it IS fiction... I still claim one can't say it's bunk either. You don't need to see where you're going to fly planes or manuever submarines. Radar and sonar work great, and why couldn't something larger distance work in space?

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulskinback

Anywho if there are aliens travelling through space why would they want to come to this planet? After all we are just like cockroaches destroying an otherwise perfect planet.

Maybe they find us to be of the same ilk. Perhaps that's why they left in the first place?

shakran · 03-05-2006, 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xepherys

Well, there WILL be some sort of wave in space. Sound waves exist in space, but there's not enough matter for them to bounce around to hear. If light waves stopped in space, they'd never get to Earth. Therefore, exceeding the speed of light WOULD, in fact, cause some distraction. In the event it's similar to a sonic boom, it would be caused by exceeding the speed of light reflecting from the forward facing areas of the vehicle.

Hmm. OK first off sound waves do not travel through space. At all. It's not that there isn't matter for them to bounce off of. Sound waves are propagated through matter. Lack of matter = lack of sound.

The shock from exceeding the speed of sound is actually from pressure building up on the leading edges of the aircraft. So no, there wouldn't be a similar shock in a light speed transition because there won't be any matter to build up that pressure wave with.

Light waves and sound waves are VERY different. In fact, calling light a wave is just because we don't know anything better to call it. Light behaves as both a wave and a particle. Sound behaves as a wave, mainly because it IS a wave.

But all this is moot because it is not possible to exceed the speed of light in normal space. Anything we do to exceed the speed of light will have to be a cheat of sorts. So in fact there will be no transition period as there is with the speed of sound.

xepherys · 03-05-2006, 06:51 PM

Well, first of all, sound is an energy wave. Energy waves DO in fact travel through space. Waves from energy that correspond to our ability to hear them audibly simply don't make it far (milimeters? not sure on the exact distance). Yes, light is both a particle AND a wave, but other waves ALSO travel through space. Hence we have satellites liberally scatterd in our orbit. Hence satellites are able to send pictures and data back from the edge of our solar system. How do you think those travel if not by waveform? Trolley? Can and strings?

As for similar shock, I doubt you can make a 100% proof positive case for there being no similar shock. First of all, it's never been done. Before the sound barrier was broken, nobody KNEW what a sonic boom was. The scientific community was more or less on the fence regarding what would happen. Maybe it would create a massively bright flash at the point. Maybe it would cause some quantum distrubance that could have some physical effect on the nearby space. You don't KNOW any better than I do. But speculating that it's impossible is not very scientifically-minded.

As for your first sentence, it makes me think you are not a science professional or student. First of all, there IS matter in space, just much MUCH less. There is no such thing as a perfect vaccuum, void of all matter, either in the lab or in space. Particle density simply dips to a nearly immeasurable level. As I said, sound may not travel very far... maybe milimeters, maybe nanometers... but the energy exists and therefore travels. If you are in space, and you are repairing a metal object. You hit it with a wrench. From arms length, you probably would NOT hear it... but the energy created still exists. You simply have no ability to have that energy propogate as sound to any useful distance because there is not enough matter to keep it going.

xepherys · 03-05-2006, 07:17 PM

Actually, as a correction to the above, the sound waves themselves may, in fact, go further. The lack of matter is precisely why we cannot hear them. The tiny hairs that detect sound detect it do to vibrations caused by particles moving near and across them. If you had a sound system in space, you may not hear it well, but if you touched it (assuming it could play with the lack of atmosphere, which i don't believe such a system exists), you'd still "hear" it much like you hear yourself even when you aren't making fully audible noises... the vibrations are now moving THROUGH you to your aurotory system.

wolf · 03-08-2006, 06:07 PM

Didn't anyone read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

OK, but seriously. There was a recent discovery of a cluster of stars that could possibly support extraterrestrial life. Of course it is 210,000 light years away.

xepherys · 03-08-2006, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolf

Didn't anyone read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

OK, but seriously. There was a recent discovery of a cluster of stars that could possibly support extraterrestrial life. Of course it is 210,000 light years away.

Read post #14

roachboy · 03-08-2006, 06:50 PM

i would hope that aliens are coming here.

maybe there's some retired alien just driving around in the equivalent of a winnebago.
if the big enough, i would imagine that there could be lots of versions of this kind of place, maybe including a entire series that would be versions of this world.

wait, i stole that from a story i just read.
i'll start again.

i would hope that aliens are coming here.
i mean, i don't know if there are any, but if there are, i would hope they would stop by.
i'd like that.
call first.

