Are we alone ??

[Bill H.]

"movie scene with mad doctor running amok screaming...................There everywhere, there Everywhere"

[Colin]

To determine the efficacy of alien, if not intelligent, life forms elsewhere in the universe, one need not look much farther than one’s own backyard. Well, the backyard that is 8,500 feet deep, with bone crushing amounts of pressure. There we find "extremophile" bugs “extracting minerals like copper, gold, zinc, nickel, manganese and lead from the mineral-rich fluids spewing out of these hydrothermal vents." They exist and thrive by the billions in conditions unlike anything on the surface: high 212ºF temperatures, intense pressure, volcanic activity, utter darkness, with the only nutrients pouring out of the earth itself.

Minerals pour out of vents at temperatures of 300-400 Centigrade degrees into the much colder seawater. “The bugs live right where the superheated fluid meets the sea and the temperatures are between 80 and 110 degrees, at pressures around 150 atmospheres.”

http://www.csiro.au/files/mediarelease/mr2000/DeepOcean.htm

That is one example of a life form existing in conditions not found on the earth’s surface. If such conditions as earth’s surface and its deep sea exist in only a few million places in the universe, there must be other forms of life out there. Sure as one plus one equals two, applying this example to Drake’s Equation yields the prospect there must be thousands, probably millions, and possibly billions, of life forms in this universe alone.

The Fermi paradox is that while “the size and age of the universe suggest that many technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations ought to exist. However, this hypothesis seems inconsistent with the lack of observational evidence to support it.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

However, applying recently known numbers to Drake's equation for intelligent space life, with some very large indeterminate ones, easily reduces the potential of long lasting, intelligent civilizations that we could communicate with down to only 2, or even less than one!

[Groomlakearea51]

This thread has really "taken off"... (Sunday's pun). Who knows where it will go? It could really get "way out there!!" (another gratis Sunday morning pun). MAS: NO jokes about "mass"..... Don't even think about it!!![]

On wormhole and black hole theory as a basis for FTL travel... I was cuttin' some veneer last night (I think alot about these sort of things when I'm alone in the workshop working on Klipsch speakers....[:|])

The experiment cited by JJK regarding the speed of light measured through the Boise-Einstein concentrate is very interesting because as a normal object accelerates towards the speed of light, it "shrinks" (relative to our observation) in parallel to the vector of of travel. In this case, as the length of the light "beam" decelerated, it "shrunk" (relative to our observation).... the opposite of what is predicted (and observed) to happen with "normal" objects. Which is a possible clue (maybe, just maybe) to FTL travel.

So thinking about that..... It may, in an offhand manner, demonstrate why "black holes" (or wormholes...) are infinitely small "points". The experiment would also indicate that the slower the light moves (and in the case of a black hole, the result of a gravitational field), then there would, by consequence, less of a measurable length of a given stream of photons. By extrapolation, in the infinite gravitational field of the "hole"... there is no "length" at all, and a black hole could only be nothing but a infinitely small "point". But what really makes this so intriguing... this experiment did not use a conventional gravitational field!!!

So, going further.... conventional theory, however, describes "elongation" or "spaghettification" as an "object" enters the event horizon. That should also be true of a beam of light (photons). But that's at odds with the experiment as it applied to light beam. Conventional wisdom also says that as objects (not light) enter the event horizon, and their velocity towards the "point" increases, the energy of the gravitational field would result in their disintegration. For objects, that would produce photons (light), and the rest reduced to either sub-particles, or converted to energy (gravitational), and some is energetic enough to escape as EM particles. And, as we know now, "active" black holes, as they suck in "stuff" are spewing massive quantities of energy (photons) in the gamma & x-ray freqs. And it's directional, or on what we ahve observed to be the axis of the rotation of the "hole". So we know that "stuff" can come from the "hole", and in some direction at least at this point.

... still thinking about the experiment..., as we understand it now, black holes have no "size", per se. They are measured in terms of the mass that is estimated to be in that "point" based upon the gravitational effects on objects (stars) and their light. From an observational point of view, for us anyways, what would be "big" or "small" will be the event horizon; or that radius in the space surrounding the "hole" at which the gravitational force is sufficient to slow light down to 0 velocity (as in it cannot escape). But, at odds with the experiment, the temperatures estimated in the region of an event horizon are believed to be really hot (why the surrounding gasses glow visibly...), and thus NOT at anywhere near absolute zero. Huhm...

