The Fermi Paradox and Alien Spaceships on Earth.

[CeeZar]

Physicists would call gravity a law and the speed of light another constant. You need to break the Theory the Relativity by Einstein to be correct. I'm betting on Einstein.

Warping space-time is consistent with General Theory of Relativity. An Einstein-Rosen bridge is what we refer to as a wormhole. The warp drive as described in Star Trek is based on an engine that warps space time in front of an behind the ship while it travels in a bubble in between.

 

[XXXIVwin]

So why haven’t we had a visit from aliens yet?

IMHO, the answer is simple— the universe is just too darn big.

The closest star to us (other than the sun) is Proxima Centauri, which is about 4.2 Light Years away. Using conventional methods of transport, it would take about 81,000 YEARS to get there. All this just to the CLOSEST star.

So yeah, unless you figure out wormholes or bend the rules of physics, no “intelligent” civilization is gonna travel that far.

 

[Selassie I]

I swear. The thread drift here is unacceptable. I'm not surprised at all by those making sure it happened either.

Those of you who have been previously warned and given timeouts for bringing in religious views here are not going to receive warnings or timeouts again. I promise.

Please... continue to disregard and disrespect our simple rules.

I am sick and fucking tired of babysitting a select few here. It will not continue.

And yeah... I have no problem posting this here for everyone to see. Obviously what's been done mostly privately in the past hasn't been effective at all. You'll now receive the same level of respect that you've shown us here going forward. Fucking unbelievable.

 

[XXXIVwin]

My favorite number:

Take all the grains of sand on planet earth... from all the beaches and all the deserts (including the Sahara of course). Oh and throw in all the grains of sand from all the playgrounds and sandboxes, too! Add up all the grains of sand. Then multiply by 10.

That number is a decent estimate of the number of stars in the Universe.

Are There More Grains of Sand Than Stars?

This question comes from Sheldon Grimshaw. “I’ve heard that there are more stars in our Universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth. Is this possible?” Awesome question, and a great excuse to do some math. As we learned in a previous video, there are 100 to 400 billion...

www.universetoday.com

So yeah, the Universe is kinda big.

Again, this comes back to my hypothesis that any kind of “conventional” space travel between solar systems would require hundreds of thousands of years to accomplish. If it takes a hundred thousand years to travel from “one grain of sand to the closest adjacent one”... well it’s gonna be real hard for us to ever have meaningful person-to-alien contact with our alien buddies out there.

 

[Farr Be It]

I swear. The thread drift here is unacceptable. I'm not surprised at all by those making sure it happened either.

Those of you who have been previously warned and given timeouts for bringing in religious views here are not going to receive warnings or timeouts again. I promise.

Please... continue to disregard and disrespect our simple rules.

I am sick and fucking tired of babysitting a select few here. It will not continue.

And yeah... I have no problem posting this here for everyone to see. Obviously what's been done mostly privately in the past hasn't been effective at all. You'll now receive the same level of respect that you've shown us here going forward. Fucking unbelievable.

George,

I guess I’m the primary one you are referring to. I suppose I should have just left this thread alone. Guys are talking about UFOs and life in other planets, but offering an opposing view that there may only be life on Earth and that I think we were created over-steps the line. I was trying to be careful and honor forum rules. I know it can be a fine line.

My second post I should have left alone. For that I apologize. I’m Sorry. I’ll stay out of the rest of the discussion.

 

[Dieter the Brock]

My second post I should have left alone, responding about the Pope being full of it. For that I apologize. I’m Sorry. I’ll stay out of the rest of the discussion.

dude
you just won’t let up will you

 

[Farr Be It]

dude
you just won’t let up will you

That WAS me letting up. My point was I should have let it go, not said that. I'll leave this thread to you guys. Once again-my apology.

 

[ozarkram]

I have always thought it was rather arrogant of us as a species to believe we are it. This is reinforced to me whenever I look up in the night sky. I am old enough to remember when they taught us in school that dinosaurs were cold blooded, slow, dull and colorless creatures to stupid to survive. Mountain Gorillas were a myth until the 1930s. There will always be new discoveries and bright and shiny new theories to shatter old ones. In the end for all we know, we don't know very much.

 

[Loyal]

Warping space-time is consistent with General Theory of Relativity. An Einstein-Rosen bridge is what we refer to as a wormhole. The warp drive as described in Star Trek is based on an engine that warps space time in front of an behind the ship while it travels in a bubble in between.