Martian · 03-08-2006, 08:42 PM

Alright kiddies, it's time for A Brief History of Physics.

Apologies to Mr. Hawking.

Back in the day.. I mean, way back in the day, we had it all figured out. Inertia caused an object in motion to continue to want to move. Gravity pulled everything down. Friction provided a counter in any sort of fluid, be it liquid or gas.

We had everything worked out. In fact, the top physicists of the world were conviced that we had such a firm handle on how everything worked that they were saying that in a century or so there would be no more study of physics - we'd run out of stuff to study. We'd already know everything.

Then this crazy haired patent clerk showed up. He came up with some radical ideas - namely that the speed of light was the same to anyone observing it and that the laws of physics were constant for everyone. In other words, if I was travelling at a speed very fast, the speed of light viewed from my position would appear the same as it would from someone who was stationary. We'd see a wave of light that was moving at the same speed relative to us. In order for that to be true, one of the fundamental laws we relied upon to describe the universe had to be false - namely that time isn't constant. He told us that it's actually relative to the observer.

Those same top physicists who earlier said we were running out of stuff to learn viewed this as nonsense. The goofy-haired Austrian was generally considered to be a bit unhinged; yet, like any rebel, he gained a bit of a following. His followers conducted tests to see if what he said carried any weight. To everyone's surprise, it did.

Thus, special relativity was born.

Einstein also came to another, arguably more famous conclusion. He proposed that the energy of an object (E) is equal to it's mass (M) times the speed of light (c) squared. That one was a bit controversial as well, as it meant two things. First, it meant that every object in the universe, even those holding no inertial or potential energy, had a form of energy attached to it. This form of energy came to be known as rest energy and is generally expressed as the mass of an object. It also meant that every form of energy must have some amount of mass attached to it. Because all of that was tied into the idea of special relativity, as relativity gained credence so too did this.

Still, there was a bit of a problem. Relativity was defined as special because it only seemed to apply in a vaccuum, where no gravity was affecting an object. When applied to any object in the grip of another object's gravity, the whole thing broke down. The field of physics was a long way from being complete and the egg heads studying it still had a lot of work to do.

About six years later, ol' Al came through again. He'd been working on the problem through that time and finally tied it together with a new theory. He suggested that the reason gravity caused such problems is because it was actually an expression of a curve in space-time, as the universe had come to be known. He said that it tied into the mass of an object and was really that form of energy referred to in the famous equation; therefore, the greater the mass of an object, the greater the dent in space-time and the greater the dent in space-time, the more profound it's effect was on the mass around it. With that, Newton's old rules finally could be safely done away with. As it applied to everything, this new field was deemed general relativity.

Once they got over the idea that some schmuk in a patent office had beaten them to it, the world's physicists were thrilled. Suddenly there was this whole unexplored aspect of physics available to them and they happily went on their way, conducting the zany experiments as physicists are wont to do, with all manner of beakers and lab equipment and such. That was all well and good for another decade or so; then it began to be observed that general relativity also had it's limits. There were aspects of observed reality that it just couldn't explain; in particular, general relativity broke down at the subatomic level. Therefore a new theory was needed.

The foundations of the new theory came about in that decade and are still being studied and solidified today. Among the most fundamental aspects of this was the concept of quanta. The idea was that energy, which had previously been thought of as an infinite scale, could at very small levels be broken down into discrete measurable units. These units were then referred to as quanta (singular quantum), from which the new field of study later took it's name of quantum mechanics.

Quantum mechanics suggested a lot of radical new ideas; among them was the idea that a particle isn't a particle and a wave isn't a wave; they're both expressions of the same thing. A guy named Schrodinger commited some hypothetical animal cruelty and was credited with the idea that an object who's state is unobserved is undefined; it doesn't have a state until someone records it. A guy by the name of Heisenberg also told us that we could never measure anything with complete accuracy and that the very act of observing an objects state changed it. And then there's a crazy quadrapalegic; he's one of the most prominent minds in the field and continues to suggest changes. He suggested the idea that there are gravity wells out there that are so strong, that not even light is able to escape their pull; thus, we have no way to observe them. It hasn't actually been proven that black holes exist yet, but they're generally accepted. Hawking also suggested that the universe is not infinite (as was previously thought) but doesn't have any observable limits. The common metaphor used to illustrate this is that of an ant on the surface of a balloon; as far as the ant is concerned, it can walk forever, but that doesn't mean the balloon is infinitely large.

