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        riddles >> general problem-solving / chatting / whatever >> Do You Believe?
        
(Message started by: wade32 on Apr 6th, 2012, 7:58pm)
Title: Do You Believe?
Post by wade32 on Apr 6th, 2012, 7:58pm
In aliens, I mean.  I love to watch documentaries about aliens and alien encounters.  Do I believe in them?  I don't know, but there are mysteries in the world that some people cannot explain.

...Do you believe?
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by towr on Apr 7th, 2012, 5:14am
I think it's quite likely that alien life exists, and extremely unlikely any intelligent life has, does or will visit us. Practically everything we currently (think we) know about the universe is in favour of the former and against the latter.
As we discover more and more planets around other stars and build better and better telescope, we might even see the (chemical) signatures of life on alien planets. But the distances are too great to traverse by any means that are (currently) physically plausible.
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by alien2 on Apr 7th, 2012, 5:26am
Evidence that life exists on Titan, one of Saturn’s biggest moons, appears to have been uncovered by Nasa scientists. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7805069/Titan-Nasa-scientists-discover-evidence-that-alien-life-exists-on-Saturns-moon.html)
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by wade32 on Apr 7th, 2012, 7:10am
I really like to hear other people's ideas on it, I am very open to believing...I know that there have been some really weird things happen...like the pyramid buidling and everything.
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by towr on Apr 7th, 2012, 8:05am
What's weird about pyramid building? People have been doing it all over the world on different scales for millenia.
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by wade32 on Apr 7th, 2012, 5:48pm
No one can explain how those primitive people could have cut huge stones like they did with the tools they used...another question imposed was how they lifted 100 ton rocks to heights of 20-50 feet in the air.  It would take 20 cranes today to lift just one of these rocks...watch "Ancient Aliens"
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by towr on Apr 8th, 2012, 2:08am

on 04/07/12 at 17:48:07, wade32 wrote:
No one can explain how those primitive people could have cut huge stones like they did with the tools they used...
Euhm, yes, people can. And have.

Why do people always assume our ancestors were idiots that couldn't put one stone on top of another.


Quote:
another question imposed was how they lifted 100 ton rocks to heights of 20-50 feet in the air.  It would take 20 cranes today to lift just one of these rocks...watch "Ancient Aliens"
There are a number of working theories on that (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_pyramid_construction_techniques); not to mention historical sources name some. The fallacy is to compare it to have we would do it today. Just because most of us now have trouble imagining how people did things before modern conveniences does not mean they didn't have their own means. There's more than one way to skin a cat. Invoking aliens is just ridiculous and an insult to our ancestors ingenuity.

I imagine soon people will attribute all astrological and astronomical accomplishments of our ancestors to aliens, because however would they have been able to calculate the movement of the sun and the stars without a supercomputer? Gosh. Must have been aliens.
Keeping an empire together? Without mobile phones? How on earth could they have communicated over those distances. Must have been aliens!
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by alien2 on Apr 8th, 2012, 10:02am
You're probably right (http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/Who%20built%20the%20pyramids.htm). But we can not discard the possibility. (http://www.outerworlds.com/likeness/aliens/aliens.html)
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by towr on Apr 8th, 2012, 11:19am
We "can't" discard the possibility that pyramids are just a figment of your imagination :P
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by wade32 on Apr 8th, 2012, 12:52pm
I'm not saying that they exist, but I'm saying that when they built the pyramids, they used granite.  Granite connot be cut by regular stone hammers as they used back then, they have to have used some sort of diamond cutting material.  Another thing was that even if they had gotten their hands on the diamonds (closest place to get them was Africa 1,200 miles away), then they had the problem of actually cutting the stones.  
Some of these stones were 100 tons, and the lathe that would have been used to cut them (if they had them) would have had to have been 3 ft. thick.

I'm not arguing the fact that they cut the stones...the pyramids exist, so somebody cut them...what I'm saying is, how could they have placed a 100 ton rock 20 feet in the air?  You say that people think that primitive men were stupid, I'm not saying they were, they probably could have figured out HOW to do it, but when it came down to actually doing it, I'm saying that it was near impossible for them to becuase of the primitive TOOLS that they were using.  

Just because something like that was built doesn't mean that aliens didn't build it...I think that it was man-made, but you can't explain the fact that after man finished, then something or someone had to have helped them get those massive stones that high.  They just weren't that strong! Lol!
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by towr on Apr 8th, 2012, 2:49pm

on 04/08/12 at 12:52:25, wade32 wrote:
I'm not saying that they exist, but I'm saying that when they built the pyramids, they used granite.
Have you actually checked you information? Because they didn't build the pyramids (in Egypt) out of granite. The great pyramid is build almost entirely out of limestone, which is easily hewed with the materials they had at the time.


