Aliens off Ireland?

[Carl Sagan]

10 hours ago, RamNut said:

She was chatting away whilst doing the windows.

Distance to the hercules globular cluster = 22,000 light years

velocity of nasa rocket = 22,000 mph

time for nasa rocket to reach HCG = approx 60 million years.

lets assume advanced aliens can go a bit faster than us.....100x faster than a rocket?.....10,000 times faster, they would still take 6000 years to get here.....1million times faster than a nasa rocket....60 years?

interesting choice for alien astronauts. They can either spend a lifetime on a spaceship looking forward to a brief glimpse of the republic of ireland through heavy cloud, or stay on their own planet, enjoying a lifetime of basking in the warmth of their own sun, humping female aliens, and speculating on the likelihood of intelligent advanced creatures ever bothering to visit them.

This is mistaken because you're ignoring relativity theory, which says you can't travel at the speed of light, but unexpected things happen as you approach it. 

If you're travelling to a globular cluster 22,000 light years away an external observer would always see that journey taking longer than 22,000 years. But, here's the big but... 

The closer you get to the speed of light the more time dilates. If you could travel at light speed the journey for you would take no time at all (though an external observer would see it take 22,000 years), but if moving just fractionally less the journey might seem to you onboard the ship to take a second or a minute or a day. 

Then, Miguel Alcubierre who's a brilliant relativity theorist also has invented a warp drive, that could theoretically see you travel faster than light. Meaning some observers would see you arrive before you even left. 

What I'm saying is that for advanced alien species, travel time needn't be a factor. 

[RamNut]

In an imaginary universe anything is possible............but only in our minds.

Unfortunately nothing is more anthropocentric than that.

pity really, but the lesson is profound if we chose to listen.

Instead of looking for imaginary beings on imaginary planets that we can never visit, lets stop destroying life on Earth.

 

[DarkFruitsRam7]

@Carl Sagan, quick hypothetical question:

Putting aside all practicalities, would you rather have the chance to walk on Mars or watch Derby win the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League in the same season?

[Carl Sagan]

3 hours ago, BurtonRam7 said:

@Carl Sagan, quick hypothetical question:

Putting aside all practicalities, would you rather have the chance to walk on Mars or watch Derby win the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League in the same season?

Well that's a magnificent question.

I've often wondered if I became a multi-billionnaire whether I'd put that money into Derby or if I'd do something else, along the lines of  far-future research foundation, pioneering space-travel and life-extension techologies. Or maybe just go in with Elon Musk and whatever he's working on. And the conclusion is I wouldn't put it into footballer's pockets but would spend it on the good of humanity. But when it's just personal joy at stake...

I've cried with happiness at great Derby moments, but also when for instance the two Falcon Heavy rocket boosters landed together at Cape Canaveral, ushering in the future.

If my family are all still around to share the joy of the Derby stuff with, then I would say Derby. But if we're talking further in the future when it's kind of just me, then I take Mars. To die on Mars, but just not during landing.

 

[Archied]

22 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

Well that's a magnificent question.

I've often wondered if I became a multi-billionnaire whether I'd put that money into Derby or if I'd do something else, along the lines of  far-future research foundation, pioneering space-travel and life-extension techologies. Or maybe just go in with Elon Musk and whatever he's working on. And the conclusion is I wouldn't put it into footballer's pockets but would spend it on the good of humanity. But when it's just personal joy at stake...

I've cried with happiness at great Derby moments, but also when for instance the two Falcon Heavy rocket boosters landed together at Cape Canaveral, ushering in the future.

If my family are all still around to share the joy of the Derby stuff with, then I would say Derby. But if we're talking further in the future when it's kind of just me, then I take Mars. To die on Mars, but just not during landing.

 

And if a double decker bus crashes into to us ,to,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[Carl Sagan]

2 hours ago, Archied said:

And if a double decker bus crashes into to us ,to,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

You what you what you what? ?

Are you the alien?

I'm loving the alien?

 

[Sexydadbod]

Might be off topic so I apologise in advance Carl but there are many peculiar but interesting things about this world. The rumours of big cats(panthers) roaming around Derbyshire  and the ghost plane seen by thousands is something that fascinated me and was never really resolved so “ufos” wouldn’t surprise me.

The big cats roaming could be explained by many people releasing them into the wild after the introduction of the Dangerous and Wild Cats Act 1976 which made it illegal to own such cats.

The ghost plane phenomena was quickly tried to be brushed under the carpet, but many thousands of people saw it. On the other hand it could be explained to be secret military testing because there are many rumours of a “secret base” located in Derbyshire.