So there's a very brief rundown of some of the most important concepts that go into a discussion like this. General relativity gives us the old idea that we can't go faster than light; E=MC^2 tells us as much. Wormholes and black holes and other phenomena can change things up, assuming they exist; and quantum mechanics suggests that it is in fact possible to propogate the traits of an item and cause them to exist at two discrete points in space, meaning that teleportation may in fact be possible.

Note that some of those ideas contradict each other.

The number one concept I take away from it all is that we just don't know; the only thing we're sure of is how little we do know about how everything really works. It's entirely possible that right now someone is working on a new theory and, like Einstein did a century ago, will publish it and throw everything we thought we knew about the universe out the window. This could happen tomorrow. It could happen a century from now. It may never happen.

I don't know.

After that very long and convoluted ramble, it's time for me to get back on topic. I will say that I don't believe in life on other planets. What I believe in is the possibility of life on other planets. I also believe in the possibility of contact with that life occuring, or having occured already.

Here's the kicker, though : we're all too obsessed with Star Trek. The prevailing concept of extra-terrestrial life holds it as essentially terrestrial in form. When most people think of aliens, they think of them as having observable terrestrial characteristics. These aliens invariably have a head, two arms, two legs. They have eyes and ears and mouths and metabolic systems like ours. They may not breath the mix of nitrogen and oxygen we're used to, but they do generally breathe. They eat, they expel waste, they do everything in a human fashion. This post is too long already, so I won't get into the reasons why we tend to thinkof alien life as not so alien (there are some good ones), but we generally do. The reality is that alien life may not even be close to what we're used to. An alien might not eat. It might use something similar to photosynthesis, drawing the energy it needs from the sun. It might draw energy from some other form of radiation. It might be capable of some limited form of fission and shit out nuclear waste. It may have a body like ours. It may exist in a liquid form. It may not even look like life. It's possible that this alien would be incapable of recognizing us as intelligent life. The opposite is also true.

One of my favourite sci-fi scenes comes from the film Men In Black. When Z, the head honcho, dispatches an agent to meet a new diplomat, the agent asks Z if the alien he's meeting is humanoid. Z replies, "You wish. Bring a sponge."

That is, to me, much more likely. If we do meet some form of extraterrestrial being, who's to say we'll even know that's what it is?

Jack Ruby · 03-09-2006, 02:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

I have no problem believing in extraterrestrial life. I do have a problem with believing that the speed of light can be surpassed. Until that happens (ie never) the distances are simply too great to travel.

True, but that's supposing extraterrestrials flying around in nuts-and-bolts spaceships like us. I like the hypothesis that 'aliens' might be coming from other planes of existence that overlap our own, which would eliminate the speed/distance problem.

xepherys · 03-09-2006, 10:11 AM

Martian... I agree with you 100%. In fact a few of your points are points I had made previously. I'm glad you were able to be a bit more articulate regarding some of the finer points of physics as that may help people recognize some of those issues. I'd imagine that our knowledge of physics is as small as our relative space (that we individually take up) compared to the vastness of existance. Someday, we'll have it all down pat... but I imagine that time is several thousand years in the future. Maybe we'll never fully understand. *shrug*

SaltPork · 03-21-2006, 09:20 PM

In the grand scheme of things I think that anyone finding us would be like finding a needle in a haystack. That being said, we are a noisy group, what with all the radio and tv signals bouncing around. However, to the same point that everyone has made, travelling from one system to another would require quite the technology leap. Not entirely impossible, but unlikely.

On a separate note, I would love to know what's in Area 51, who wouldn't, but maybe some things are best kept from the general population.

crossova · 04-17-2006, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mexicanonabike

but it's only impossible because we don't understand it yet. once we reach that speed, i'm sure someone will say: "eh, i modded my spaceship with N0S and turbo. .. i can now go lightspeed +(L * .00001)" wooohoooo.

but seriously, what if the can manipulate time? worm holes? black holes?

@ modding a ship w/ NOS and turbo.

But just because we, humans, are not yet able to create a mode of travel that can reach speeds of light and faster, does not mean another life form has not already mastered it.

I believe there may be life on other planets, but I doubt if we will ever get a grand entrance like on the science fiction movies (Independence Day, Mars Attacks, Close Encounters of the Third Kind).