Well, of course space and time warps around gravitational fields. Space and time can also come in waves, for instance, if the Sun disappeared instantly. We wouldn't know it for about a small amount of time because of the limits of the speed of light, and then our planet would experience gravitational waves as it worked out that there was no gravitational pull from the sun anymore, before heading out of the old solar system in a straight line toward oblivion.

Yes, wormholes were described by Einstein but we has of yet never seen one. For space time to warp around an object, how much density would the Enterprise have to have to create a wormhole? Probably as much as a collapsed former star, which was so heavy that it fell into itself to become a white dwarf or a black hole (if the star was large enough). One way it is theorized to create a wormhole is to entangle two black holes and then to pull them apart, whichI don't know how the #$%^ you do that, creating a gravitational tunnel between them. Lets say you were not destroyed by the event horizon of the first black hole, you would have to escape the event horizon of the next, which means you would have to go faster than the speed of light to escape the gravitational pull, violating another constant.

We don't even know if the wormhole transports to another space/dimension, or back to itself. Star Trek "science" is fun, but isn't necessarily an indicator of future scientific discoveries.

 

[ozarkram]

alm:

 

[ozarkram]

alm:

This post was made in response to a post that was thankfully deleted. Carry on.

 

[Akrasian]

I suspect that if there is interstellar travel, it would be closer to what Clarke wrote about in Rendezvous with Rama (and not in the sequels). Relatively slow moving though amazingly fast by human standards, and necessarily taking many years. Either it would be a multigenerational city or computer driven, with new generations being created when appropriate. (For those who have not read it, a massive cylindrical ship is approaching Earth, and is explored by the only humans capable of reaching it in time. As the ship gets closer to the sun as an energy source, it starts to be populated by "Biots" partially life, partially machine - who do needed maintenance on the ship as the explorers observe. Then as it starts going away after restocking some hydrogen from the sun, the internal areas of Rama start shutting down, and the humans have to flee, as the ship continues on to wherever it is ultimately going, just using the solar system as a source of energy and to restock some supplies, like a gas station. i.e. the ship is designed to run for thousands of years, restocking elements especially hydrogen as needed, with a goal that doesn't make sense to humans).

Most other books about alien encounters assume science that likely isn't possible, especially at the scale described, and have aliens having aims and goals almost identical to humans - which could be the case, but likely isn't.

 

[snackdaddy]

So why haven’t we had a visit from aliens yet?

IMHO, the answer is simple— the universe is just too darn big.

The closest star to us (other than the sun) is Proxima Centauri, which is about 4.2 Light Years away. Using conventional methods of transport, it would take about 81,000 YEARS to get there. All this just to the CLOSEST star.

So yeah, unless you figure out wormholes or bend the rules of physics, no “intelligent” civilization is gonna travel that far.

My thinking about this subject is similar. The universe is endless. You can travel trillions of miles and still not come to an end. The odds of there being planets that can sustain life somewhere are probably very good. But its not like we will ever know.

I believe if aliens really do visit us, with our technology we woulda known for sure by now. So call me skeptical unless there is irrefutable proof. Not "Look at those lights!" or "The government is covering it up!" We're not the only government on earth. I seriously doubt every country on earth has a secret pact not to reveal any evidence of aliens here.

 

[LesBaker]

The rest of the Milky Way and known universe and is made up of icy, burning hot, toxic, and just plain uninhabitable planetary bodies. And it all points back to the uniqueness of earth.

It's possible that species on a planet could survive eating coal and drinking pure ammonia of that's how they evolved. After all here on our planet species breathe air but can't live in water, species that can live in water but not in the air and even a few that can do both.

For the record, I'm a big time UFO nut. So I read all this stuff as soon as anything comes out.

I didn't know that. I'd have never guessed that about you in a million tries!!!

 

[bluecoconuts]

The rest of the Milky Way and known universe and is made up of icy, burning hot, toxic, and just plain uninhabitable planetary bodies. And it all points back to the uniqueness of earth.

There's an estimated 40 billion habitable planets in the Galaxy and 19 sextillion (19 followed by 21 zeros) habitable planets in the observable universe.

Physicists would call gravity a law and the speed of light another constant. You need to break the Theory the Relativity by Einstein to be correct. I'm betting on Einstein.

Gravity is a theory, we're still expanding on it and there's a lot we still don't know, there's still a lot about physics and our universe we don't know and things are constantly changing as we make new discoveries. It's a big universe and we're only looking at a tiny tiny point of it.

