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SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence): Compendium / Miscellaneous

No, quite the opposite. I think that beamed propulsion (not solar sails, which do not use beams, but rely on ambient sunlight) may be the most realistic option for interstellar travel. Warp drive and wormholes almost certainly do not exist, or if they do, they are of marginal utility; but beamed production could carry data and resources from star A to star B without any imponderable technological advances. They are a brute-force method of transport, but significantly more efficient than rocketry.

I expect we'll be using some sort of beamed propulsion within the next 200 years; getting to the stars would be just a matter of scaling up.
 
l. Warp drive and wormholes almost certainly do not exist, or if they do, they are of marginal utility;

Says who....current scientific knowledge...?
200 years ago we were still riding horses...and 100 years ago we just invented the automobile. My point is that perhaps we understand little about the true nature of what is possible. I suspect we will be doing all manner of things in the future that we think are impossible now.
Since this is all speculation anyway....maybe we shouldn't be so dogmatic about what might be possible in the future.
Just food for thought.
:)
 
...but beamed production could carry data and resources from star A to star B without any imponderable technological advances ..

What form of resources did you have in mind ?

Dr wu,

..I suspect we will be doing all manner of things in the future that we think are impossible now. ..

If we are not still bogged down with social problems.

INT21.
 
...ps: I watched the first 2 seasons of Death years ago. ..

I take it we are talking about the same drama ?

I ask this because you live in Indiana. The program is quintesentially English even though it is set on a Caribbean island.

INT21.
 
...ps: I watched the first 2 seasons of Death years ago. ..

I take it we are talking about the same drama ?

I ask this because you live in Indiana. The program is quintesentially English even though it is set on a Caribbean island.

INT21.
Same show...watched the first 2 seasons....I have watched a lot of Brit tv shows over the years. The original detective seemed more serious etc and the later younger looking one was more comedic...at that point I stopped watching it.
 
You are missing nothing with the new series.

Danny John-Jules is out, so no more Dwayne.
A replacement is due. i was wondering if 'Humphrey' or .Camille. would come back. No.

So O'Hanlon is still cop cop. (replaced Humphrey in third series).

Ben Miller, who took Inspector Richard Poole, was actually a physics graduate before the took up comedy. So you'r right , he was a serious guy.

INT21.
 
I liked Ben Miller as the original detective on that island...I wished he had done it longer. He was like a fish out of water and I liked that contrast.
 
I didn't start watching it until the second series, so I had to go back to see how Inspector Poole came to be there.

But now they are bringing the Commissioner's niece into the show.

So we will see.

INT21.
 
...but beamed production could carry data and resources from star A to star B without any imponderable technological advances ..

What form of resources did you have in mind ?
The most valuable resource would be human minds (and human bodies as well if necessary).
 
Says who....current scientific knowledge...?
200 years ago we were still riding horses...and 100 years ago we just invented the automobile. My point is that perhaps we understand little about the true nature of what is possible. I suspect we will be doing all manner of things in the future that we think are impossible now.
Since this is all speculation anyway....maybe we shouldn't be so dogmatic about what might be possible in the future.
Just food for thought.
:)
Well, I want warp drive and wormholes to work as well, but this is just wishful thinking. There is plenty of theory concerning these concepts, but most of the theory suggests that they are impractical. We've all been trained by pulp science fiction to think that they would work, when there is very little basis in reality for this.
 
Says who....current scientific knowledge...?
200 years ago we were still riding horses...and 100 years ago we just invented the automobile. My point is that perhaps we understand little about the true nature of what is possible. I suspect we will be doing all manner of things in the future that we think are impossible now.
Since this is all speculation anyway....maybe we shouldn't be so dogmatic about what might be possible in the future.
Just food for thought.
:)

This.

We are ignorant of much. We can say that "X seems impractical or impossible" as long as we also say "based upon current knowledge".
 
Well, I want warp drive and wormholes to work as well, but this is just wishful thinking. There is plenty of theory concerning these concepts, but most of the theory suggests that they are impractical. We've all been trained by pulp science fiction to think that they would work, when there is very little basis in reality for this.
Based on our current level of ability.....it's unknown what we might be able to do 200 years from now.
 
Trouble is, the tendency is for things to go the other way. 200 years ago, we only knew about Newtonian mechanics; in that paradigm, the speed of light is no more of a barrier than the speed of sound. Now we know that we can't accelerate past c, and we can't even approach c without expending an exponential amount of energy.

In 200 years time the situation might be worse, not better. Wormhole travel might even be slower than travel in normal space (as Greg Egan has suggested).
 