03-01-2006, 01:10 PM	#1 (permalink)
RonRyan85 Insane Location: Lone Star State,USA	Are there Aliens from Space coming to Earth or Not? I have heard all kinds of stories about Roswell Saucer crashes, Grey-big eyed saucer pilots abducting people,messages being created overnight in wheat fields in the UK,(Cropcircles) and big black triangles that move silently in the night skies over the Earth but just when I get tired of reading,listening to Art Bell and thinking there is REALLY nothing to all of the UFO stories I read about UFO stuff the US Government has done in all the years they told us it was all swamp gas,natural lights, and not to worry about it. Well then LINDA MOLTON HOWE in her EARTH FILES says the govern- ment was very interested in the UFOs and tried to shoot them down during the years after WW2. Many of our own aircraft were destroyed trying to do this and finally the order was repealed as they failed to shoot down any UFO. What is your opinion? Ever seen a UFO? Is it a bunch of hoowie or do they really exist?

03-01-2006, 01:38 PM	#3 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	I have no problem believing in extraterrestrial life. I do have a problem with believing that the speed of light can be surpassed. Until that happens (ie never) the distances are simply too great to travel. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

03-01-2006, 02:17 PM	#4 (permalink)
The_Jazz Asshole Administrator Location: Chicago	Direct answer to a direct question - no. For the same reasons Charlatan has. If they do show up, I hope that their women are all tall and blond with 3 breasts. __________________ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

03-01-2006, 03:44 PM	#6 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	I am with Einstien on this until otherwise proven wrong. We can get close but never meet or cross the speed of light. Worm holes... interesting in theory but too unpredictable. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

03-01-2006, 03:49 PM	#7 (permalink)
balderdash111 Psycho	Here's my opinion (expressed in a mad mish-mosh of ideas): Are there aliens coming to earth? No. At least not currently. Otherwise we would have noticed (one would die, make a mistake and spill the beans, etc). Maybe one visited a long time ago before humans were around, but I'm not sure what would drive one to visit our young planet in particular Are there aliens on other planets? I'm willing to say probably, based on the assumed enormous number of planets out there. SOme of it may even be intelligent, as we understand the term But what are the odds that we happen to overlap a particular intelligent alien civilization? Some may have come and gone by now. Others may be yet to arrive. What are the odds we fall right in the sweet spot where we overlap with a civilization capable of reaching us? Plus the whole can't-go-faster-than-light thing. __________________ A little silliness now and then is cherished by the wisest men. -- Willy Wonka

03-01-2006, 01:22 PM	#2 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Honestly, I'd need to see a great deal of proof before I started believing in extra terrestrial life, espically intelligent ets. I've not seen conclusive evidence yet, so I'll just wait.

03-01-2006, 04:02 PM	#8 (permalink)
feelgood Free Mars! Location: I dunno, there's white people around me saying "eh" all the time	Need evidence. Period. Considering the vast number of planets that are capable of supporting alien life, I do believe there are species out there that are curious as we are. Again, considering the number of possible planets capable of supporting alien species, how many of those are capable of technology? Lots. Some are less advanced than us, some are more advanced than us. For each one of those that are technologically advanced than us, how many of those have the capacity to suppress the speed of light? Probably few of them, then again, our understanding of physics is relatively a scratch on the surface. Now, consider this: Of those who are capable of travelling faster than the speed of light, what's the probabability of at least one of them visiting Earth? A lone planet in the vastness of space? Very low I'm going with no __________________ Looking out the window, that's an act of war. Staring at my shoes, that's an act of war. Committing an act of war? Oh you better believe that's an act of war

03-01-2006, 04:05 PM	#9 (permalink)
ObieX Pickles Location: Shirt and Pants (NJ)	The odds of there NOT being life on another planet other than our own are astronomical. There has got to be other life out there just due to the size of our universe. The building blocks for life are extremely common throughout our solar system/galaxy/universe. All it takes it that one spark to get it goin and in hte right conditions "its on". Keep in mind that human beings have only really been paying attention to this stuff seriously for the past couple hundred years. Thats it. Up until now we have brushed aside any past encounters as "folks lore" or "myths". The history of ancient peoples are abound with descriptions of creatures and beings coming from the skies. Gods, angels, strange beasts.. we may not have been "alone" all this time.. its just that no one believes anyone when they tell their stories. Now remember again that humans have really only had electricity and technology that can really be called technology without a chuckle attached for the past 200 years or so. Before that time there were BILLIONS of years. Billions of years that other entire races and civilizations could have sprung up, burned out, and died. BIlLIONS of years where other life forms could have evolved up through the sludge to become sentient. Now some have used this arguement to say "well if thre's all those billions of years why havent we seen them yet?" I say we have seen them. They've been here before.. and really may just not give a flying fuck. We would be nothing compaired to a race that can traverse time-space the way they could. Even now we'd be the equivalent of amoeba to them. They would most likely enter our orbit, study our primitive asses briefly, then move on to check out the other countless worlds that are twirling around the nearly endless vastness of this existance. Sure they may have a few stick around to watch us or pop in and out to check on us.. but really what reason would they have to contact us at all? What would they POSSIBLY want or need from us that they dont have? I have heard the stores of US planes sent to shoot down alien craft before as well. I've also seen a few video accounts from US pilots who were sent to do it. Each of them will tell you that they were flat out out-classed when it came to speed and maneuverability. They could kick on the full burn and the aliens would fly circles around their sorry asses. At the very least we're a joke to them. At most.. entertainment. __________________ We Must Dissent. Last edited by ObieX; 03-01-2006 at 07:22 PM..

