Hi Michael,

Hah - yeah - perhaps 25 years of working in downtown Manhattan has given me a more jaded outlook on my fellow man...

I was thinking more like "When Mars Attacks" - - - queue the country music...

 

Merry Christmas to you as well...

Regards,
Scott

4 hours ago, WotanUK said:

we have discovered nothing that travels faster than the speed of light.

Strictly speaking, that isn't true, some things can actually travel faster than light, but only if we cheat a bit...

Light photons slow down to about three quarters of their usual speed when they travel through water. A photon's speed is normally 186,282 miles per second, but when travelling through water and thus slowed down, light photons move at about three quarters of their normal speed, so, in water, photons are travelling at around 139,711 miles per second. Interestingly though, charged particles coming off a uranium rod in a nuclear reactor (remember those rods are dipped into water to control their temperature) actually travel faster than 139,711 miles per second, which is faster than photons travel at. So although those particles are not exceeding the 186,282 miles per second speed limit, which is the limit of anything under normal circumstances, when underwater, they are actually travelling faster than light.

There is one other thing which goes faster than the speed of light, and that's a plate of bacon sandwiches, just watch how fast those things go if you leave them hanging about. 

Quantum "spooky action at a distance" travels at least 10,000 times faster than light..

https://newatlas.com/quantum-entanglement-speed-10000-faster-light/26587/

4 hours ago, Chock said:

Strictly speaking, that isn't true, some things can actually travel faster than light, but only if we cheat a bit...

Light photons slow down to about three quarters of their usual speed when they travel through water. A photon's speed is normally 186,282 miles per second, but when travelling through water and thus slowed down, light photons move at about three quarters of their normal speed, so, in water, photons are travelling at around 139,711 miles per second. Interestingly though, charged particles coming off a uranium rod in a nuclear reactor (remember those rods are dipped into water to control their temperature) actually travel faster than 139,711 miles per second, which is faster than photons travel at. So although those particles are not exceeding the 186,282 miles per second speed limit, which is the limit of anything under normal circumstances, when underwater, they are actually travelling faster than light.

There is one other thing which goes faster than the speed of light, and that's a plate of bacon sandwiches, just watch how fast those things go if you leave them hanging about. 

Nope, speed of light in a vacuum, of course light photons can travel slower for a number of different reasons, but the ultimate speed limit is still the speed of light.  So yes, what you have written is correct, but still doesn't break special relativity.  What you have described in the reactor environment leads to something equally fascinating called Cherenkov Radiation. 

4 hours ago, odourboy said:

Quantum "spooky action at a distance" travels at least 10,000 times faster than light..

https://newatlas.com/quantum-entanglement-speed-10000-faster-light/26587/

You mean Quantum Entanglement?  A clever answer but ultimately not true, the reason is pretty complicated, the EPR experiment shows that if you take two particles lets say photons assume that the sum has a know outcome further assume the total has to be zero.  Assume your first Photon has a spin of +1 the other must be -1, in theory if you know the state of the first particle you know the state of the other so it looks like this is occurring instantly but it's based on the collapse of the wavefunction.  Whilst we can't use this for even transmitting FTL messages it has it's uses in encryption because you can't copy entangled systems, it's known as the no-cloning theorem.

11 hours ago, BillCusick said:

...We all know that a craft without wings cannot fly....

cough... helicopters..cough.. 

19 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

cough... helicopters..cough.. 

The rotor is a wing...

DJ

True! Darn I've been rumbled! LOL

Scott, I happen to agree with you.

Look at us.  Look at our age of exploration.  Look at we Americans did here to Native Americans and what we did in the Philippines.  What the Dutch did in the East Indies.  What the Yankee Traders did to Hawaii.  What the British did to China and India.  What the Europeans did to Africa.  What the Spain and Portugal did to South America.  What the French did to Indo China and Algeria.

They didn't go there looking to improve the lot of the natives they found.  They went to exploit.  And we are still doing it in the Mideast for oil.

There's no reason to believe alien civilizations wouldn't do the same to us if they are anything like us and we have something they want.

Like the old Rod Serling's Twilight Zone episode where an alien space ship lands near Washington.  They are so friendly.  One of them leaves a book on a table and our language experts decipher the title, "To Serve Man."  Everyone is excited and the aliens bring in more ships and offer tours to their planet for anyone who wants to go.  Too late we discover it's a cook book.

Noel

Wotan, everything you state is as far as we know now.  We certainly don't now everything.  We don't even know a little of everything.  And it is all subject to change.

Noel

11 hours ago, birdguy said:

Like the old Rod Serling's Twilight Zone episode where an alien space ship lands near Washington.  They are so friendly.  One of them leaves a book on a table and our language experts decipher the title, "To Serve Man."  Everyone is excited and the aliens bring in more ships and offer tours to their planet for anyone who wants to go.  Too late we discover it's a cook book.

Didn't see that one. I liked that series - I used to wonder who thought them up.

'it's a cook book'

I wonder whether those in the 'Seti' program are aware...let's ban telescopes - they are dangerous...

Regards

Bill

12 hours ago, birdguy said:

Scott, I happen to agree with you.

