h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Not exactly, I agree that it is arrogant for someone to believe that life doesnt exist out there, but what if it is just plain impossible to communicate or travel that far in a reasonable time? How do you know these lifeforms dont run in some sort of super fast time. We as humans dont even full understand the concept of time sure time is motion, but that doesnt mean that it is constant, and that other lifeforms dont percieve it differently.


Lucas

Here's how light can have momentum: E=mc^2
If energy and mass are related, than anything with energy (eg, light) can be thought of as also having mass. It's sort of like a big continium, with one end "Pure energy" and the other "Pure mass". Everything that exists is between these two, albeit light is quite close to Pure Energy.

P.S. Just because time and space are variable doesn't mean that light speed, whose units are made up of time and space must be variable. Think of this equation: A / B = 100, where A and B are real numbers. A and B are variable, but A / B is not. in the same way, time and space can be variable, while space divided by time (ie, the speed of light) is not.

Another thing about those aliens. We are making the assumption that these creatures are and live in 3 dimensions. How do you know that they aren't multi-dimensional (like 5 dimensions) and live in a multi-dimensional universe and that it is possible to make things move faster than the speed of light? Maybe there is a completely different way to make things "move" in 5 dimensions.

~Tyler

I have two opinions on aliens: 1. They are entirely different from anything we expect, and 2. We will never meet them.
Here's my reasoning:
1. Everything about us is representitive of the location in which we evolved. Everything that makes us us is that way because we evolved on Earth. Even if aliens existed in the same number and type of dimentions that humans did, we probably wouldn't recognise them as life. And if they existed in a different number or type of dimentions then there's no telling if we would even recognise their presence. On a sidenote: Has anyone out there read the short story "Flatland" by Edwin A. Abbott? It's about a guy who lives in a two-dimentional world (actually, three -- two of space, and one of time). He is then visited by a inhabitant of the three-dimentional world (actually four, but you know the drill). At one point our two-dimentional friend tries to convince the three-dimentional entity than there must be a fourth (spacial) dimention. While other beings may live with four or more spacial dimentions, there is no point in us arguing what physical laws would apply to them.

2. To claim that humanity is the only form of life in existance would be ethnocentricism of the highest degree. While the universe may be finite, it is, in the words of a book I once read, "pretty damn big". There must be other life forms. However, realistically speaking, they exist so far away that we will never get an impression of their existance. Discounting the ones with extra dimentions, they are bound by the same laws that keep us from exceeding the speed of light. They will never build spaceships capable of reaching us. So sleep easily, knowing that aliens will not abduct you

I have to agree on most counts, though how do you know that some of the life on our planet right now have not come from another one. How do you know we didn't? You don't, there is no way possible to prove, or disprove anything. Everything is totally chaotic, we live in a universe where molecules can spontaneously just change location, without passing through the space in between the two points. Anything can happen.


Lucas

Action at a distance is a fact of particle physics actually, and has been since it was measured experimentally by Aspect's team in 1982 (and several times since then, I understand). These kinds of experiments are kept out of the scientific mainstream for the same reason that the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept out of the Christian mainstream.. ie noone wants to think too hard about something that might screw up their carefully established status quo belief system.

That being said, I just wanted to point out that you have about as much of a chance of moving at light speed as you would have of emerging from a black hole.

I don't think it is possible to move at light speed. But it IS possible to be in one spot, and then be in another spot "x" distance away, without passing though every point in between. It happens in fusion, it also happens in all atoms, electrons do this.


Lucas

You´re right, anything could happen. However, it is most realistic to think that, while we could have alien origins, we probably don´t.

Well here is some reality for yah.

Earth has a 24 hour per day cycle right? Right. Now if you take a human and put it into total seclusion, and I mean total seclusion. No light, no tv, no human or animal contact, nothing. The person will, after a week or two, begin to live on a 25 hour per day cycle.

Isn't that odd? Why would a human, who is of this planet, not live with a 24 hour per day cycle? All of the animals on the planet do, so why not us??? Hmmm, I wonder...

BUT WAIT! There's more Johnny!

Now is it a coincidence that Mars runs on a 25 hour per day cycle (give or take a couple of minutes)??? What about this other coincidence, which is that they have found preserved life forms in the ice of the antartic. Life forms which are not from Terra but are from Mars. Hmmmm.... nice coincidence's eh?

Reality! Everyone lives in thier own little reality. No one lives in the same however, which makes it sorta hard to talk about reality. Reality, to quote a great Jedi Knight, depends on a certain point of view. The problem though is that those points of view come from different realities and often get mixed up and mumbled. Sort of a catch 22 eh?