Quote:
Granite connot be cut by regular stone hammers as they used back then, they have to have used some sort of diamond cutting material.
A) they didn't use granite for the main structure
B) they didn't use stone hammers, but copper tools
C) even if they had used stone tools and had used granite for the whole pyramid, it would just have taken a lot, lot longer, but would have still been possible.
D) cutting the stones (of the type actually used) has been replicated with technology of that time. There is no mystery to that part at all.


Quote:
what I'm saying is, how could they have placed a 100 ton rock 20 feet in the air?
One hypothesis is that they used ramps, dragged the stones up using sleds and then put them in place, then finally removed the ramps after the pyramid was finished.
And people have tried this approach (dragging such large stones up an earthen slope using sleds and manpower alone), and it works. Which doesn't prove Egyptians used this method, but they could have. With a ramp of sufficient length (possibly wrapped around the sides of the pyramid) you can lift a stone to whatever height you require.


Quote:
You say that people think that primitive men were stupid, I'm not saying they were, they probably could have figured out HOW to do it, but when it came down to actually doing it, I'm saying that it was near impossible for them to becuase of the primitive TOOLS that they were using.
I'm sure you won't be surprised that I disagree with that assessment.  


Quote:
but you can't explain the fact that after man finished, then something or someone had to have helped them get those massive stones that high.  They just weren't that strong! Lol!
Ever heard of a lever? It's a very, very primitive device that can multiply a small force to a very great force. Even a single person with a lever could lift a 100 ton rock given enough time. Just ask Archimedes, he claimed to be able to move the world if you'd just give him a lever long enough and a place to stand.

I think you're severely underestimating what people can do with ingenuity, determination and sufficient manpower.
Not to mention that many different hypothesis about pyramid building have been replicated. So we know of many, proven, ways they could have done it; we just don't know if they actually used any of those or had even better ways.


I can really recommend simply reading up on these things on wikipedia, for example
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_pyramid_construction_techniques
or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza
For example, there's this paragraph in the latter article:

Quote:
The Great Pyramid consists of an estimated 2.3 million limestone blocks with most believed to have been transported from nearby quarries. The Tura limestone used for the casing was quarried across the river. The largest granite stones in the pyramid, found in the "King's" chamber, weigh 25 to 80 tonnes and were transported from Aswan, more than 500 miles away. Traditionally, ancient Egyptians cut stone blocks by hammering wooden wedges into the stone which were then soaked with water. As the water was absorbed, the wedges expanded, causing the rock to crack. Once they were cut, they were carried by boat either up or down the Nile River to the pyramid.[16] It is estimated that 5.5 million tons of limestone, 8,000 tons of granite (imported from Aswan), and 500,000 tons of mortar were used in the construction of the Great Pyramid.[17]
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by wade32 on Apr 11th, 2012, 9:31am
I don't want to argue the fact, I just know what I read or watch...if you have Netflix you can watch ancient aliens...I am not an authority on the matter by no means!  
So are you saying that you totally are closed minded about the possibility of aliens?  I'm not.
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by towr on Apr 11th, 2012, 11:22am
As I said, I'm pretty sure aliens exist out there in the universe; however there isn't any evidence they've visited earth, which is furthermore unlikely considering our current knowledge of physics.
Aside from that, we really don't need them as a stop-gap hypothesis to cut off thinking about any "mysteries" we may run across (especially when those are often not half as mysterious as they're made out to be when you look into it). Before surrendering to the aliens, wreck rack a few brains on the problem first; it'll provide a lot more interesting answers then "aliens did it", or for that matter "God did it", or "time-travelers did it", or "an ancient hidden civilizations of dinosaurs did it".
If aliens did do it, then that's pretty much it; there's no reason to expect more from it since it's fairly disconnected from everything else. Which also means there's no real way to test its veracity.
If, however, we can find an answer as to how people might have done it, then this has immediate repercussions for technology, logistics, organization, politics etc. It will have to fit into a much larger picture, because it's connected to everything else. So such an answer could be tested against all the other pieces of the puzzle we know, and give hints for other missing pieces; in other words it'd be science.
(If it really were aliens, then we first have to find a hell of a lot of puzzle-pieces to make them fit in, among them a few pieces of physics.)
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by rmsgrey on Apr 11th, 2012, 2:12pm
Which is more likely? That the proof that no ancient society could possibly have had the resources and knowledge to build the pyramids is in the same category as the proof that bees can't fly, or the proof that kangaroos can't travel faster than about 15 mph (ie, superficially plausible, but fatally undermined by its simplifying assumptions)? Or that aliens happened to swing by our solar system (out of the millions to choose from) about 6-7 thousand years ago, hung around long enough to help build several large structures out of materials that could be worked by the technology of the natives rather than, say, some form of super-concrete - and then went on their way or died out or went into hiding, conveniently leaving no trace of advanced technology?

