If these aliens are so bloody clever why do  they seem to land in Bringadogalong Creek, population 17, average IQ less?
Surely beings who can travel faster than light  would just plonk themselves down in the middle of Tokyo or somewhere significant. Either that, or watch from a distance hidden from our sight by their superior technology. 
Sorry, but it all sounds just a little bit like wanting someone to come and solve our problems for us witha wave of a magic wand.

@Janet, only about 6,000 stars are visible to the naked eye, same as the number of languages on our planet ;-)

@rejenny, I was only speaking about relativity (a classical theory), but yeah, quantum theory and beyond brings so many other ways too :-)

@Heartwood, look up Alcubierre metrics, that's the simplest (and first) superluminal metric proposed; it's been proven unstable since, but there's been a lot of further work done on it, many of which could be stable

@Dryad Z-space??  I haven't heard about that since I was reading Animorphs as a kid :-)  and we haven't gone back to the moon and we're not planning Mars missions not because of money but because the aliens are out there and our government is plotting with them, even the History Channel did a special on leaked NASA eyewitness accounts

@Cynthia, I've heard there's a possibility some dinosaurs survived the K-T extinction and subsequently evolved intelligence...  I'm putting my money on Bigfoot though

@Alyssa, check out the Bell theorem, time travel must be possible in order for quantum mechanics to work, most physicists (like Hawking) would rather ignore the evidence :-p same as the UFO-naysayers

@Meinoz, that's just a bad stereotype about country people, statistically UFOs are just as common in urban areas as rural ones, we even have at least two US Presidents who've (admitted they) seen them

@everyone, 3 pages woot!  I should find more controversial topics to post about lolz

wow the ego has landed

I'm not convinced that humans or any other species will ever be able to accomplish the kind of interstellar travel that would permit two alien species to meet.  We really don't know for sure if it is possible.

And even if it is possible, we would still need time to develop that level of technology.  Earth only has ten thousand year windows of warmth between ice ages.  We are on schedule for our next ice age to hit in about 200 years (give or take 1000 years).  Sorry to bear the bad news.  But I find it unlikely that our civilization and technology will survive that kind of global disaster.  And we don't even know what causes this meteorological cycle (though we suspect the ice caps melting shuts down the ocean currents and that does it).  Why would we leap to the conclusion that any other planets in the universe that can support life would be any different?  So if it turns out that all the other habitable planets do have such a cycle, that would likely prevent the kind of technological development that would lead to significant interstellar travel, assuming that such travel is even possible at all.

Quote from: transnikki on July 14, 2010, 07:13:12 AM
@Alyssa, check out the Bell theorem, time travel must be possible in order for quantum mechanics to work, most physicists (like Hawking) would rather ignore the evidence :-p same as the UFO-naysayers

False.

No information travel faster than light in the collapse of the wave function. The two outcomes on either side of  Bell's experimental apparatus are correlated, but they are not predictable in advance, and are therefore cannot transmit any information.

There are other problems, mainly stemming from the fact that Bell's theorem relies on the notion of an idealized measurement. Basically, you forgot to treat the whole system (including the experimental apparatus, not just the particle) in a consistent way -- i.e., with quantum field theory (since you're dealing with relativistic space-time intervals) ... but that's a whole different question.

Quote@Dryad Z-space??  I haven't heard about that since I was reading Animorphs as a kid :-)  and we haven't gone back to the moon and we're not planning Mars missions not because of money but because the aliens are out there and our government is plotting with them, even the History Channel did a special on leaked NASA eyewitness accounts

Yeah.. The problem is that my take on it can be verified, and actually hás, while yours can not. I am not familiar with your History Channel, as we don't have it in the NL, but I ám aware that eyewitness accounts aren't evidence of anything, and, in most cases, completely false. The truth of the matter is: People dó actually see what they want to see, instead of what's really (not) there. There is scientific evidence for this.

To be honest: I've never in my life heard about 'Z-space.' I don't know what an animorph is, either. A lifeless object that can change into an animated object and back to inanimate again? Might be an interesting theory, if only for amusement.