But enough of that! I gotta be taking off, realisticly speaking though I could get into the whole Human egocentric complex and how they think that they are the SH1T, even though they are one of the most pathetic lifeforms on our planet (or any other for that matter). But I won't! If you want to hear about it, just ask in a reply! (It's quite eye-opening!) You could even hear my whole philosophies on women's and any type of people's rights! (Another good one!) So if anyone wants to get some good disscusions going, give me a ring!
Ciao!

~Tyler "Wierd guy with wierd ideas dude" Sabourin ":^)

Play it again sam...


Lucas

It's not "Play it again Sam"!!!! The quote is "Play it Sam"!!!!
There is no "again" in the qoute!
Humphrey Bogart (i think thats how you spell his name) would never say something as dumb as "play it again Sam".

Humphrey Bogart is the man, just like Charlotn Heston!

"Get your hands off of me you DAMN DIRTY APES!!!"

Oh yah, this isn't Tikan, this is Slade.
So until next time, Ciao!

"IT'S A MAD HOUSE!!!!!!!!!"

I agree that there is nothing special about light as fare as speed goes.I think we must start thinking in a different way about speed,time and distance,in space and stop being silly resticting ourselves with an ultimate speed restriction.
30 miles per hour,100 mph,1000 mph,186000mps,?
None of this matters when you are in space,just imagine your arrival time and then think of a way to acheve it.

I agree that time may be perceived differently by other life formes,as it differs with other creatures on this planet,
Some insects live in a completly different time frame,with a life span in hours,but they still live a full life.

Wel, I wouldn't exactly call it "full", since as far as we know insects aren't sentient, but I do agree that time (and space) may be more relative tham modern scientific conventions give credit for.

For example, separate KGB and CIA experiments conducted in the 1970's proved the existance of some psychic phenonema, including remote viewing, clarivoyance, telekenesis, and limited precognition. "Conventional" science claims these things as impossible, usually by asking, "Where does the energy for these events come from?", but I think that we simply haven't discovered the source of energy. I believe that the cause of these proven mental powers is that we are, on a mostly-subconcious level, aware of more dimentions than merely the four we commonly perceive with physical senses. For whatever biological or other reasons, some people can reach into these other dimentions of awareness relaively easily, while others have no perception of them whatsoever. Just like muscal apititude: some people can compose at age ten and others couldn't get in tune with a slide whistle for their whole lives.

I think these abilities extend to time as well. Have you ever had the sensation that time is moving very quickly for you-- that you can do something much faster than normal on occasion? Sometimes I get that feeling when I'm reading: I'll be reading for about two or three minutes, then check back and realize that I just went through fifteen pages of the book. That could just as easily be getting "in the zone" as it could be unconcious time manipulation, but I'll betcha anything that it's never been studied.

Something to ponder.
Now I wouldn't ever claim to understand this but what do you think?
My suggestion to work out the ultimate speed of physical things is:
Run the caesium clock experiment many times starting with slowest aircraft up to the fastest available.
By measuring the time dilation effect you could extrapolate the velocity at which time would halt. Therefore you could calculate the maximum speed of physical things.
I realise this has big holes (like the difference in time dilation at the speeds we can create are almost too small to measure) but does anyone see anything wrong with the principle?

I believe that makes sense, basicly a ratio between all of the different speeds, and you should eventually calculate it, if you have exact values.



Lucas

Smashing
Anyone own a lot of planes and really good stopwatch?

with regards to the newspaper report.... we may or our instruments may have percieved that the light was in more than one place at once or even in one place before it was in the other (I only scanned the post) but surely anyone can see that that doesnt mean the light time travelled in anyway as wang or whoever ascerts, we just saw it in more than one place at the same time, doesn't mean it was in more than one place at the same time. Times constant unless you leave it behind and head off for some more time somewhere else?

Yeah.

Scientists found that they couldn't go faster than the speed of light, so they increased the speed of light to let them do what they wanted...

Light has momentum because it DOES have a mass. E=Mc^2 proves that energy is matter, this might not be true, but can you prove it wrong?
It should be possible for the speed of light to be broken, because, if the speed of light is the maximum and therefore infinite, it would have infinite momentum. This would mean that it would go through anything (which it may do on the quantum level). If the speed of light is infinite, the existence of the universe can be discounted(time dilation etc.), so it musnt be the maximum speed. There is no maximum speed.