Why are we assuming aliens use money Seth? They may share resources and have some type of techno communism that allowed them to travel space. A senior astronomer? He’s an administrative government spokesman who probably hasn’t scienced in years.
Why are we assuming they use rockets, when no UAP ever has functioned even remotely like a rocket?
At some point these interviews sound intentionally stupid
in this context, “money” is just a placeholder for concentrated, organized effort. its fine to speculate on what an advanced society is capable of, but extraordinary claims still require extaordinary evidence and we have none. as far as we know, even hypothetical aliens still have to obey the known laws of physics.
I understand what you mean, I thing the Kardashev scale is useful to put it in a perspective beyond dollars or even workhours.
extaordinary evidence and we have none.
None that we, the public, are aware of. Whether or not one consider a cover-up plausible is a bigger discussion. According to the latest whispers shouts in Washington, there’s quite a lot more. What’s your impression of Grusch, the UFO whistleblower?
aliens still have to obey the known laws of physics.
I absolutely agree. But maybe we have a differing point of view on our knowledge… Would you say that we understand the universe to the point where we can exclude any significant further discoveries that would transform our understanding of physics?
I personally believe that IF UAPs indeed represent extraterrestrial life, they are likely so advanced that energy probably holds no monetary value for them at this stage. There is so much energy in the universe; perhaps they’ve reached a point where they can harness any amount of energy whenever they wish.
There’s still an anomalous area in space that’s been hypothesized to be a Dyson Swarm, so, you never know maybe they came from there.
The Us Navy patented a device involving microwaves between two sheets of nickel or something. The device (according to the patent) produces about as much power as 100 hydrogen bomb explosions per second.
That’s very interesting. If you’re able to find a link to the patent, be sure to share it!
I don’t understand his reasoning.
Once a civilization is thriving in space, materials are practically infinite, and self building factories mean that the only budget is time.
Personally I think that the great filter is surviving the pollution and climate destruction from a civilization’s industrial revolution. And that very few civs make it past that to thrive in space. So we may get a big space faring civ every 10 million years or so, and we don’t know whether a civ would stay as a space farer forever.
Unless there really is a whole field of physics that we haven’t touched yet. If that’s the case, all bets are off.
I personally believe there might be many “great filters” and we are simply at the filter between terrestrial and local space life. I feel like there would be another great filter between local space and interstellar space. There could even be another filter to access higher dimensions. This is purely speculation, but it’s something I enjoy pondering.
Unless there really is a whole field of physics that we haven’t touched yet. If that’s the case, all bets are off.
I’m not a physicist, but it seems like we have the basic building blocks. It’s clear we’re missing a significant piece of the puzzle given that we’re still unable to reconcile the physics of the very large (general relativity) with the physics of the very small (quantum mechanics). If I were a betting man, I’d place my chips on the notion that we only understand a small fraction of the nature of our reality and the rules that govern it.
Each time we pass a filter, we have to invent a new filter to explain the Fermi Paradox.
An unbelievably fast rocket? Seriously? We don’t really know how we’re going to get to other stars but one thing is for sure: it will not be with rockets.
We don’t have any other workable idea, and there doesn’t appear to be enough physics we don’t know to allow for anything else
You know, Max Planck was told not to pursue physics because there wasn’t much left to discover anyways. By a physics professor. 150 years ago.
You’re statement is based on incomplete knowledge. There is now way to know how much there’s left to know.
Believing that everything that needs to be known is totalitarian by definition.
Once truth becomes a known quantity, Correct Action becomes objectively calculable, and non-compliance to the Correct Action is seen as completely devoid of value.
This is why totalitarianism tends to become dictatorship.
Quantum theory was born of people filling in the corners of what was believed to be a complete physics.
there doesn’t appear to be enough physics we don’t know to allow for anything else
until we do! (my admission that we hopefully have so much more to discover).
however, the issue at hand is the here and now. we have theroms that describe what we know to be theoretically possible - but those are far and away from what we think is possible now, e.g. LK-99… AFAIK, there is nothing that says we cant have RT/AP superconductivity, but did we really just make a breakthrough?! (hopeful, fawning sounds)
we do still have to deal in what we currently think of as “reality” and things like FTL and the tech required for alien visitation are way outside of our current understanding - to the point of being magic. surely no one should accept “magic” as an answer to a serious question on possible alien visitation.
He does casually brush it off, and money isn’t a scientific reason to dismiss anything. I’m skeptical too, but this was a terrible approach.
Money represents effort and resources, so while it is worded flippant it is a valid point that we shouldn’t assume interplanetary flight is just a weekend away for aliens.
We don’t know the conditions on that theoretical alien world. They could be post-scarcity, or alternatively, they could be threatened to the extent that no cost is too high.
I always hate when scientists don’t have an open mind to the fact that we don’t know all the truths to the universe. Everything in his statement is biased to human culture and grasp of science. I think an important part of researching phenomenon like this is to think outside standard conventions.
That’s also my concern. I question the basis of his reasoning, especially his use of terms like “rockets” and “money”. He’s viewing the situation through a very human lens, which is understandable. However, this results in a very “this is unlikely because I haven’t seen it before” approach to reasoning.
Scientists do have an open mind. However it is only open to things that don’t contradict existing experimental results. Relativity stands up well to experiments, so anything that replaces it will still be very similar.
And how does a “really powerful rocket” counteract experimental results?
All you need for interstellar travel without breakthroughs in physics is the ability to sustain a self contained ecosystem in your craft.
Humanity already has plans to send probes to Alpha Centauri, and the only technological price of that puzzle that’s missing is thinner solar sail material.