As for quantum: I'm sorry; most of it has already proven to be wrong. However, it works tremendously well on paper, so it will continue to be used until something better comes along. I like the string-theory fine-tuning, though. Anyway; what most people know about quantum is from 'What the Bleep do we know' and 'Down the Rabbit Hole.' Movies that are simply horrible in each and every way, and little more than a way to bring spirituality and magic and hope into science by using some sort of pseudo-scientific garble. If you ask me, that is. 

Anyway; this is actually the point where I'm hoping a physicist would hop aboard and give us all an interesting lecture. 

Well, I have one of those physics degrees, but I'd hardly call myself a "physicist" at this point.  Anyway, my lecture is upthread.  Don't know how "interesting" it might be though.

--I didn't read the full thread, I wanted to answer--

My view on space travel:  the ship moves space around it to be able to travel light-speed or whatever it's called.

Not really, but I love the concept.

Personally, I think aliens out there and always have.  I think there are intelligent species out there, and that if they are intelligent enough to have fast enough space travel, then they are more like nomads who have depleted the sources on their own planet so they go from planet to plant that has life on it and that Earth is just one of the planets out there happens to have life so they might be investigating to see if the sources are similar to the ones they need.  Any aliens that have lightspeed travel or whatever you want to call it and comes to Earth probably isn't a friendly species.  It's one thing that I agree with Stephen Hawking about (turns out he thinks aliens are likely, too).

I can't get all scientific in my answer because I'm not a scientists and can only go off what I think, but I'm one of those people who swears Champ and Nessie are real, that Bigfoot is roaming around out there, and that various critters might have survived the many mass extinctions but hidden deep down in the ocean to where the effects wouldn't be felt as readily.

Quote from: glendagladwitch on July 14, 2010, 08:14:37 PM
Well, I have one of those physics degrees, but I'd hardly call myself a "physicist" at this point.  Anyway, my lecture is upthread.  Don't know how "interesting" it might be though.

Actually; I was quite happy with it, but was thinking more about a space-time lecture. 

You are quite right, though.

Quote from: Dryad on July 15, 2010, 08:47:55 AM
Actually; I was quite happy with it, but was thinking more about a space-time lecture. 

You are quite right, though.

Well as an ex physicist and hyperspatialist I could perhaps give it a go - but it would involve a lot of multi-dimensional high order differential equations and other mathematical goo so I figure you would all be asleep by the end.

My recommendation would be to get hold of the excellent books of the subject written by Michio Kaku, in particular:

Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension (1994, ISBN 0-19-286189-1)
Beyond Einstein: The Cosmic Quest for the Theory of the Universe (1995, ISBN 0-19-286196-4)
Kaku, Michio (2004). Parallel Worlds: The Science of Alternative Universes and Our Future in the Cosmos. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 0713997281.

All three of which are pretty excellent.

Yeah.. Equations are só not my thing...
But I'm quite okay at written language in the multi-dimensional, so if you could... *puppy-dog eyes*
Nah; don't bother. I'll see if I can get some PDFs, instead.

I don't think Alien Existence is even a question. There is far Too Much Evidence to Say Aliens Don't Exist.
When Will They Come out?
They Already Are

@Glenda, we survived the last ice age with fire & wooden spears, I think we'll do just fine in the next one ;-) I'd recommend watching The Day After Tomorrow lol

@Alyssa, yes yes, but even though you can't send useful information, time travel is still possible ;-) with so much undiscovered physics, there's no reason an advanced race can't have that kind of tech
/
@Rejenny, I'm an ex-physicist too, worked in hadron physics at JLab

@Dryad everything oughta be on ArXiv

@Heartwood I forgot I did have some links on my website, http://personal.frostburg.edu/nlsharp0/tgnicole/SN/links.htm#academic, the "Modern Relativity" one was super excellent for beginners but it seems to have gone down :-( I'm going to have to hunt after that one to see if it got moved...

Just my two cents, but I feel people who wholeheartedly believe in things like the speed of light and moving only forward in time as impossible barriers are seeing the world as flat, as the expression goes :-(.  If anything, physics has shown us that all are most cherished beliefs throughout history are only there to change and always riddled with exceptions, right now we have a Ptolemaically tardyonic and retarded worldview, and like Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Feynman, etc. we need another paradigm shift to get over that.  (For the nonphysicists, "retarded" means traveling forward in time, "advanced" means moving backward in time ;-) ).

