Area 51 the UFO hub what rubbish I know what's going on their, Area 51 is the home of the secret recipe of Coca-Cola. :yep:

I agree, but that in no way argues for the existence of aliens who have visited Earth.

The fact is, the distance between us and our nearest interstellar neighbour is HUGE. A spacecraft travelling at the highest speeds we've been able to achieve in space would take over 50,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri. While I'm pretty sure aliens exist, the big question is whether they can get off their planet before the civilization is destroyed by an asteroid impact or other natural catastrophe. If they can, the odds are that they won't be able to get settled on a planet outside their solar system because the chances of finding a suitable planet and being able to reach it are very small indeed. The other thing is that any civilizations in the universe will tend to inhabit areas far away from a galactic hub, because when you place stars closer together it becomes less and less likely for any civilization to last long before some catastrophe destroys it. So the civilizations that may exist probably exist quite far from their neighbouring stars.

Beery, sure sofar there is no hard evidence known to me that we got visited already, but IMHO our main problem is that we look at it from our view and knowledge. As we know as futher away we go from the center of the universe as older the Stars get. We do know also that alot of Staers we see on our sky don't exist anymore cause of the Gigantic Distance, and we know what Einstein sayd about the travel with light speed. BUT is that realy so ???
Is there realy no Inteligent Species out there which is 1) much older then we and 2) they may have found around Einsteins Theory which we just haven't discoverd jet ??

When Jules Vernes did write his novels all his inventions where Fantasies THEN and now ???

We realy don't know what will happen in the next 100 Years just look at the developement of the PC, Car and Plains how far have they come in just 100 Years, so this timespann is in the Galactical view nothing.

How far would be a Race who has maybee 100'000 or even 1M Years more time to research ???

I belive that I and probably the most here never will find out what realy is out there.

IIRC the majority of star systems in this Galaxy are Binary system or bigger (Our good neighbors in the southern sky Alpha Centauri is a Triple Star System) so if advanced space faring life took root there its possible that even an extinction level event on their homeworld wouldn’t wipe them out since there is possibly a large number of planets and moons within their home system. Planets have been discovered within Trinary systems ('HD188753 Ab' the "Tatooine Planet" 149 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus for example). Even a “Distant� Star system out here in the Orion Arm is quite close Alpha Centauri is 4.25 ly, the closest planet yet discovered is 10.4 ly in Epsilon Eridani, HD 128311 54 ly away in the constellation Boötes has at least two planets b is about 1 AU from its star and c is 1.76 AU (sound familiar, Earth is 1 AU from Sol and Mars is 1.52 AU). If we could build a spacecraft that traveled at only 1/3rd of the Speed of Light it would take only 12 years to arrive at Alpha Centauri, there is a lot of systems in our reach. We went from LEO to the Moon in 20 years, "high" speeds like this aren't very far off if the world applied it's self.

Probably. The thing is, although we certainly don't know everything about physics, we do know a lot. We have already figured out loopholes whereby Einstein's theories can be bypassed or avoided, BUT they all require so much energy that they are for all intents and purposes impossible.

The fact that we don't know everything is not the same as saying that we know nothing. After all, we're a lot more advanced than we were 300 years ago, yet Newtonian physics are still fairly reliable. As scientific knowledge develops what we're doing is refining our physical understanding, so we're not really likely to find anything that radically changes our understanding of how the universe works. Our view is somewhat biased and our knowledge is finite, BUT that doesn't mean that our view is completely false or that our knowledge is zero. In 500 years we might have a unified theory of physics, but Einstein's theories will still be a good model, as will Newton's. Trust me, we're not going to suddenly find that we can make an engine that needs a few gallons of gasoline that can take us to Alpha Centauri and back within an hour or two. Such a journey is always going to take at least decades unless we can develop a warp drive that would require the energy of entire suns to power a single 4 light year warp.

Let me put it this way: we have more likelihood of getting people to Alpha Centauri by making them live long enough so that a 5000 year space journey is survivable, than we have by making a warp drive.

Jules Verne wrote his novels based on scientific knowledge that was current at the time. He knew that what he wrote about could be done. It was just a matter of time. When he wrote 20,000 Leagues the submarine was already a fact. He just wrote of a bigger one.

