Extraterrestrial Life

[Magnus]

If you guys have problems with abductions go here: [url:11x3b2sy]http://www.stopabductions.com[/url]

Goffredo, you seem quite limited or close minded about the possibilites of FTL travel. Why is this?

[Goffredo]

Today is a wonderful day. After 48 hrs of rain it is beautiful and today I finish my teaching period. Regards the things I have been writing on this thread I was just asked why I seem limited or closed minded. As I am in a wonderful mood and I laughed and am still smiling!

I offer no answer. Indeed the answer is spread out in what I wrote so far. We are all limited and closed minded. He that is not limited and closed minded throw the first stone! In other words I could retort and say "Is it I that is limited and closed minded?"

Don't worry. Be Happy. Enjoy life and do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you. We will all be swept away by a meteor strike in a few decades.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

MAGNvS........... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO not the tin foil plot again!



M.VIB.M. :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Magnus]

No I didn't mean it in a negative connotation Goffredo, but you don't seem to have the desire? to be open to the possibility of theoretical FTL traveling, even in 50 or 100 years (again if we're still here). To me it just seems limiting to discount the possibility of something (anything for that matter) given our strides in technology up to this point.

And I'm not saying that rules should be disregarded..I'm not saying we're going to be cruising around in the starship Enterprise or anything, but where humankind has had a will, we have invariably found a way. Proven fact.

[tlclark]

If you guys have problems with abductions go here: [url:2juphtxp]http://www.stopabductions.com[/url]

Goffredo, you seem quite limited or close minded about the possibilites of FTL travel. Why is this?

I can answer this:

Paraphrasing Bertrand Russell:

You don't base knowledge on what you don't know.

Possibility can't be based on speculation, otherwise it's fantasy.

However!! We now have a mathematical basis for FTL travel!! The Alcubierre Metric!! Which, though daunting in its technical hurdles (as in we haven't got the FOGGIEST idea how to do it, it is at least scientifically possible.) No longer is FTL merely speculation. We now have a mathematical framework for what FTL would look like, in theory.

Again, I invoke Arthur C. Clarke's first law "If some scientist says something is impossible, it probably isn't." :wink:

Goffredo, (In full recognition that you are way smarter than me in all matters scientific) Do you have any objections to the Alcubierre metric? And remember, I'm an art historian, so talk L-E-N-T-A-M-E-N-TE.

Travis

[Tarbicus]

However!! We now have a mathematical basis for FTL travel!! The Alcubierre Metric!!

Wow! hock:

[url:qrkya4tz]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive[/url]

[Antonius Lucretius]

The closest sun-like star from Earth is Alpha Centauri, a.k.a. Proxima Centauri. Actually it's a three star system.
It's something like four light-years from here. Sort of next door...
I don't know much about the laws of physics. Actually I don't know anything about them.
But on the Human race, I know a little bit more and I assume that if we ever find a way to get near the speed of light, a trip there will take something between seven or eight years and that puts it in the realm of possible..
We already sent a marvellous little machine called Voyager --faster man made vehicle ever built-- outside the Solar System.
That's an incentive.
And some of us most desperately want to get there.
And so, we will. I don't know how, I just know we will.
Shiny..

[Tarbicus]

We already sent a marvellous little machine called Voyager --faster man made vehicle ever built-- outside the Solar System.

I love this photograph of Earth taken by Voyager this year. It really puts us in perspective:
[url:1vafqf92]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PaleBlueDot.jpg[/url]

[TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS]

[TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS]

And now:

[size=150:bwx8wlio]Omnia perpetuos quae seruant sidera motus nullum uiderunt pulchrius imperium. [/size]

Vale,

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Wow Tarbi, that is a beautiful image!! how small we are indeed!

what the shampoo of sabatinus has to do with it i dont know however....

at least we know he has dandruff now........ HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

:lol: :lol: :lol:

M.VIB.M.

[Robert Vermaat]

We already sent a marvellous little machine called Voyager --faster man made vehicle ever built-- outside the Solar System.

I love this photograph of Earth taken by Voyager this year. It really puts us in perspective:
[url:1yx4o7yh]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PaleBlueDot.jpg[/url]

You mean 16.5 years ago! The picture was taken on 06-06-1990...

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

well i hadnt seen it yet!

still a lovely image!!

M.VIB.M.

[tlclark]

However!! We now have a mathematical basis for FTL travel!! The Alcubierre Metric!!

Wow! hock:

[url:3apganm8]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive[/url]

Yeah, I will bet you a million dollars that 200 years from now Miguel Alcubierre will be remembered as the man that invented warp drive NOT Zefram Cochrane.

One last thing I remembered.

In 1938 Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard read a paper on Nuclear Fission by two Jewish physicists. A few weeks later they figured out the implications and with nothing more than a few equations, were so convinced they persuaded Einstein to write a letter to Roosevelt, and the Manhattan project was born.

The reasoning for the project was clear. Anyone with access to the paper could come to the same conclusions they did. They were certain the Germans would try and in truth, were it not for a series of small coincidences, Heisenberg might have done it. Their choice was a controversial one, but a natural one.

The same thing happened with the development of the H-bomb. The gov't was furious that the Soviets developed one so quickly, especially since its design was nearly identical to ours. They were convinced that someone in the program was a traitor. But it wasn't espionage, it was just physics. Once the knowledge was out there it was only a matter of time before it was created.

At some point, some experimental test will verify what Alcubierre has discovered, just like experiments and observations have comfirmed many things only known in the math, Black holes, neutrinos, etc.

At that point, a warp drive will be inevitable. Why? Because if we can do it, someone will. The advantages of it are just too great.

Which is another reason for why I think there are no intelligent advanced species out there. They would have done it by now.

And if not, we better get cracking. I would hate to meet them unprepared.

Travis

[Tarbicus]

You mean 16.5 years ago! The picture was taken on 06-06-1990...

Yes indeed I did. Sorry about that!