.. still thinking about the experiment... , Einstein & Rosen, et.al. postulated that black holes rotate, and that they would be, in substance "donuts". The donut hole is the wormhole or "bridge", as they described it. And... we already know that the rotating holes spew out EM radiation. We've seen it and mesured it through telescopes, etc. Ok.... We know something can go in and something came come out if but as a byproduct of what went in... Hawking's recent work has indicated a direct relationship between quantum theory and the primary physics theories regarding "holes" at the macro level. While Hawking postulates black hole "evaporation", as in particles "escaping" through the event horizon by quantum tunneling, etc., it may be that the theories necessary to produce the technology just may be somewhere in between the two disciplines.

still thinking about the experiment.... The problem we have (and it's the "biggy") is technological... Until we can create a "cold black hole", make it spin, and poke something through the donut hole, we won't know. Unfortunately, as it stands right now, just to create a gravitational field strong enough to slow down, stop and capture a photon inside for any length of time, let's say inside a really small "event horizon", would require a massive amount of energy and technology that we don't have. There have been some claims, but the jury is out....

That's why the experiment is so interesting. It is an equivalent to some of what we need to know about FTL travel. So, by analogy, the trick would be to first get light to "behave" as if it's in an event horizon, but without the gravitational field (read that as without the energy consumption required to create the mass necessary to produce such a field). And, if the experiment can be applied to light, then maybe it could eventually lead to understanding how to make "objects" behave as if they are at the speed of light.

Now that would be interesting!!!, because if we could do it with light, we might eventually be able to do it with an object, as in get the object to "assume" or behave as if it is at the velocity of light (but without the current necessity of an infinite gravitational field). And... If it's at that velocity, then there is no "time" relative to it. And.... if we could get the field (or the object) to move with or through the field and not take any "time"... Well... If that happens, then there may be a way to do the whole "stargate" thing. Then... we apply the technology to a field generator aboard the "ship".

That would be scary at first, because where is the exit "hole" on the other side? Is it in our universe, but in a different point in space? Different point in time? If it's in a parallel universe, and we turn the field "off", how do we get back? Think of it from this viewpoint: From when Rutherford split an atom, to the point of doing it all the time and controlling it, was a quantum leap in our understanding of how things work...

But it would still take a brave soul to step inside that apparatus.... We'd start with gerbils, Bose Life Style owners (Heck, they are easily convinced...), etc... Just picture one of our "astro-gerbils" in a space suit materializing on somebody's dinner table on the Planet Bozo in the Wonk-21 galaxy.... "Well honey, another visitor from that Milky Way place... I don't think we're going there for vacation... Junior!! put it down, they don't taste very good [6]

I would bet that the first rudimentary experiment that "works" would be a "stargate" field generator array with one at one end of the football field and the other at the other end. Throw the "football" and see if it comes out the other end!!! And I'd also bet that someone is real busy working on something like that right now.....

So much for thinking... What about the aliens? Drake's postulate (and common sense...) certainly says that it's likely that somewhere out there in some region of the known universe, some intelligent beings are either working on getting off their "rock", have done it, or will do it. And, if so, and I don't worry so much whether or not they show up for dinner,... I really want to know: How Did They Do It!!??... because if we figure it out..., by consequence, and statistical theory, then someone else out there has likely done so..... and I'd like to know BEFORE they show up.....

The Sunday morning coffee is wearing off, so back on the prime topic.... Are we alone? Until "somebody" demonstrably "shows up" (News at 11:00!!!), or we detect some alien Hitler's broadcast, we are still "alone" in the micro and macro sense of the word. For us being the "visitors" though, will it be "FTL" drives? Will it be "folding time and space"? Will it be "tunneling" through? or will it just end up being the cosmic "Flying Dutchman" where, when the crew leaves, they are not coming back because the trip will extend through hundred's of generations aboard that ship?

I don't like the last option. It's not really an optimistic point of view. Philosophical fatalism (or a dogmatic acceptance of the status quo and resignation by a society to their predicted fate) has been the bane of, if not the downfall of many civilizations. I really hope that the Inca's calendar is wrong (talk about a "fatal" viewpoint!!!... No wonder they were into human sacrifices). I have so much to do and want to see my children get past 2018.....

Back to veneering; I think.... I'll think about, and I'd like to throw these "are we alone" ideas out there:

• What happens when "Dr. Smith" at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study figures it all out? Will the technology be immediately seized by the "government"? Is the Department of Defense watching this research closely?
• What will the ramifications will be if the "visitors" (when they show up,... or we watch a strange video clip emanating from the M31 galaxy...) are say, fish people, really intelligent alligators, or silicon based instead of carbon based....
• What would be the reasons (theological, philosophical, practical) for governmental disclosure, or non-disclosure (as so many believe is the case...) of an actual "first contact"?