But these developments only came because of the serious application of the scientific method, which only really started in 1637 when Descartes wrote his Discourse on Method. The developments you cite came about because this gave scientists a base whereby they could weed out their own biases. This is why we know that our scientific knowledge is pretty good, and not open to vast flaws of the kind you suggest might exist. The advances in aircraft and the development of the PC all come from refinements in our knowledge and application of that knowledge. None of them came from sudden 'eureka' moments where whole new branches of physics were suddenly discovered that we didn't know about before.

In terms of research, not very much further. In terms of applications, quite far, but I seriously doubt that it would get them to Alpha Centauri in an hour as Star Wars spacecraft could. Such things are just not on the cards.

Problem with judging if we know a lot or only a little about physics is - we do not know the total, the complete, the ultimate, the final "physics" of the universe. We also cannot say if our knowledge, our mind interacts with the physics of the unioverse, and maybe changes them. We make assumptions on how it is there - but we do not kinow how it is there, as long as we haven'T been there. Knowing a lot, or a little: such a judgement depends on what we compare our knowledge level to. Maybe we already know a damn lot. Maybe we know close to nothing. We simply do not know that. Five hundred years ago, people thought they knew most of what is to be known. Five hundred years before, people thought they knew a lot as well. And before them, people did not thought different. If we tell someone from the medieval that we walk on the moon, we would be burned, maybe, for teaching black magic. Today, we say "quantum physics", or whatever, and again we think we know a lot. Do we? With every answer we found, more questions have appeared. It is an often used phrase, but what we have learned in the main is how - little we do know.

And why this obsession with linear space flight, flying at high speed from A to B? I'm sure that there are ways to get "there". I am also sure it will not be done by linear movement from "here" to "there".

And what use could it be if we recognize and understand that universe "out there" - without having a far more profound understanding of ourselves? Like it is today, spaceflight would only acchieve one thing: that we transport our mental deficits, psychological malfunctions, or short: all our troubles and earthly problems between the stars. And who ever may be there - maybe would not like to see an aggressive neurotic leaving his home and infesting his neighbourhood with his private issues.

If I were "them", I already would have set planet Earth under quarantine. Looking at tpday's world, we can hardly claim to have learned to use our biological assets to our and our planet'S best. Maybe some far away day in the future - if we avoid suicide that long.

Space travel. Nice and well. It is often said that we know more about the dark side of the moon, than about the deep sea below a level of let'S say 2000m. All we know that that place is far more alive and "hot" then was thought in previous decades. Maybe we start learning about our most existential living variables, before looking to join starship Enterprise. The technological challenge is as big. Some say it even is bigger.


While I am at it: german Top-bestseller "The swarm" by Frank Schätzing is about to be released in English language end of this month, says amazon.com. Currently reading it myself, and I am hooked. Concentrating on the navl environemnt, it is a mixture of mystery-thriller, scifi, suspense, adventure, ecology- and desaster-thriller. 1000 pages, mjam-mjam! Good fodder for holidays. It's the story of earth's seas turning against mankind, and nature taking revenge foruman ignoration towards his natural living sphere. Or is there something behind it all that alraedy starts to wage war against man...? Near the end, it really gets cataclysmic. That's why hollywood said it has started to turn it into a blockbuster-format movie. Oh, very living and precise characterizations opf protagonists. There are plenty of these, because once the dying begins, it does not stop for a long while :) There is also a lot of educational material on maritime life and naval geology.

Very good entertainment!

STEED loved UFO. :up:

TLAM, what are those pics from? Since I moved out to Europe kinda been out of the Star Trek thing...I know all of the Original and Next Gen, started into DS9 never really got into Voyager. Is that from DS9 and what is it??

Sure, but that's a HUGE 'if'. Do you realise the amount of fuel it would require to reach those speeds?

Yes they are. We went from the Earth to the moon using the exact same propulsion system that the earliest astronauts used, and the same speeds. We need an entirely different propulsion system to take us to the nearest stars - it's not just a matter of building a bigger or more powerful rocket. All the technologies that are envisaged today as actually possible only propel a spacecraft at very low sub-light speeds. That means it will take at least 40 years to get to Alpha Centauri. This is not just a matter of applying ourselves to the problem. The problem is one that, as far as we know, can't be solved. As far as we know (and as I said before, we know a lot) we can never go faster than light, and the only technologies that we know of can't realistically even approach light speed.

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/9...tacked24rv.jpg
The Breen attack on Starfleet Command from Season 7 of DS9.
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/1561/mrns019es.jpg
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/5770/33cd016bs.jpg
The MACOs (Military Assault Command Operations) of the Earth Military from Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3-4.

