UFO's

[Marge]

Originally Posted by homealone

its to do with the equivalence of mass & energy & their relation to the speed of light, the classic E=mc² (Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared) applies to a stationary object, it gets a little more complicated if the object is moving...........

It's the main reason why, imo, the concept of some kind of 'warping' of the space/time continuum is necessary to travel any useful distance.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by homealone

its to do with the equivalence of mass & energy & their relation to the speed of light, the classic E=mc² (Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared) applies to a stationary object, it gets a little more complicated if the object is moving...........

It's the main reason why, imo, the concept of some kind of 'warping' of the space/time continuum is necessary to travel any useful distance.

[Stuart W]

Sorry for the late start, but I've just noticed this thread... Also, appologies if I'm repeating someone else!

I think it is VERY nieve to think we are the only inteligent life in existance. BUT.... looking at the countless stars in our galaxy has shown us that it is unlikely there is life (like ours) nearby.
There are billions of galaxy's, so it's fair to say one (or more) of them must support inteligent life...... but can they get here?
We can't get there with our technology..... YET!

.....

My mum is now 65 yrs old. When she was at school she sat in a science lesson talking to her friend about life on the moon. Her science teacher explained that man could not possibly get to the moon as there is no engine / device powerfull enough to escape the gravitational pull of our planet. He went on to explain the high radiation levels in the Van Allen Belt and the dangers of next-to-zero atmosphere

A few years later, some guy named Neil Armstrong made one small step.

Now, Neil got to the moon on the Apollo space program. (well, it was actualy on a rocket powered by the Saturn V, which is still today the single most powerfull engine in the world) NASA managed to get the Apollo program 'off the ground' (sorry for the pun!) using valve based computing technology!

Anyone seen Apollo 13? Remember where Tom Hanks says "One day we will be able to store a computer in a single room. It will hold thousands of pieces of information!"
Well, you can now pop along to Currys and purchase a computer which holds MILLIONS of pieces of information and fits in your pocket.

That's just 40 or so years after the Apollo program.

OK, that's only the computing side of things, but think of the implications.... Now we have super-computers we can performe calculations to try out space flight without building space craft and launching them.

As for the craft we do build, look at teh ****pit of the Space Shuttle, compared to the Apollo Command Module!

This enabled us to send probes to Mars, Jupiter and WAY beyond!

IMO, it is only a mater of time before man steps foot on another planet.
I believe the USA have said they aim to get a man on Mars in the next 10 years, it is entirly feasable with todays technology, albeit DAMNED expensive!


Bearing this in mind, look at a slightly bigger picture....
As a species, humans WILL die out along with our sun. We have a fair few thousand years to go, so don't panic just yet!
But... if we can travel inter-stella, we can live forever. Keep poping off to any green/blue rock that's close enough to a hot enough star for us to live there. (now THERE'S incentive!)

.....

So, bearing this in mind, we should also consider that the 'other' inteligent life in a galaxy far from here may well have developed their technology MILLIONS of years before we even existed. They may well also expirience time in a format not familiar with us.
This is awkward to explain, but to give you a picture.....
If you look at life through the eyes of an elephant, humans are these very fast little things that speed around all day but only live for 70 or so years.
Through the eyes of a fly, humans are increadibly large, slow creatures, hardly moving at all, but live for a massive 70 or so years!

Take that a step further and it's plain to see that an alien life form (seeing time from the fly's point of view) may have come here, looked around and left without us even noticing!

Throw into that the confusion of time only being relative to it's surroundings (the faster you travel, the slower time passes) and you can see that the chances of us finding life we could comunicate with become ever more remote.

BTW, I voted YES because I'm not a plane spotter so often can't identify most of the stuff in our sky's

Originally Posted by towny

Admit it, you haven't got a clue either

lol - I would like to understand it better, that is for sure

So far the experiments to try & verify Einsteins theory have raised as many questions as they have answered.

One thing that does seem certain is that the physics of the universe will apply equally to alien species, but what insights are possible from current research attempts to establish an 'Unified' theory, who knows?

Originally Posted by SOSAGES

isnt light the speed limit ? even the star trek lads fold space to travel as they cant travel faster than light... or i may be wrong im sure this sort of thing gets changed all the time

Trek cheats because, according to one explanation (well, ok, bit of Treknobabble) what the Warp Engines are supposed to do is to "compress" space in front of the ship such that it doesn't *actually* go faster than light.

Imagine you put a needle on a rug, then bunch the rug up in front of it, push the needle through that bunched up section and then flatten the rug again, that's sort of what's supposed to happen, although that explanation actually comes from Harry Harrison's excellent and hilarious "Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers!"

As to Tom Paris exceeding Warp 10 in ST:Voyager, that's just another example of Trek failing to keep to its own rules, because the "warp scale" is supposed to be an exponential curve where Warp 10 is unachievable but can only be approached asymptotically (except if you're slingshotting around a star to do a quick bit of time travel as in assorted Trek films... Consistency? What's that??)

Of course that episode also has the nonsense that, for some reason, exceeding Warp 10 didn't cause Tom Paris to go back in time, but, instead, caused him to "evolve", which rather demonstrates that the Trek writers have no idea what evolution is all about, because instead of him becoming "better fit" to his environment, the first thing that happens is that he almost dies because his lungs change to breathe a different mixture of gasses...!!

especially since einstien sat down and gave us a couple of relativity things to consider

The point is that, according to Einstein, mass increases as you approach the speed of light, so as you accellerate you need more and more energy until you need an infinite amount of energy to achieve it.