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Says who....current scientific knowledge...?
200 years ago we were still riding horses...and 100 years ago we just invented the automobile. My point is that perhaps we understand little about the true nature of what is possible. I suspect we will be doing all manner of things in the future that we think are impossible now.
Since this is all speculation anyway....maybe we shouldn't be so dogmatic about what might be possible in the future.
Just food for thought.
:)

yes but that is speculation. In a 100 years we could have engines powered by doughnuts.
 
yes but that is speculation. In a 100 years we could have engines powered by doughnuts.
Yes..and that was my point....we have no idea what type of tech we will have in the future.
We might be able to do all manner of cool things or we might end up back in the stone age.
 
..In a 100 years we could have engines powered by doughnuts...

Nice to see that radical scientific speculation is alive and well

I have a feeling that something a bit more 'off the wall' than doughnuts will be required.

INT21
 
Same show...watched the first 2 seasons....I have watched a lot of Brit tv shows over the years. The original detective seemed more serious etc and the later younger looking one was more comedic...at that point I stopped watching it.
I lost interest in it when Sara Martin's left the show... strange that.
 
Trouble is, the tendency is for things to go the other way. 200 years ago, we only knew about Newtonian mechanics; in that paradigm, the speed of light is no more of a barrier than the speed of sound. Now we know that we can't accelerate past c, and we can't even approach c without expending an exponential amount of energy.

In 200 years time the situation might be worse, not better. Wormhole travel might even be slower than travel in normal space (as Greg Egan has suggested).
I suspect we'll still be discussing how best to explore extrasolar space, and perhaps just as fruitlessly, long after we've begun colonizing the solar system, which has plenty of space and resources for us for some time to come. I imagine that's where our technological advances will continue to take us further, rather than giving us interstellar capability.
 
Couldn't place her. Just looked her up. I wouldn't have recognised her as Camille if the notes hadn't said it was so.

INT21.
 
..I imagine that's where our technological advances will continue to take us further, rather than giving us interstellar capability. ..

When it becomes as common place to get on a craft to Mars as it is to take a normal air travel flight then we may want to think about the 'long haul' business.

Let's get to Mars first.

INT21.
 
Are tokamaks related to Big Macs ?

INT21.
 
Now we know that we can't accelerate past c

We know no such thing. To make such an assumption is hubristic.

In this context, we only know that our current understanding of physics does not allow us to to do it and that we cannot currently see a feasible way of doing it. But to extrapolate that current lack of knowledge into saying that it is utterly impossible to accelerate an object to greater that light speed[1] is both unscientific and short-sighted.

We simply do not know enough, not even remotely enough, to realistically make a claim that "we can't accelerate past c", other than in the limited context of current knowledge.

In 200 years time the situation might be worse, not better. Wormhole travel might even be slower than travel in normal space (as Greg Egan has suggested).

<shrug> Who knows. It's the future. We don't know what we don't know.



Footnote:-
1: Or perhaps find some other way to move an object that results in a net displacement that would otherwise have required greater than light speed travel.
 
We know no such thing. To make such an assumption is hubristic.

In this context, we only know that our current understanding of physics does not allow us to to do it and that we cannot currently see a feasible way of doing it. But to extrapolate that current lack of knowledge into saying that it is utterly impossible to accelerate an object to greater that light speed[1] is both unscientific and short-sighted.

We simply do not know enough, not even remotely enough, to realistically make a claim that "we can't accelerate past c", other than in the limited context of current knowledge.
But, and it should be stated, it may not be possible and then all speculation about such interstellar travel, seeded by hand-wavy sci-fi talk of 'warping' and 'jump gates', et al, becomes just a wish.
 
But, and it should be stated, it may not be possible and then all speculation about such interstellar travel, seeded by hand-wavy sci-fi talk of 'warping' and 'jump gates', et al, becomes just a wish.

I agree.

But what of it?

All aspects of the future are a wish. Nothing (in terms of discovery and technology) is real unless or until we make it real.

The key thing, of course, is not to count something out as a possibility unless you know that it is truly impossible and, currently, we definitely know no such thing.
 
..I imagine that's where our technological advances will continue to take us further, rather than giving us interstellar capability. ..

When it becomes as common place to get on a craft to Mars as it is to take a normal air travel flight then we may want to think about the 'long haul' business.

Let's get to Mars first.

INT21.
I just doubt there's much value in travelling somewhere so distant and impractical to reach as, for example, Proxima Centauri, when there's unlikely to be anything there we can't find within the Solar System. Obviously we'll send probes when it's fairly cheap, knowing we'll get no data from them for many years. But, basically, if we develop the tech to travel to other star systems, we'll also likely have the tech to expand and colonise the empty space between our own system's planets, as well as its other planets, and for that matter the more uninhabitable parts of Earth (mountain tops, deserts, the surfaces and perhaps even depths of oceans). I suppose I see a Solar System of the future as being far more vibrant and varied.
 
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