I'd have to go with "don't underestimate bronze-age man". Space is huge, and almost empty - even the nearest star is so far away that it takes light, which travels so fast that it can circle the Earth 7-8 times in a single second, most of ten minutes to cover the distance. And if you don't count the Sun, it takes years for light to get here from the next nearest star. But let's assume that there's some trick that lets ET get around the problem of it taking forever to get anywhere - after all, if we could figure out a way to keep up a steady 1-gravity of acceleration for about 15-16 weeks, we'd be up to around 1/3 light-speed (relative to the Sun) and, with a similar time spent slowing at the other end, could make the trip to the nearby Centauri system in a bit less than 15 years. So, suppose ET can travel between neighbouring star systems, taking, on average, 10 years per trip (which puts his average speed around half light-speed). Suppose he doesn't spend a significant amount of time at most stars - just passes through unless there's something exceptional to attract his attention for a closer, longer look. And suppose that his homeworld is as close as 50 light years away. To explore all the stars within 50 light years at ten years per star would take something like 50,000 years. Even just getting here if he came straight and didn't stop anywhere would take around 100 years - and doing that, he'd have passed by hundreds of worlds, any of which a man could spend many lifetimes studying and still barely scratch the surface...

It's far more likely that, if ET is, cosmically speaking, next door, he'll turn up within the next century or so, having been drawn by our radio broadcasts, than that, with the opportunity to drop in and move on any time in the last few million years, he'd have picked a time when humans were, more-or-less, civilised...
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by wade32 on Apr 16th, 2012, 7:22am
You make a good point, and I'm not saying that the men 6,000 years ago didn't have the brain power to build the pyramids...and you were right towr, the pyramids were not made of granite.  The temples located in front of these pyramids were.  They call it the Granite Temple. Pyramids & Temples of Gizah (http://www.ronaldbirdsall.com/gizeh/petrie/c14.html), there is just no explanation of how these men got those 100 ton rocks that high.  Ok, so I'll give a little bit and agree that they did find something to cut them with, but they still had to have had something to help them lift those rocks.
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by towr on Apr 16th, 2012, 9:01am
I don't see what the problem would be with just lifting such a large block incrementally; leveraging it up an inch at a time and inserting a wedge to secure that gain in height, then repeat.
And of course there's the "Grand Gallery" theory (last paragraph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_pyramid_construction_techniques#Jean-Pierre_Houdin.27s_.22internal_ramp.22_hypothesis)):

Quote:
Houdin has another hypothesis developed from his architectural model, one that could finally explain the internal "Grand Gallery" chamber that otherwise appears to have little purpose. He believes the gallery acted as a trolley chute/guide for counter-balance weights. It enabled the raising of the five 60 ton granite beams that roof the King's Chamber. Some observers claim to be able to see wear-marks in the right places, and Houdin postulates that other puzzling features are actually fixings for wear-strips. Houdin and Brier and the Dassault team are already credited with proving for the first time that cracks in beams appeared during construction, were examined and tested at the time and declared relatively harmless.


So there's one way that imo would definitely have worked, albeit it would be a lot of work and take a long time; and there's a plausible faster alternative theory as well.
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by tonidelson on May 14th, 2012, 5:11am
Alienssssssssss hmm mate im really not sure if i want to find out if they are real or not, you would have to wonder if there has been so many sittings of them and people saying they have seen them. Well they cant all be drunk saught of speak can they their must be some truth in it i guess but im not sticking my hand up to test this wild theory out for you i am comfortable right here on earth. but yes i do beleve in them
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by alien2 on May 14th, 2012, 5:49am

on 05/14/12 at 05:11:54, tonidelson wrote:
...but yes i do beleve in them

Thankyouverymuch. (http://i666.photobucket.com/albums/vv28/alien624837/alien-1.gif)
Title: Re: Do You Believe?
Post by RichardL on Jul 30th, 2012, 3:34am
i believe, there are certain things which we cant explain..  i mean sometimes you have to believe such things which we cant see or feel


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