For context, this is the tiny sliver in which we've found most of 7000 planets we have either confirmed or believe we have found but need a little more confirmation.

Basically we haven't really seen shit, and we've still found 7,000 planets and counting. Imagine looking through your peephole and seeing 7,000 people out front. Probably a safe bet that there's a lot more out there that you're not seeing.

 

[Loyal]

There's an estimated 40 billion habitable planets in the Galaxy and 19 sextillion (19 followed by 21 zeros) habitable planets in the observable universe.



Gravity is a theory, we're still expanding on it and there's a lot we still don't know, there's still a lot about physics and our universe we don't know and things are constantly changing as we make new discoveries. It's a big universe and we're only looking at a tiny tiny point of it.

For context, this is the tiny sliver in which we've found most of 7000 planets we have either confirmed or believe we have found but need a little more confirmation.

View attachment 33483


Basically we haven't really seen shit, and we've still found 7,000 planets and counting. Imagine looking through your peephole and seeing 7,000 people out front. Probably a safe bet that there's a lot more out there that you're not seeing.

As I commented very early in this thread, these are problems with your argument.

Even for mankind on this earth, aside from the rapid technological development in the last 100 years or so, technology did not radically change in the 2000 years before. Even if you point to 12,000 years ago as the bracketed timeframe where modern humans lived, most of that time we would not know if an interstellar species arrived here unless they wanted us to know.

Our world is only 4.5 billion years old, as compared to the estimated 13.7 billion years for the beginning of it all. Advanced civilizations on other planets could have risen to extreme development and have died before the Earth was even formed. This limits your interstellar number of 7,000 habitable planets which are capable of evolving organisms into advanced lifeforms, probably to zero. I never contested life elsewhere throughout the Cosmos. Increase the number to a million habitable planets for possible intelligent life, does not mean that a single alien species has split the atom, synched with mans development somewhat, etc...Several factors have to align for your alien visitation scenario to mesh.

I don't buy that humanity doesn't have a serious grasp on science ("we haven't seen shit"). We are not talking about the times of Coepernicus, Galilleo, Newton morphing into the times of Einstein, Oppenheimer. More like moving from Einstein to Hawking..We actually know and have serious practical grasp on science which has raced incredibly fast since Einstein. I doubt that there will be world shattering discoveries that will upend Physics, Chemistry, etc... as we know them today. Will knowledge be added to? Yes, of course.

So...to see little green men visit us on Earth
1. Incredibly more advanced species that is capable of instellar travel.
2. Must overcome the Speed of Light...Even the closest planet is 40+ years away with our capabilities (well below the speed of light), one way.
3. Ours and the Alien civilization(s) must be synched for an incredibly tiny slice of time (homo sapien is about 44,000 years old), over 13.7 billion years, AND one has to be aware of the other. This is the biggest obstacle to me.
4. IF they somehow reach us, they have to want something which isn't good news for us. Most likely their version of AI and not biological organisms will step out of the saucer

 

[Akrasian]

So...to see little green men visit us on Earth
1. Incredibly more advanced species that is capable of instellar travel.
2. Must overcome the Speed of Light...Even the closest planet is 40+ years away with our capabilities (well below the speed of light), one way.
3. Ours and the Alien civilization(s) must be synched for an incredibly tiny slice of time (homo sapien is about 44,000 years old), over 13.7 billion years, AND one has to be aware of the other. This is the biggest obstacle to me.
4. IF they somehow reach us, they have to want something which isn't good news for us. Most likely their version of AI and not biological organisms will step out of the saucer

Good points. I'm especially skeptical about a practical way to overcome the speed of light. Even if it is possible - how much energy would it take? Would that energy requirement zoom up as the size of the vessel increases? How safe would it be? i.e. how to avoid damage from hitting even subatomic particles at such velocities, much less larger things? And given the likely resources needed for such an interstellar ship, why would they do it rather than make their home planet a paradise?

And why would they come to Earth? We have a huge variety of microscopic life forms, many if not most of which would be highly dangerous to other life forms. Unless they have taken the step from biological creatures to AI creatures, they would be at risk. And if they have taken such a step, then they would be better off elsewhere in the solar system or the Galaxy, rather than competing with terrans. Mars or Saturn or the asteroid belt would be as suitable for them, probably better suited.