Originally Posted by towny

A common argument is: Life has arisen on Earth against vast odds, BUT the probable number of planetary systems in the universe is even more vast, SO it is likely that life has arisen somewhere else as well.

But this rests on the assumption that life is capable of arising spontaneously.[...]

True, however...

some of us look at the universe and see intelligent design. And if that is the case, then there need be no other life of any kind anywhere in the universe, unless that intelligent designer decided there should be.

Which rests on the assumption that there is some form of "creator" and the logical precursor to that is where did that creator come from, the response is generally that we have to assume that He always existed.

However Occams Razor suggests that if you have two explanations that fit the facts you should pick the one that requires the least number of assumptions. The belief in a creator involves a whole series of extra assumptions, so whilst it is a *possible* hypothesis, it's not, logically, a *probable* hypothesis.

And as I derive my understanding of that designer from the Bible - which says absolutely nothing about his business elsewhere in the universe

Because God didn't tell us about it, or because those who wrote it didn't *know* that there were any other worlds elsewhere in the universe?

[Russ]

And this is my cue to join in!

Originally Posted by Graham

Because God didn't tell us about it, or because those who wrote it didn't *know* that there were any other worlds elsewhere in the universe?

Or more likely, we simply don't need to know about other planets.

Originally Posted by scastle

Well, I am no physicist, but AFAIK the only times you need propulsion in space is if you need to change speed or direction. In fact, I did read that if you went into orbit and were able to fire a handgun toward the sun, the bullet would eventually reach the sun (assuming it didn't get too near any other objects).

Err, actually that's unlikely because the speed you need to achieve orbit (around 17,500 MPH IIRC) is less than "escape velocity" (about 25,500 MPH again IIRC) which is what you need to get away from Earth's gravitational pull.

So unless you can fire that bullet at 8,000 MPH *and* get the trajectory right, it's more likely to stay in orbit around the Earth.

Originally Posted by Russ D

And this is my cue to join in!

Or more likely, we simply don't need to know about other planets.

And that's my cue to leave this part of the discussion because we're talking about UFOs, not religion and I don't want to see this thread get closed by a flame war...!

[Russ]

Originally Posted by Graham

And that's my cue to leave this part of the discussion because we're talking about UFOs, not religion and I don't want to see this thread get closed by a flame war...!

Personally I saw it as an answer to a valid question which could easily be asked in a discussion on UFOs but then again, what do I know....

Originally Posted by Graham

True, however...

Which rests on the assumption that there is some form of "creator" and the logical precursor to that is where did that creator come from, the response is generally that we have to assume that He always existed.

All true, but I'm not going to go in to all that again now ... might be a little OT to go into all that detail here

However Occams Razor suggests that if you have two explanations that fit the facts you should pick the one that requires the least number of assumptions. The belief in a creator involves a whole series of extra assumptions, so whilst it is a *possible* hypothesis, it's not, logically, a *probable* hypothesis.

All of which may be true, but this is a principle, not a law - unless there is some evidence that, throughout history, the 'correct' explanation always turns out to have been the one that required fewer assumptions.

Because God didn't tell us about it, or because those who wrote it didn't *know* that there were any other worlds elsewhere in the universe?

Both. God used humans to write the Bible, and they only wrote beyond their own ability to perceive when circumstances required it (e.g. writing a prophecy). The Bible writers had no way of knowing about other worlds, and God had no need for them to know. Now there's a whole mouthful of assumptions for you to chew on

Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers

This is the first time I have ever met anyone else who has read that ... I am not alone!!!!

[Russ]

I'll tell you in PM

Originally Posted by towny

All of which may be true, but this is a principle, not a law - unless there is some evidence that, throughout history, the 'correct' explanation always turns out to have been the one that required fewer assumptions.

No, there is no evidence that the "correct" explanation is *always* the one that required fewer assumptions, but there is empirical evidence that shows that it's *most often* the case.

This is the first time I have ever met anyone else who has read that ... I am not alone!!!!

Anyone who hasn't read it is missing a great spoof on "heroic space fantasy" and a really good laugh

Originally Posted by Graham

Anyone who hasn't read it is missing a great spoof on "heroic space fantasy" and a really good laugh

I think, sadly, that the fact I found and read it in my school library when I was but 11 years old meant that I missed rather a lot of the spoof....

dn-drff, garnishee, and 747 that travels space powered by a lump of cheddar cheese ... d'oh!

[trebor]

Originally Posted by towny

It is believed to be, although you will have to hope a passing theoretical physicist might stop at the forum long enough to explain why.

EDIT

I don't think the theory has anything to do with available forms of propulsion, I think odd things happen to time, energy and matter when objects get up to that kind of speed.

ok a questioning thought
who decided what the speed of light was, what if it was measured wrong, what if it's not as fast as you all think
how many laws of physics have already been adjusted to fit in with modern thinking ?

I say nothing is impossible and in support of my case may I point out that NTL are still in business

they said we could not travel faster than 30mph
they said we could not fly
the list goes on, but they were wrong