In summary, the ufos in this case is probably military testing. They always say that technology in the military is 20 or so years in advance of modern technology.

[Carl Sagan]

On 21/11/2018 at 11:38, McLovin said:

Might be off topic so I apologise in advance Carl but there are many peculiar but interesting things about this world. The rumours of big cats(panthers) roaming around Derbyshire  and the ghost plane seen by thousands is something that fascinated me and was never really resolved so “ufos” wouldn’t surprise me.

The big cats roaming could be explained by many people releasing them into the wild after the introduction of the Dangerous and Wild Cats Act 1976 which made it illegal to own such cats.

The ghost plane phenomena was quickly tried to be brushed under the carpet, but many thousands of people saw it. On the other hand it could be explained to be secret military testing because there are many rumours of a “secret base” located in Derbyshire.

In summary, the ufos in this case is probably military testing. They always say that technology in the military is 20 or so years in advance of modern technology.

It's a really good point. A decade ago I actually saw a big cat (a pretty big panther) roaming in a meadow just south of Rudyards Lake in North Staffordshire. And happily I wasn't alone, and we watched for a couple of minutes from a raised railway line - was actually on Radio Stoke talking about it. 

But, it made me think about the other things people see that I haven't. And I think the true test of a good scientist is to have an open mind and realize there's so much that we don't know and understand. 

Current scientific thinking about the universe is that it's made up of something like 73% dark energy, 23% dark matter and 4% ordinary matter. And every single thing we know is only about that 4% of ordinary matter. There's a very big universe out there about which we know next to nothing. 

[ketteringram]

@Carl Sagan

Is this sort of thing correct? Puts into perspective some of the nonsense I stress about. 

 

[Wolfie]

23 hours ago, ketteringram said:

@Carl Sagan

Is this sort of thing correct? Puts into perspective some of the nonsense I stress about. 

 

Funny I've just been reading about that. Doesn't it look beautiful.

[RamNut]

The sun isn't dragging a few planets along in its wake. The whole mass  is moving through space together. 

[Gone]

Interesting 

 

[Carl Sagan]

On 25/11/2018 at 09:25, ketteringram said:

@Carl Sagan

Is this sort of thing correct? Puts into perspective some of the nonsense I stress about. 

Sorry, KR. Completely missed this. 

Even more sorry to report it's balony. There is no backdrop of absolute space through which things move - it's all about your frame of reference. Yes the solar system is orbiting our Milky Way galaxy over many millions of years, just as Earth orbits the Sun, but normally it makes sense to consider Earth at rest or, if we're thinking in space terms, the Sun at rest. 

The solar system (Sun and planets and the other bits and pieces) all formed together out of the same cloud of interstellar dust and gas and so all moves together around the Milky Way. It's not a case of the Sun dragging us in its wake. 

The helical image would only occur as a chance alignment that happened if the Sun's orbit around the Milky Way were exactly perpendicular (90 degrees) to the plane that the planets orbit in (all the planets orbit in the same disc around the Sun). As it happens, I think the Sun is moving around the centre of the Milky Way at an angle of 63 degrees to the plane the planets orbit in. 

[Carl Sagan]

5 hours ago, TexasRam said:

Interesting 

 

Yeah the SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) community is split between the old fashioned/traditional approaches (like listening out for radio transmissions) and more modern approaches that the author here is advocating, and which is generally known as Dysonian SETI after a brilliant scientist called Freeman Dyson who prop the idea of Dyson spheres. 

I did publish a book recently (written by someone else) on Dysonian SETI which included a discussion of UFO sightings, but not in this context. I'm not sure there's big enough data to apply machine learning techniques to the observations, but if there is it would be interesting. 

I guess you'd train it on things like "these are Venus" and "these are military planes" and "this is ball lightning" and then look at which results were the hardest to classify. 

[1of4]

5 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

Yeah the SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) community is split between the old fashioned/traditional approaches (like listening out for radio transmissions) and more modern approaches that the author here is advocating, and which is generally known as Dysonian SETI after a brilliant scientist called Freeman Dyson who prop the idea of Dyson spheres. 

I did publish a book recently (written by someone else) on Dysonian SETI which included a discussion of UFO sightings, but not in this context. I'm not sure there's big enough data to apply machine learning techniques to the observations, but if there is it would be interesting. 

I guess you'd train it on things like "these are Venus" and "these are military planes" and "this is ball lightning" and then look at which results were the hardest to classify. 

Thought a Dyson sphere was the ball at the bottom of a Dyson vacuum.