Yep grew up on UFO good show for it's time, or so met Ed Bishop back in the 1990's :up:

No, but like I said, we already have a good working model. We know it's fairly good because it can be used to accurately predict things that happen in the universe. It's not like we're just at the beginning of our knowledge of how the universe works. The thing is, you're assuming that the path of knowledge is a linear path. It isn't. There's a law of diminishing returns. You learn a lot at first, and then less and less as you go on. It's not like there's that much stuff left to play with. It's not like some new fuel will suddenly emerge, because we've seen a lot of what's out there, and we've seen how physics works in the universe and things just aren't doing what we need them to do in order to find that elusive power source that's going to get us to other stars in a short time scale.

"Fuel" is't important the real need is power. NASA's VASIMER requires only 100 kg of fuel to send a 10,000 kg space probe to Mars via a HTO compaired to 190,000 kg for a rocket, an Ion Thruster (A mission proven techonlgly) requires only 620 kg of fuel. VASIMER and Nuclear Electric Rockets are what you are going to be seeing in the decades to come. :yep:

40 Years to get to Alpha Centuri isn't something to shake a stick at! If they found a planet there I'd go to give my kids a chance at a life there!

That's fine, but speed is truly the real thing, and nothing can get us anywhere near the speed of light. 10% of lightspeed isn't even within our grasp yet, and may never be possible.

But 40 years definitely IS something to shake a stick at. If it was only the time spent in space it wouldn't be much of a problem. But you have problems of consumables storage and radiation to take into account. 40 years of solar radiation is not something to scoff at. The entire crew of an interstellar craft might be dead of radiation sickness within a decade.

But that is exactly what I mean, it'S like you say yourself: we have OUR working model. It matches our paradigms. For some old tribe, the world model of a schamanistic priest worked indeed - he even was able to be of help. He was able to influence the physical wellbeing of ill people. How - is something different. Interaction between his deeds, and his patient's mind, a thing of belief, placebo - whatever.

Our working model is science. For others it is some fundamentalistic interpretation of religion. what is science? It is much debated. Seing it from one of the perspectves that I personally prefer, radical constructivism, it means to take obervations and put them into an artificial order. If the ordering scheme changes, due to our way of looking at the world, so does the conclusions and relations we see between the obervations we make. It even can be that two paradigms work at the same time, but only on different levels. Newton physics do work - you can see that in every billiard match. Quantum phyasics work as well, but on a different level only. The one cannot be used to explain the observations on the level that the other paradigm fits well to describe.

Politics and economics also influence the way we see the world. Scienctific institutions more and more are object of getting sold to economical lobbies, means: business corporations. This changes their focus, their way to approach their field of research. the question "Why?" looses in importance, the question "How?" wins in importance. Understanding is replaced by how to help the paying industrial owner of that institute to reach his profit interests, and to supply him with the tools for a problem in the field of his business. You easily loose track of links and systems that way, and tend to focus on isolated details exclusively.

what I mean is simply this: science does not give us an objective, a final, an ultimate view of things, world, universe. Far the opposite: it is a highly subjective affair. Of course, a majority of scientist does not like to be told that. They see themselves as the priest of this new religion called "objectivity". the results of their work is not the final word. Becasue there is no such thing like objectivity. The observer determoines the outcome of the observation - by the simple fact of determening the situational variables, and by that: influencing the outcome. It is just our thinking patterns, our subjective and artifical way to bring our experinces into any kind of order. And we can create different sets of ordering structure by using the same categories - and then the same set of raw data suddenly has a completely different meaning and leads to different results.

The world is inside our heads. Star Trek needs to be accompanied by Mind Trek. But scientific exploration that is depending on getting financed by business and companies tends to ignore that.

Glasersfeld is such an exciting read!

No. It is independently verifiable. It's not subject to bias. The scientific method is based on observation and proved through CRITICAL review. While scientific theories may be dreamed up subjectively, the scientific method supplies the required objectivity. For example, the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun is not something that's subjective based on our point of view or biases. Although the theory may have been arrived at subjectively, the proof of it is objective. I agree that politics and commerce have their influence, as many scientists can affirm throughout the years, but the Earth still revolves around the Sun no matter how much the Catholic church (and other non-scientific influences) have disliked the fact in the past.