Too much coffee (or is it the laquer fumes?) does this sorta' thing to the mind......[]

[oldbuckster]

Wow Marshall, I'll stop there ...... One point, Maybe those UFO sightings the other day were, Top Secret Aircraft that the Military does not want the public to know about, which would make it a matter of National Security, and knowledge of such is on a Need To Know basis, not to include the general public at this point in time. Food for thought ...............

[John Warren]

However, applying recently known numbers to Drake's equation for intelligent space life, with some very large indeterminate ones, easily reduces the potential of long lasting, intelligent civilizations that we could communicate with down to only 2, or even less than one!

If a truely intelligent species wished to observe, I'd be hard pressed to think that they would be so *foolish* as to let thier observations be known.

I see know reason why creatures, VASTLY more intelligent than humans, cannot exist. Perhaps our whole observable universe is the Petri dish they keep us bottled up in(?).

On the realm of universal scale, humans as a whole, must be considered something of a dissapointment.

[oldenough]

The question was "what would stop them from making contact with us" ?

This is being said after making the assumption that our "visitors" have gone to the bother of coming here, making their presence known, and then leaving without the obligatory "take me to your leader".

[oldbuckster]

I Think We're Alone Now ................ Tommy James and the Shondells .............. The Beating of Our Hearts is the Only Sound ....

[seti]

I have spent alot of time in Dublin, Tx and it is interesting that this was a sighting location. Previously the only clame to fame for Dublin was the oldest Dr.Pepper bottling company. Perhaps Dublin can cash in on the UFO tourists trade. Although I want to believe alas there is no proof. The sighting was likely a Unidentified Flying Government Object. I just pray it was one of ours.

[Mallette]

I've only read page 1 and 5, so pardon me if this has been covered.

My personal theory as to why we haven't been contacted is thus:

A civilization that achieves the science required to transit (either FTL or via direct means) interstellar distances at will is so close to the critical mass for singularity that it simply never happens. Non-corporeal beings don't "exist" as we define it in either point A or point B, so such "travel" is irrelevant. Kurzweil and others are predicting (with good support) human approach to this point in this century. I happen to agree with them.

Now, to the mundane:
As to the Dublin/Stephenville UFO's, both such descriptions as have been forthcoming and the presence of the Air Force would suggest a BBD, or Big Black Delta. Definitely one of ours. I've been following sightings of this (including my own father in law) since the mid-90's. It is most likely a Skunkworks stealth airship with a highly advanced propulsion system. The most common denominator in sightings is 3 lights forming a triangle on the belly. Whether these are lights or propulsion is speculation. The other is that they are very large (consistent with an airship), black on the bottom (good for night stealth), may also have a skin capable of reproducing the sky above (early sightings were at night and the bottom black, recent sightings are sometimes day and the form is difficult it make out), and they are silent.

What was NOT consistent with BBD sightings was it moving away at high speed...unless significant improvements have been made in the propulsion system.

Dave

[Islander]

A civilization that achieves the science required to transit (either FTL or via direct means) interstellar distances at will is so close to the critical mass for singularity that it simply never happens. Non-corporeal beings don't "exist" as we define it in either point A or point B, so such "travel" is irrelevant. Kurzweil and others are predicting (with good support) human approach to this point in this century.

Re: your first sentence: ?????????

Re your second and third sentences: Are you saying that interstellar travel only becomes practical for non-corporeal beings, who have either evolved to that point or have the technology to become temporarily or permanently non-corporeal? Do you anticipate humanity developing such technology in this century?

I'm guessing you've seen the movie K-PAX.

[oldtimer]

Previously the only clame to fame for Dublin was the oldest Dr.Pepper bottling company.

Don't forget it is also part of the "gingerbread trail!"

[Groomlakearea51]

One point, Maybe those UFO sightings the other day were, Top Secret Aircraft that the Military does not want the public to know about, which would make it a matter of National Security, and knowledge of such is on a Need To Know basis, not to include the general public at this point in time. Food for thought ...............

Back from laying on the veneer glue (water soluble so there were no fumes to damage both of them brain cells...)

Interesting point, and it relates to the theory of an inertialess drive (no action - reaction for thrust).

Suppose, just suppose.... that someone has figured out how to create a micro mini black hole that has an inversely proportional repulsive field either at, or just outside the event horizon, and they can contain it and move it around within the apparatus...