03-01-2006, 05:36 PM	#10 (permalink)
ASU2003 immoral minority Location: Back in Ohio	I'm one of the people that likes to think what is out there. Maybe there have been really advanced species that came up with a way to travel at the speed of light, or could shut down for millions of years and awake at their destination as if no time had passed at all. Maybe we are thinking inside the box, try telling George Washington about computers, cell phones, and rockets. None of those inventions happened without a technical advance. And no one could have really imagined them 100 years before. There have only been organisms capable of discovery signals or aliens for the past 50 years out of 4 billion for the age of the Earth. And I'm not sure exactly how long humans will be around on planet Earth and what advances we will discover before our extinction.

03-01-2006, 05:49 PM	#11 (permalink)
feelgood Free Mars! Location: I dunno, there's white people around me saying "eh" all the time	I should point out that lot of people thought that the speed of sound couldn't be broken... __________________ Looking out the window, that's an act of war. Staring at my shoes, that's an act of war. Committing an act of war? Oh you better believe that's an act of war

03-02-2006, 01:13 PM	#12 (permalink)
xepherys <3 TFP Location: 17TLH2445607250	Well, experiments have been done that can make light move faster than the speed of light (or specifically, faster than c). The most noted one was done at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton by tunneling light through a cell filled with cesium gas. At any rate, we continue to show, year after year, how little we really now regarding physics. We're learning, but it's a slow pace in reality. Secondly, logically it makes sense that in a universe as large as ours, there would be other intelligent life. Now, whether they've ever been here or not... I have no clue. shrug

03-02-2006, 01:20 PM	#14 (permalink)
xepherys <3 TFP Location: 17TLH2445607250	Also, on note #2... the vastness of the universe... I think some people, even really intelligent people, fail to understand how utterly massive the UNIVERSE is. I mean, our galaxy alone is so gargantuan in size as to be almost imperceptably large for human imagination... then to kick that up by 1000x + the space in between visible galaxies? Maybe it should be explained more simply... I think Douglas Adams put it best in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "The Universe is Big. Really big. It may seem like a long way to the corner chemist, but compared to the Universe, that's peanuts." It's overly simplistic, but the true size of the universe-at-large is just mind-numbingly, brain-explodingly, life-destroyingly big. Edit: http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home...bbin/cosmo.htm Last edited by xepherys; 03-02-2006 at 01:45 PM.. Reason: added a link for the curious...

03-02-2006, 01:27 PM	#15 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Did some looking, there could be 30 billion Earth sized planets out there. I'[m still not sure that answers my question. Since there are no figures on other planets having life (Mars doesn't count because a lot of us are thinking life on earth came from Mars...but I digress), so how do we plug in statistics on othre planets having life? We can't, by my understanding.

03-02-2006, 02:44 PM	#17 (permalink)
fresnelly Functionally Appropriate Location: Toronto	It would have to be a pretty jaded or insular species to ignore us if they knew about us. Look at how excited we get over a bit of permafrost on Mars. Here's a question: How would you react to incontravertible proof of the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? If an honest to goodness alien ship landed in my backyard, I would probably run like hell. I wonder how the human race would react as a whole? __________________ Building an artificial intelligence that appreciates Mozart is easy. Building an A.I. that appreciates a theme restaurant is the real challenge - Kit Roebuck - Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life

03-02-2006, 07:47 PM	#20 (permalink)
ASU2003 immoral minority Location: Back in Ohio	I doubt aliens would know about us as a technological species. Radio waves are one of those signs of intelligence, and we have only been sending those out since the last century. The stars we see and the radio waves/laser beams from alien civilizations would be millions or billions of years old. Would they even still be around? Would they be able to spread to neighboring star systems or anyplace in the universe? And what would we consider life? I would think that a species of robots that can learn, program themselves, and are smart/curious, who have huge lifespans would be around for a lot longer than biological life. I'm not so sure that their technology would cure us, unless they are very similar to us (which is unlikely), they might not have cancer, viruses, etc. And I know that there would be a bunch of people that would want to spread religion to them. But, it would be interesting to hear what they came up with first. The question I would want an answer to is, have they found any other intelligent life? Are they here? I don't think so, unless they can stop time and safely move around the universe without aging(if biological). And they will have to find us, which wouldn't be easy. Having to navigate at speeds faster than light would be a challenge as well. The stars would be in different spots than what you can see.

