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        riddles >> general problem-solving / chatting / whatever >> Alpha Centauri in 80 days
        
(Message started by: Icarus on Jan 18^th, 2006, 5:58pm)

Title: Alpha Centauri in 80 days
Post by Icarus on Jan 18^th, 2006, 5:58pm

http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2006/01/mike_griffins_b.html

Comments?

Title: Re: Alpha Centauri in 80 days
Post by towr on Jan 19^th, 2006, 2:21am

Sounds interesting. But even if the science is sound (which is still to be seen), it would probably take decades to enter hyperspace.

And if it's possible to build a hyperdrive and if (advanced) alien races do exist, we suddenly find ourselves without a reason why it's impossible for them to be here abducting cows and probing rednecks. We can no longer say it's just too far for them to travel. Sure 80 days, or a year, is a long time just to abduct a few cows, but we never know what fetishes they have.

Title: Re: Alpha Centauri in 80 days
Post by rmsgrey on Jan 19^th, 2006, 4:53am

It's certainly intriguing - though it does sound rather like a bad novel - crippled scientist working (almost) in secret stumbles upon secrets of the universe. Decades later, his work is rediscovered and solves the problems of the day...

And the "if it can be done, why haven't they visited us" argument is shaky at best.

For starters, there's the Prime Directive - any actual alien visitors may well share our belief that it's best not to reveal your presence to the general population.

Then there's the issue of the size of the universe - taking the average distance between neighbouring star-systems (within a spiral arm) as 5 light years (possibly a little low) then there's over 4000 stars within 50 light years (about a year's travel based on the article's figures), and over 4 million within 500 (coming up on a decade's flight time) so it's not like any star-faring race would home in on Earth within decades of achieving star-flight technology...

Then there's the issue of the length of history - if aliens anly visit every thousand years or so, then their last visit would probably pre-date the telescope, and have a fair chance of being somewhere in the Americas, Africa or Australia rather than the "civilised" nations of Europe or the Orient.

And, of course, if every species that contemplated star-travel technology decided not to on the grounds that: "if it were possible, someone else would have visited already," then no-one would ever be the first to develop it.

All we can reliably conclude about interstellar travel from the lack of reliably recorded visits is that either ET is shy, or interstellar travellers are probably less dense than some threshhold value (the precise value you choose depends on your assumptions).

It's still less than 200 years since a well educated and respected leader of men declared incredulity at the thought of stones falling from the sky. If the same two Yankee professors had, instead, investigated reports of a visit by aliens, and concluded that beings had come from space and then returned, would anyone have believed them? The historical window in which Close Encounters would have been reported and made it into currently accepted knowledge is pretty narrow.

Title: Re: Alpha Centauri in 80 days
Post by towr on Jan 19^th, 2006, 8:07am

on 01/19/06 at 04:53:21, rmsgrey wrote:

And the "if it can be done, why haven't they visited us" argument is shaky at best.

You shouldn't misconstrue what I said as an argument against the possibility. It's a warning to beware of your cows.
If such a method of travel is possible, then we can no longer assume that the distance between us and some hypothetical advanced alien race is too great for them to reach us. You can suddenly travel much, much further in a lifetime. So suddenly distance is no longer necessarily an argument against the presence of aliens.

Title: Re: Alpha Centauri in 80 days
Post by JocK on Jan 19^th, 2006, 12:43pm

What is the fuzz? HQT (Heim's Quantum Theory) is nothing more than a special case of GUM...

As in HQT, with GUM you can derive the physics constants (particle masses). (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heim_theory) But GUM goes much further, as it can also derive the well-known mathematical constants.

(For some key GUM-results, see my signature.)