Look at us.  Look at our age of exploration.  Look at we Americans did here to Native Americans and what we did in the Philippines.  What the Dutch did in the East Indies.  What the Yankee Traders did to Hawaii.  What the British did to China and India.  What the Europeans did to Africa.  What the Spain and Portugal did to South America.  What the French did to Indo China and Algeria.

They didn't go there looking to improve the lot of the natives they found.  They went to exploit.  And we are still doing it in the Mideast for oil.

There's no reason to believe alien civilizations wouldn't do the same to us if they are anything like us and we have something they want.

Like the old Rod Serling's Twilight Zone episode where an alien space ship lands near Washington.  They are so friendly.  One of them leaves a book on a table and our language experts decipher the title, "To Serve Man."  Everyone is excited and the aliens bring in more ships and offer tours to their planet for anyone who wants to go.  Too late we discover it's a cook book.

Noel

Whilst i understand that this is historically accurate, i don't think you can apply this to visitors that travel from other worlds.  You see, all of this was based on exploitation of our limited resources, if Aliens have the ability to travel the galaxy it's kind of difficult to know what they would want from us.  We know that water is abundant throughout the galaxy, if they want hydro-carbons then there is a whole moon in this solar system just chock full of them.  There is nothing on this planet that isn't available elsewhere, save of course humans, but why would we be important to them, it's unlikely that they will want slaves, we are close to robotics that will free us from most forms of physical work, it's fair to say any star travelling species would be in advance of this.

12 hours ago, birdguy said:

Wotan, everything you state is as far as we know now.  We certainly don't now everything.  We don't even know a little of everything.  And it is all subject to change.

Noel

Of course that is true, but what else can we base it off?  It's pointless speculating, the future will almost certainly look nothing like we think it will.

17 hours ago, odourboy said:

Quantum "spooky action at a distance" travels at least 10,000 times faster than light..

https://newatlas.com/quantum-entanglement-speed-10000-faster-light/26587/

Technically, what happens is that correlations between two particles may be established immediately, even over large distances. You can do the same with two gloves that are sent randomly to two far away places. As soon as you open the first parcel and find, say, the right glove, you may immediately know that the other parcel contains the left parcel.

To verify that the correlations actually exist, one needs to compare the measurement results. In the example with the gloves, you can't be sure that the mail man lost the second parcel, for instance. So you have to call the person who received the second parcel to verify that he received the left glove, but you cannot make that call faster than the speed of light.

There is more to quantum entanglement than sending away two gloves, of course. However, the principle is pretty much the same: you prepare two particles in such a way that their spin (a direction intrinsic to particles like photons or electrons) points in random directions, but in a way that the spins of the two particles always point in opposite directions. Then you send the particles away, and then you look at the direction of the individual spins.

The bottom line is: one cannot use quantum entanglement to send information (or anything else) faster than the speed of light in vacuum.

Peter

, but why would we be important to them

That's the key phrase Wotan.  We are a tiny world way out in the hinterlands of the galaxy.  Any commerce among intelligent races would be among those closer to or in the denser region of the Milky Way.  Why would they come way out here?  After all we haven't exploited French Polynesia or the Galapagos Islands or the Seychelles.  They have nothing we want, at least in quantities to make economic sense to exploit..

Having said that I can't discount the scientific value we may have had for them.  They found an inhabitable planet far away from everything with a humanoid species perhaps similar to themselves they could use as a petri dish for genetic experiments.  We may the result of those experiments.  And when they discovered how we turned out they just abandoned us or come back to laugh at us every one in a while.

Noel

15 hours ago, birdguy said:

And when they discovered how we turned out they just abandoned us or come back to laugh at us every one in a while.

Nah...

They'd abandon us, because we gave them indigestion....

Regards

Bill

16 hours ago, birdguy said:

, but why would we be important to them

That's the key phrase Wotan.  We are a tiny world way out in the hinterlands of the galaxy.  Any commerce among intelligent races would be among those closer to or in the denser region of the Milky Way.  Why would they come way out here?  After all we haven't exploited French Polynesia or the Galapagos Islands or the Seychelles.  They have nothing we want, at least in quantities to make economic sense to exploit..

Having said that I can't discount the scientific value we may have had for them.  They found an inhabitable planet far away from everything with a humanoid species perhaps similar to themselves they could use as a petri dish for genetic experiments.  We may the result of those experiments.  And when they discovered how we turned out they just abandoned us or come back to laugh at us every one in a while.

Noel

I can see three reasons why they might be interested:

Earth like planets are incredible rare.  They want our planet because the planet they evolved on is no longer able to support them.  The problem with this is that they obviously have a craft capable of supporting their type of life, why not just stay on that?

Intelligent species are incredibly rare, they are alone and feel the need to communicate with us.

The Star Trek reason. I.e. we are getting close to a discovery that will change our entire species and our outlook.  They want to make first contact to ensure that we are ready.

In any case i honestly believe that they will behave peacefully towards us, they have no reason not too, it is evident that we would not be a threat to them.  Even if we had some scientific value as a species they would simply clone us, no reason to take live humans.

Of course (and with thanks to Arthur C Clarke) either we are alone in the Universe or we are not.  He found both to be scary, personally, i think that the former is far more terrifying than the latter.  Interestingly, it might be that we are the first intelligent life to emerge.

Contact with an Alien species would be the single most significant thing that has ever happened to us, we would be changed (hopefully for the better) beyond all recognition.