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Post Merge: July 15, 2010, 10:12:30 PM

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@Rejenny, I have Kaku's book, I'd really recommend Nick Herbert's Faster Than Light: Superluminal Loopholes in Physics for a layman's overview of FTL methods, including some very interesting relativistic ones ;-)

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Post Merge: July 15, 2010, 11:14:58 PM

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Kip Thorne's Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy is a good layman's classic too on the subject, loved that one :-)

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Post Merge: July 16, 2010, 12:20:07 AM

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a good way would be to become head of a multibillion-dollar aerospace corporation, launch an army of satellites around the sun to monitor solar activity, plug the data into an incredible supercomputer to predict a good flare, then break into Cheyenne Mountain, and jump through the stargate to a destination where the wormhole will pass through the flare with just the right timing & energy to send you back in time woots ;-)

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Post Merge: July 16, 2010, 01:21:11 AM

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dunno why everyone wants to go to the past anyways lol, the future's where all the fun is, nanotech is gonna make transitioning AWESOME :-D

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Post Merge: July 16, 2010, 02:31:30 AM

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for all you crazy futuretech alien fanatics, I put up another topic ;-) https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,80791.msg563478.html#msg563478

Quote from: transnikki on July 16, 2010, 01:43:30 AM
@Glenda, we survived the last ice age with fire & wooden spears, I think we'll do just fine in the next one ;-) I'd recommend watching The Day After Tomorrow lol

I didn't say I thought humans would become extinct.  Rather, humanity will be reduced once more to using fire and wooden spears.

Day After Tomorrow was a good movie.   

Quote from: glendagladwitch on July 17, 2010, 07:13:39 AM
I didn't say I thought humans would become extinct.  Rather, humanity will be reduced once more to using fire and wooden spears.

Day After Tomorrow was a good movie.

I highly doubt that. Enough of us know the basic principles of generating electricity and rodio waves.
Enough of us know enough about firearms to make them from scratch.
Enough of us know the principles of the internal combustion engine to make them also.
You can go ahead and play spears, I am going to be over with some scientists atempting to rebuild our tech.

Quote from: cynthialee on July 17, 2010, 07:17:59 AM
I highly doubt that. Enough of us know the basic principles of generating electricity and rodio waves.
Enough of us know enough about firearms to make them from scratch.
Enough of us know the principles of the internal combustion engine to make them also.
You can go ahead and play spears, I am going to be over with some scientists atempting to rebuild our tech.

Check out "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" by Cory Doctorow.

A very interesting take on the end of the world.

*Spoiler*

Google survives.

-Sandy

There was a sifi series on in the 70s, called Suvivors. Basically, most humans died and the few that were left were the story.

One episode stand out, where a group continued living a reasonably confortable life until they ran out of tinned food!

Kinda makes you think.

I have an allotment and grow food. But I could never hope to produce enough to feed myself even, for a year, let alone anyone else.

Quote from: transnikki on July 16, 2010, 01:43:30 AM
@Alyssa, yes yes, but even though you can't send useful information, time travel is still possible ;-) with so much undiscovered physics, there's no reason an advanced race can't have that kind of tech

That does not in any way address anything I said. In fact, the part I put in boldface makes no sense whatsoever.

You say there is "no reason" it's impossible. That assertion is unsupportable, unless you (or someone else) can build and demonstrate such technology. There might well be a very good reason: that the physics required simply does not exist.

I am a bit skeptical of the existence of ufo's or aliens but I will admit their possibility.

I want proof and evidence that I can see.

Quote from: cynthialee on July 12, 2010, 08:21:35 AM
The aliens are not aliens.......
They are from here on earth.
How much longer was life in the oceans than on land....?
Occams razor people.....
Where is the only planet we know of that can suport life? Earth.

Going for that whole atlantean premise I see.  I've heard similar new theories of them coming from the ocean instead of space on television but as usual I remain a die hard skeptic and empirical materialist.