Don't laugh!!! (ok go ahead!!!)... Now stop laughing!!! .... For almost every particle that we have discovered, we have also discovered the opposite particle. And, along the way, have theorized that everything exists (at least mathematically) in ten (or eleven) dimensions. We really don't understand gravity yet, and it is postulated that "gravity" is actually a super-symetrical manifestation of a number of different forces acting in a number of different dimensions.

A short version of why this "drive" would be theoretcally possible, Gravitational energy was first considered as the "5th" dimension (Kaluza-Klein Theory), but is is now believed (at least temporarily) to be "gravitons", and the opposite (or repulsive force) is postulated to be "dark energy".... They know it exists, they just don't have the technology to detect it, let alone create it as they can do with so many other particles in particle acceleration chambers. Research into KK theory then resulted in "strong & weak" forces, and demanded a "Z" particle (exactly same as photon, but negative mass). Then came the gluons... or the messenger quanta. No fewer than seven properties involved (charge, spin, "up", "down", charm, etc), plus the original 3 dimensions (it's gotta exist at some point in space), and including time (it's gotta' exist for some "time"). The mathematics basically says: 11 dimensions. And to really confuse the issue,... KK theory actually says that nothing can be a point, or infinite, and thus without geometry. In fact, everything, according to the original KK are tiny circles... But starting with a mathematician named Cartan, each point is really a sphere and can be quantified as a seven dimensional sphere. So that brought us to 10 dimensions.. add time... = 11. The latest "string" theory is called M-theory and is the latest evolution of string theory which hit the streets in the early 80's. The new "improved" version (with 11 dimensions) is the root of the bubble or "mebrane" theory of alternate universes.

Ok, back to the drive.....

Picture this. The apparatus sits in an aircraft. The field created by the apparatus that surrounds it extends pretty much to the radius of the aircraft. Everytime you move the "hole", or the "center of gravity", and since the apparatus is fixed to the frame of the aircraft, the plane moves.... up, down, back and forth, etc. The more you shift that "hole" the faster the mass of the aircraft is "pushed"

Now... since "flying" is no longer dependent upon aerodynamics, an aircraft using this "drive", no longer has to turn, bank at angles, etc.

And.... given that alot of "sightings" are made by folks with absolutely no knowledge of the principles of an inertialess drive, and they report that the UFO just simply changed directions.....

Only minor glitch is the inertia on the pilots and the airframe. 0-600 in a second or two cannot be good for the stomach... The field would have to be, in effect, a shield or in relativistic terms, the aircraft does not move, everything else moves around the aircraft, until the control "centers" the "hole".

If we've got one.. that would explain a lot....

I want one... Serious tubin'....

[Mallette]

A civilization that achieves the science required to transit (either FTL or via direct means) interstellar distances at will is so close to the critical mass for singularity that it simply never happens. Non-corporeal beings don't "exist" as we define it in either point A or point B, so such "travel" is irrelevant. Kurzweil and others are predicting (with good support) human approach to this point in this century.

Re: your first sentence: ?????????

Re your second and third sentences: Are you saying that interstellar travel only becomes practical for non-corporeal beings, who have either evolved to that point or have the technology to become temporarily or permanently non-corporeal? Do you anticipate humanity developing such technology in this century?

I'm guessing you've seen the movie K-PAX.

Precisely. However, I do not know what K-Pax is. I've been following this process since I was a teenager in the 60's. Oddly, the conclusion works for me both theologically and scientifically.

I know it sounds a bit screwy. Since the 70's I've been floating a strawman to whit: If there is a finite amount of science in the universe, and we are constantly learning, will we not (assuming we don't off ourselves) eventually learn all there is to know?

I've never had a person be able to negate the above without assuming destruction of the human race, which is an unknown. I'd assumed this was a good hypothesis, but I always looked at it linearly. That's wrong. Progress is not linear, it is exponential. Exponential lines alway reach a point on the curve of time were they are essentially headed straight up. We are at the base of that curve now, IMOH.

From the earliest human to the wheel was a very, very, very long crawl. From the first wheel to the horse-drawn carraige with spoked wheels, rubber tread, and springs was around 5,000 years. From the horse and buggy to the latest hybrid automobile, about a 100 years. See the trend? Moller is perilously close to a functional SkyCar.

Blue Gene has approximately 1/10 the capacity of a human brain. If Moore's Law and other axioms apply (and history suggests they do), human brain capacity will be reached and surpasssed in the next decade.