 

[Loyal]

Good points. I'm especially skeptical about a practical way to overcome the speed of light. Even if it is possible - how much energy would it take? Would that energy requirement zoom up as the size of the vessel increases? How safe would it be? i.e. how to avoid damage from hitting even subatomic particles at such velocities, much less larger things? And given the likely resources needed for such an interstellar ship, why would they do it rather than make their home planet a paradise?

And why would they come to Earth? We have a huge variety of microscopic life forms, many if not most of which would be highly dangerous to other life forms. Unless they have taken the step from biological creatures to AI creatures, they would be at risk. And if they have taken such a step, then they would be better off elsewhere in the solar system or the Galaxy, rather than competing with terrans. Mars or Saturn or the asteroid belt would be as suitable for them, probably better suited.

Well, if we think of speed faster than the speed of light. There must be a shield because even the tiniest particle would slice through a spaceship at the speed of light. Maybe some antigravity shield that repels everything? (I mean, if we are going totally science fiction...lol)

 

[Akrasian]

Well, if we think of speed faster than the speed of light. There must be a shield because even the tiniest particle would slice through a spaceship at the speed of light. Maybe some antigravity shield that repels everything? (I mean, if we are going totally science fiction...lol)

Sure, but such a shield would not be foolproof AND would add significantly to the energy demands. What if there is an asteroid size rock in the way? Now we are requiring accurate sensors that are even more faster than light than the ship and infallible or close to it. Or amazingly powerful shields and their likely energy demands, for something already requiring massive energy in all likelihood. As you know, these things normally get hand waved away, but I'm skeptical that they can be or should be. And it only takes one small spacerock to wreck the day of a FTL ship.

 

[bluecoconuts]

As I commented very early in this thread, these are problems with your argument.

Even for mankind on this earth, aside from the rapid technological development in the last 100 years or so, technology did not radically change in the 2000 years before. Even if you point to 12,000 years ago as the bracketed timeframe where modern humans lived, most of that time we would not know if an interstellar species arrived here unless they wanted us to know.

Our world is only 4.5 billion years old, as compared to the estimated 13.7 billion years for the beginning of it all. Advanced civilizations on other planets could have risen to extreme development and have died before the Earth was even formed. This limits your interstellar number of 7,000 habitable planets which are capable of evolving organisms into advanced lifeforms, probably to zero. I never contested life elsewhere throughout the Cosmos. Increase the number to a million habitable planets for possible intelligent life, does not mean that a single alien species has split the atom, synched with mans development somewhat, etc...Several factors have to align for your alien visitation scenario to mesh.

I don't buy that humanity doesn't have a serious grasp on science ("we haven't seen shit"). We are not talking about the times of Coepernicus, Galilleo, Newton morphing into the times of Einstein, Oppenheimer. More like moving from Einstein to Hawking..We actually know and have serious practical grasp on science which has raced incredibly fast since Einstein. I doubt that there will be world shattering discoveries that will upend Physics, Chemistry, etc... as we know them today. Will knowledge be added to? Yes, of course.

So...to see little green men visit us on Earth
1. Incredibly more advanced species that is capable of instellar travel.
2. Must overcome the Speed of Light...Even the closest planet is 40+ years away with our capabilities (well below the speed of light), one way.
3. Ours and the Alien civilization(s) must be synched for an incredibly tiny slice of time (homo sapien is about 44,000 years old), over 13.7 billion years, AND one has to be aware of the other. This is the biggest obstacle to me.
4. IF they somehow reach us, they have to want something which isn't good news for us. Most likely their version of AI and not biological organisms will step out of the saucer

You're arguing against something I didn't even say to the point I'm not even sure how you interpreted my comment. Gravity is not a law, it's a theory, and we haven't explored more than a tiny fraction of our Galaxy so we have no idea what else is out there. We also make new discoveries all the time and we have many wild ideas about what we could potentially develop as we gain new understandings, so what may seem impossible now could very well become elementary physics in the future.

I'm sorry if you disagree with the idea that we still have a lot to learn about science and our universe around us as a whole, but we really do. We still have so much to learn about this little rock we're stuck on right now, the only reason why I'm looking up and not down is because I don't have faith in humanity to get their shit together so I'm trying to find that planet B before it's too late. There's only a finite time Earth is habitable, and I for one would like to imagine that Humanity wont die with Earth.... Especially because that's much closer than people think, a billion years is just the amount of time left before the oceans are boiled away, we'll be plenty dead before that time. Not to mention all the other ways that we can be killed from something from outside our planet.