03-02-2006, 08:07 PM	#21 (permalink)
xepherys <3 TFP Location: 17TLH2445607250	culture? technology? science? language? These things could be utterly foreign to them. The simple fact that they got here doesn't mean they have technology... at least by our standards. Vikings sailed across the ocean... it didn't make them technologically advanced, even for their time. Our assumptions are that they assumed the same limitations that we have... perhaps they just saw things a different way?! This is akin to assuming they'll be bipedal, two-armed, one-headed, two-eyed creatures. Maybe they have no ability to produce voice. Perhaps they communicate psychicly, maybe even in a way in which they could not "interface" with us. Maybe they have neither and communicate via writing? We think that sounds silly becasue things would develop so slowly, but perhaps they are adept at writing and reading at a rapid pace? Culture? Again, pushing human assumptions on them. Perhaps they are communal in a very primitive sense. Maybe they don't have emotional motivation to create culture, or perhaps they have no concept of emotion at all, which would make them grossly different from us. What would I do? That would depend a LOT on the situation. If they landed in my back yard, and baby-sized humanoids came out waving and saying "G'day mate!" I might just kinda stare in awe. If something shot down into my backyard (ala the War of the Worlds remake) and came out as a 10-legged, gnarled beast with saliva (or some equivalent) dripping off of fangs, I'd probably just get eaten.

03-03-2006, 09:14 AM	#23 (permalink)
macmanmike6100 High Honorary Junkie Location: Tri-state.	This is a total thread-jack, but I thought that you guys might be interested in the history behind breaking the speed of sound: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcr...12barrier.html Correctly, feelgood notes that we didn't think the speed of sound could really be broken...calling it something of a wall...interesting transcript...thank god for PBS!

03-03-2006, 09:31 AM	#24 (permalink)
xepherys <3 TFP Location: 17TLH2445607250	macmanmike - not a thread-jack at all. Info like this supports the theory that the lightspeed barrier can be broken. As humans, are ability to discover things are very linear. We then take that linear ability and apply it to the universe as a whole. I think this is where we really fall short. When we start to understand the reality of other dimensions (if they exist) then options that seem far-fetched to us now may start to become possible (time travel, lightspeed+ travel, et cetera).

03-03-2006, 09:37 AM	#25 (permalink)
xepherys <3 TFP Location: 17TLH2445607250	I think my question would be... not IF we can surpass the speed of light, but WHAT happens when we do. We all know about sonic booms from crossing the sound-speed barrier. What will be the wave lashback from breaking the light-speed barrier?

03-05-2006, 06:51 PM	#31 (permalink)
xepherys <3 TFP Location: 17TLH2445607250	Well, first of all, sound is an energy wave. Energy waves DO in fact travel through space. Waves from energy that correspond to our ability to hear them audibly simply don't make it far (milimeters? not sure on the exact distance). Yes, light is both a particle AND a wave, but other waves ALSO travel through space. Hence we have satellites liberally scatterd in our orbit. Hence satellites are able to send pictures and data back from the edge of our solar system. How do you think those travel if not by waveform? Trolley? Can and strings? As for similar shock, I doubt you can make a 100% proof positive case for there being no similar shock. First of all, it's never been done. Before the sound barrier was broken, nobody KNEW what a sonic boom was. The scientific community was more or less on the fence regarding what would happen. Maybe it would create a massively bright flash at the point. Maybe it would cause some quantum distrubance that could have some physical effect on the nearby space. You don't KNOW any better than I do. But speculating that it's impossible is not very scientifically-minded. As for your first sentence, it makes me think you are not a science professional or student. First of all, there IS matter in space, just much MUCH less. There is no such thing as a perfect vaccuum, void of all matter, either in the lab or in space. Particle density simply dips to a nearly immeasurable level. As I said, sound may not travel very far... maybe milimeters, maybe nanometers... but the energy exists and therefore travels. If you are in space, and you are repairing a metal object. You hit it with a wrench. From arms length, you probably would NOT hear it... but the energy created still exists. You simply have no ability to have that energy propogate as sound to any useful distance because there is not enough matter to keep it going.