Non-scientific influences usually only govern WHAT gets studied. They no longer have influence on the results of the studies. Sure, that means that some things that should perhaps be studied don't get funding, but it's entirely wrong to suggest that these influences negate the entire progress.

As for religion, it applies no set of rules by which theories can be tested. No religious tenet was ever subjected to the kind of critical review that scientific theories are constantly subject to. To suggest that science is little more than a new religion, comparable to fundamentalist religion, is nonsense.

Independently...? But you are already depending on a system, an understanding of your human existence, in which the words "earth", "sun" and "revolving" have a predefined, subjective understanding. ;) If we would have been a highly technological civilization, but would live undersea, in an isolated cave without a sky above, the term "sun" and "planet revolving around it" wouldn't make sense. We even would not imagine it. Our living conditions, and our senses already massively influence the way we approach the universe. We focus on certain things, and completely miss others. If you still think i am off course, bind your eyes for one day so that you are simulating to be blind, and then go through that day for just 12 hours.

Or think in a sub-nuclear scale: the objects you speak of, for the most consist of nothing else but empty space, and like a handfull of dust particles inside an olymipc arena the incredibly small particles that are humming around in it even cannot and should not be imagined as hard, solid matter. We even cannot imagine what they really are, and if they are. They are abstract s for us only. We speak of probability clouds, of tendencies to exist and not to exist. So, depending if you look at it from a Newtonian perspective, or a subnuclear perspective, or even a spiritual one: we even cannot reach consensus on wether it is really two huge and massive and solid tennis balls, one revoling around each other, or if it is only empty space interacting with empty space - which we even cannot imagine. Liike billiard players we stick to the Newtonian pespective, becasue that way the oprder we have put our observation into allows us to do certain things. If things really are like they seem to us is something completely different. We do not deal with a last and final reality, but only our imagination of it.

The chinese term to name what we in the West call physics, is Wu-Li. This usually is translated as somehting like "dynamic patterns/structures of organic energy". Where in the West we associate hard physics with hard matter, in the widest sense. Our engineering comes at our minds immediately, somehow, again: "hard" constructing. Even this already is another approach already, caused by a different (cultural) approach on life and meaning, and leading to shifted focusses of attention.

We depend on our senses and their perceptions. But these perceptions are no proove at all for anything what we believe we "see". They only proove the action of our brain, and that they work like intended by their biological design.

I never was able to grab a Newton law, turn it in my hand, and look at it from different angles. It is a thinking pattern of mine only, not more. I stick to it, because it serves my purposes. If I would be a drifting jellyfish, having intelligence nevertheless, it probably wouldn't have any meaning for me, for I can't use tools, and do not push around things.

And here we cross the line to a neighbouring discipline of research: mind, and intelligence.

But it is late... :lol:

I close with a quote by the astro-physician Prof. Timothy Ferris (I translate back into English from my German script): "So we do not have the universe in front of us "(as object of our reasearch, he means)", which will always remain an eternal riddle, but a model of the universe that we can let appear inside our heads (to our liking). For all of us not the cosmos out there is the final object of reasearch, but it's dance with our mind." And Prof John Wheeler wrote in one of his books (my translation): "A phenomenon only then is a phenomenon, when it is an observed phenomenon." Old wisdom, but still very actual...

Really got to disagree with you Beery...I think it's the height of hubris to think we can know almost everything there is to know. Science may be self-critical and an excellent system for understanding nature but it is made by humans after all.

Skybird's last quote says it for me too.

Okay. But to say so is to underestimate the efficacy of the scientific method. Anyway my main point is that it's wrong to say that because we DON'T know absolutely everything, what we have learned is useless. That is, in effect what Skybird is saying. It's a recipe for faith-based science, and that's what led to the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials.

NO. Where have I said that? You twist my arguments here. I indicated exactly the opposite. I just said that science is a model in itself, too. I am a big propagator of logic, reason and sytematical and empirical research myself. But I do know that subject and object always, always interact and mutually influence each other. And this also has been written by far brighter minds than I am, too, since the 20th century (and even before!) I know that from psycvhology, from physics, from "physics-philosophy" (or however you want to call it, I direct to names like Heisenberg, Bohr, Einstein, and so many more). The way you look at something, no matter what, already defines (and limits) the range of probable outcomes. You cannot escape that as long as subject and object are two separates.

The last sentence on faith and witchcraft is bloody nonsens, completely, Nothing like that I said, nowhere. Don't connect me to those foolish words.