When you are accelerating gradually, it is almost unoticeable. That's why most people don't even notice that the age of the pager came in went a week or so back, or find it as astounding as I do that I can watch TV on a wireless telephone, unless I want to listen to the 5gb or so of music also present or fine the nearest Starbuck's to a precision of 30 feet. Only about 40 years ago I was equally amazed at my brand new 6 transister radio. At that time, I could have bought a raw transistor for about a dollar. Now, my dollar buys about 10,000,000 transistors. And I didn't feel a thing.

Type 1 Diabetes has been killing humans since we existed. Now, I can predict I'll have an artificial pancreas and cured of symptoms in no more than 5 years, and be cured completely in less than 10 years. BTW, note that in the meantime I will be by definition, a cyborg. Have you seen the latest leg replacements and direct brain/computer implants?

These are only a minute sampling of the evidence we've hit the curve. Don't be alarmed. You will still be you.

If you think I am just wishing for earthly immortality, don't I suspect I am just about 10 years too old to make it...though I must admit I am at least slightly tempted by cryonics. However, my wife probably will (16 years younger), and my children almost certainly cross that river.

I rather doubt that the above will convince you. It has taken my entire life to take this concept in. It is not philosophic, it is science.

Buckle up...it's gonna be quite a ride. I think we'll find those fellow civilizations who've already made it welcome us with a great big "We've been waiting for you...what took you so long?"

Dave

[Groomlakearea51]

Progress is not linear, it is exponential. Exponential lines alway reach a point on the curve of time were they are essentially headed straight up. We are at the base of that curve now, IMOH.

... But in 11 dimensional space, they are infinitely curved... The sphere just expands exponentially..... with time....

Dave: Sorry, could not resist it. just kiddin' around LOLOL!! I do, however, agree with the philosophy. Progress is never purely incremental. Law Of Chances (redneck title for laws of probability)....

Now for some cold Pizza Port Brewery - Sharkbite Red Ale. Just think what those Alpha Centaurians are missing!!! If only they would land down here.... But then again, they would not come back for awhile: Serious hangover, ears busted from hard rock over Klipsch speakers. "Man, those earthlings are serious party dudes; we better stay away from that place until we are ready..."

[Islander]

Well, only sixty-five years or so passed between the first heavier-than-air flight and walking on the Moon. Technology can advance unbelieveably fast. However, in terms of inventions that changed daily life, our grandparents and great-grandparents probably experienced more change than we ever will: the invention of the radio, the telephone, television, flight, automobiles, artificial satellites, space travel (mostly for machines, but many humans have been off the Earth and some have stepped on the Moon), computers, microwave cooking, the Internet. Do you think we'll live to see a comparable number of significant changes in our everyday lives?

[oldbuckster]

Do you think we'll live to see a comparable number of significant changes in our everyday lives?

No Sir, not if we don't smarten up !!!!!

[oldtimer]

I think we will Islander. After all, starting at artificial satellites on your list look how much we have seen already.

[Mallette]

>Do you think we'll live to see a comparable number of significant changes in our everyday lives?

I don't know about you, but I already have. When I was 6 and visited my grandmother, I took baths on the back porch in a tub of water heated on a wood stove and went to bed by kerosene lamps. She had no TV, but did have a radio (there was a single electric circuit powering the lights and such in the living room and kitchen).

This discussion is being carried out on a planet-wide network which alllows me to access the accumulated knowledge of the human race in a matter of seconds on almost any question. The great "Golden Age" SciFi writers placed such technology in the far distant future requireing massive mainframe computers the size of moons. I am not so surprised that they got it wrong as that they could imagine it at all.

I don't know about you, but I feel like a kid in a candy store with infinite credit. I am delighted every day at the power at my disposal. Life is GOOD in the future, and it gets better.

If you'd like a fictional account from the golden age of what might go wrong right at the cusp of the curve (this is not a new concept), rent or buy a copy of "Forbidden Planet." I first saw it in the early 60's and it made a tremendous impact on me. The Krell had reached the last stage before singularity and built a machine that would take them to the next level. However, they made a fatal error in not realizing they'd failed to take the remaining animal in them to account (monsters of the id). The result was catastrophic. It is a cautionary tail which I suspect we will not repeat. Nanorobots run amuck are a bit more of a concern. BTW, it's the one the famous "Robbie the Robot" made his debut in.

Dave

[oldtimer]

Even now in remote parts of the world people have electricity during the day and part of the night off the grid using solar panels. Technology and change are reaching everywhere.

[Islander]

"Lasers in the jungle..."