03-05-2006, 07:17 PM	#32 (permalink)
xepherys <3 TFP Location: 17TLH2445607250	Actually, as a correction to the above, the sound waves themselves may, in fact, go further. The lack of matter is precisely why we cannot hear them. The tiny hairs that detect sound detect it do to vibrations caused by particles moving near and across them. If you had a sound system in space, you may not hear it well, but if you touched it (assuming it could play with the lack of atmosphere, which i don't believe such a system exists), you'd still "hear" it much like you hear yourself even when you aren't making fully audible noises... the vibrations are now moving THROUGH you to your aurotory system.

03-08-2006, 06:07 PM	#33 (permalink)
wolf Ravenous Location: Right Behind You	Didn't anyone read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? OK, but seriously. There was a recent discovery of a cluster of stars that could possibly support extraterrestrial life. Of course it is 210,000 light years away. __________________ Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as Gods. Cats have never forgotten this.

03-08-2006, 06:50 PM	#35 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i would hope that aliens are coming here. maybe there's some retired alien just driving around in the equivalent of a winnebago. if the big enough, i would imagine that there could be lots of versions of this kind of place, maybe including a entire series that would be versions of this world. wait, i stole that from a story i just read. i'll start again. i would hope that aliens are coming here. i mean, i don't know if there are any, but if there are, i would hope they would stop by. i'd like that. call first. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

03-08-2006, 08:42 PM	#36 (permalink)
Martian Young Crumudgeon Location: Canada	Alright kiddies, it's time for A Brief History of Physics. Apologies to Mr. Hawking. Back in the day.. I mean, way back in the day, we had it all figured out. Inertia caused an object in motion to continue to want to move. Gravity pulled everything down. Friction provided a counter in any sort of fluid, be it liquid or gas. We had everything worked out. In fact, the top physicists of the world were conviced that we had such a firm handle on how everything worked that they were saying that in a century or so there would be no more study of physics - we'd run out of stuff to study. We'd already know everything. Then this crazy haired patent clerk showed up. He came up with some radical ideas - namely that the speed of light was the same to anyone observing it and that the laws of physics were constant for everyone. In other words, if I was travelling at a speed very fast, the speed of light viewed from my position would appear the same as it would from someone who was stationary. We'd see a wave of light that was moving at the same speed relative to us. In order for that to be true, one of the fundamental laws we relied upon to describe the universe had to be false - namely that time isn't constant. He told us that it's actually relative to the observer. Those same top physicists who earlier said we were running out of stuff to learn viewed this as nonsense. The goofy-haired Austrian was generally considered to be a bit unhinged; yet, like any rebel, he gained a bit of a following. His followers conducted tests to see if what he said carried any weight. To everyone's surprise, it did. Thus, special relativity was born. Einstein also came to another, arguably more famous conclusion. He proposed that the energy of an object (E) is equal to it's mass (M) times the speed of light (c) squared. That one was a bit controversial as well, as it meant two things. First, it meant that every object in the universe, even those holding no inertial or potential energy, had a form of energy attached to it. This form of energy came to be known as rest energy and is generally expressed as the mass of an object. It also meant that every form of energy must have some amount of mass attached to it. Because all of that was tied into the idea of special relativity, as relativity gained credence so too did this. Still, there was a bit of a problem. Relativity was defined as special because it only seemed to apply in a vaccuum, where no gravity was affecting an object. When applied to any object in the grip of another object's gravity, the whole thing broke down. The field of physics was a long way from being complete and the egg heads studying it still had a lot of work to do. About six years later, ol' Al came through again. He'd been working on the problem through that time and finally tied it together with a new theory. He suggested that the reason gravity caused such problems is because it was actually an expression of a curve in space-time, as the universe had come to be known. He said that it tied into the mass of an object and was really that form of energy referred to in the famous equation; therefore, the greater the mass of an object, the greater the dent in space-time and the greater the dent in space-time, the more profound it's effect was on the mass around it. With that, Newton's old rules finally could be safely done away with. As it applied to everything, this new field was deemed general relativity. Once they got over the idea that some schmuk in a patent office had beaten them to it, the world's physicists were thrilled. Suddenly there was this whole unexplored aspect of physics available to them and they happily went on their way, conducting the zany experiments as physicists are wont to do, with all manner of beakers and lab equipment and such. That was all well and good for another decade or so; then it began to be observed that general relativity also had it's limits. There were aspects of observed reality that it just couldn't explain; in particular, general relativity broke down at the subatomic level. Therefore a new theory was needed. The foundations of the new theory came about in that decade and are still being studied and solidified today. Among the most fundamental aspects of this was the concept of quanta. The idea was that energy, which had previously been thought of as an infinite scale, could at very small levels be broken down into discrete measurable units. These units were then referred to as quanta (singular quantum), from which the new field of study later took it's name of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics suggested a lot of radical new ideas; among them was the idea that a particle isn't a particle and a wave isn't a wave; they're both expressions of the same thing. A guy named Schrodinger commited some hypothetical animal cruelty and was credited with the idea that an object who's state is unobserved is undefined; it doesn't have a state until someone records it. A guy by the name of Heisenberg also told us that we could never measure anything with complete accuracy and that the very act of observing an objects state changed it. And then there's a crazy quadrapalegic; he's one of the most prominent minds in the field and continues to suggest changes. He suggested the idea that there are gravity wells out there that are so strong, that not even light is able to escape their pull; thus, we have no way to observe them. It hasn't actually been proven that black holes exist yet, but they're generally accepted. Hawking also suggested that the universe is not infinite (as was previously thought) but doesn't have any observable limits. The common metaphor used to illustrate this is that of an ant on the surface of a balloon; as far as the ant is concerned, it can walk forever, but that doesn't mean the balloon is infinitely large. So there's a very brief rundown of some of the most important concepts that go into a discussion like this. General relativity gives us the old idea that we can't go faster than light; E=MC^2 tells us as much. Wormholes and black holes and other phenomena can change things up, assuming they exist; and quantum mechanics suggests that it is in fact possible to propogate the traits of an item and cause them to exist at two discrete points in space, meaning that teleportation may in fact be possible. Note that some of those ideas contradict each other. The number one concept I take away from it all is that we just don't know; the only thing we're sure of is how little we do know about how everything really works. It's entirely possible that right now someone is working on a new theory and, like Einstein did a century ago, will publish it and throw everything we thought we knew about the universe out the window. This could happen tomorrow. It could happen a century from now. It may never happen. I don't know. After that very long and convoluted ramble, it's time for me to get back on topic. I will say that I don't believe in life on other planets. What I believe in is the possibility of life on other planets. I also believe in the possibility of contact with that life occuring, or having occured already. Here's the kicker, though : we're all too obsessed with Star Trek. The prevailing concept of extra-terrestrial life holds it as essentially terrestrial in form. When most people think of aliens, they think of them as having observable terrestrial characteristics. These aliens invariably have a head, two arms, two legs. They have eyes and ears and mouths and metabolic systems like ours. They may not breath the mix of nitrogen and oxygen we're used to, but they do generally breathe. They eat, they expel waste, they do everything in a human fashion. This post is too long already, so I won't get into the reasons why we tend to thinkof alien life as not so alien (there are some good ones), but we generally do. The reality is that alien life may not even be close to what we're used to. An alien might not eat. It might use something similar to photosynthesis, drawing the energy it needs from the sun. It might draw energy from some other form of radiation. It might be capable of some limited form of fission and shit out nuclear waste. It may have a body like ours. It may exist in a liquid form. It may not even look like life. It's possible that this alien would be incapable of recognizing us as intelligent life. The opposite is also true. One of my favourite sci-fi scenes comes from the film Men In Black. When Z, the head honcho, dispatches an agent to meet a new diplomat, the agent asks Z if the alien he's meeting is humanoid. Z replies, "You wish. Bring a sponge." That is, to me, much more likely. If we do meet some form of extraterrestrial being, who's to say we'll even know that's what it is? __________________ I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said - Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

03-09-2006, 10:11 AM	#38 (permalink)
xepherys <3 TFP Location: 17TLH2445607250	Martian... I agree with you 100%. In fact a few of your points are points I had made previously. I'm glad you were able to be a bit more articulate regarding some of the finer points of physics as that may help people recognize some of those issues. I'd imagine that our knowledge of physics is as small as our relative space (that we individually take up) compared to the vastness of existance. Someday, we'll have it all down pat... but I imagine that time is several thousand years in the future. Maybe we'll never fully understand. shrug

03-21-2006, 09:20 PM	#39 (permalink)
SaltPork Everything's better with bacon Location: In your local grocer's freezer.	In the grand scheme of things I think that anyone finding us would be like finding a needle in a haystack. That being said, we are a noisy group, what with all the radio and tv signals bouncing around. However, to the same point that everyone has made, travelling from one system to another would require quite the technology leap. Not entirely impossible, but unlikely. On a separate note, I would love to know what's in Area 51, who wouldn't, but maybe some things are best kept from the general population. __________________ It was like that when I got here....I swear.