Do You Believe In Any Of The Following?

[naomi24]

A survey of 2,000 British adults was commissioned to mark the launch of the new TV series ‘Believe’. The poll asked respondents about their beliefs as well as superstitions that still hold sway in 2014, with the following results:

Top 10 Beliefs in Unexplained Phenomena:

1 - Ghosts (33%)
2 - Sixth sense (32%)
3 - UFOs (22%)
4 - Past lives (19%)
5 - Telepathy (18%)
6 - Psychic ability to predict the future (18%)
7 - Psychic healing (16%)
8 - Astrology (10%)
9 - Bermuda Triangle (9%)
10 - Demons (8%)

http://watch.uktv.co.uk/believe/article/do-you-believe/

[ToraToraTora]

jim, impressive posts, but forget interstellar travel I don't think we'll even be able to talk on the phone!

[RATTER15]

Naomi being nasty, I cant believe that!!!

[Svejk]

dont know what we're 'allowed' to say. but i'm astounded naomi. ;o)

[naomi24]

You can, Ratter. The evidence has been removed, but you've been told. ;o)

[naomi24]

Svejk, :o)

[RATTER15]

Lol Naomi, you have lost your chance of going to heaven now!!

[naomi24]

Tilly, movies like 'The Sixth Sense' give me the creeps too.

[naomi24]

Ratter, haaaa! How funny! That was never an expectation. ;o)

[jim360]

As I explained earlier, the amount of energy required is far from superfluous. The point is that no matter the energy source, its output has to provide at least the kinetic energy required to shift the spaceship, and probably rather more, since there's no guarantee that either the fuel needed will be light enough to ignore, or that you only need to input the energy once: inevitably, the spaceship will show down over a journey of this length, or you would need to make various course corrections.

Thus, calculating the required energy will give some idea of what must be achieved. And the answer? An energy output equivalent to the output of small stars. That would be a fantastic achievement, perhaps not totally impossible but certainly utterly stupendous. And this is the problem we would have to overcome if we wanted to explore other star systems -- and, likewise, what aliens would have to overcome in order to visit us.

It's not negligible, it's not something that can be dismissed, or ignored, or overlooked -- this is a real barrier to interstellar travel, and rather a lot harder to cross than any other barrier to speed or development that has ever been encountered. On the other hand, acknowledging the scale of the task involved is the first step on the road to overcoming it.

[naomi24]

jim, //As I explained earlier, the amount of energy required is far from superfluous. //

How can I put this? Again, you don't appear to have read what I said.

[jim360]

Do you mean when you said this?

"The premise - that you seem to have ignored - is that inter-stellar space travel will be fuelled by hitherto unknown sources of energy..."

I've not ignored it. A new source of energy would make it easier to achieve the amount of energy required, but it would not change that required amount of energy. All calculations I have done are entirely independent of how the spacecraft reached the speed it did, and start after it got to that speed -- in other words, after it made use of any new, or existing, source of energy. No need to say anything about where the energy came from. Merely how much is needed.

[naomi24]

jim, if the yet to be discovered source of that energy produces it simply and in adequate quantities, as Hawking thinks it will, the problem is solved, so anything relating to the limitations of today’s technology, which is what you are talking about, will be obsolete. Now, can we move on to another subject?

[ToraToraTora]

I think what Naomi is saying that in the future we may discover ways of travel and communication that allow instant connection to distant parts of the galaxy or indeed even cross galaxies, using some sort of "stargate" type portal. Short of that I stick by what I said, the current speed limit is just too slow and as I've said even if we could go faster than light by a factor of 10000, it would stilll be too slow. Therefore I rule it out because we'd need to make discoveries that would rewrite physics. I just don't buy it. yes yes I know the old arguments, if a cave man saw a light bulb he'd think it was magic, etc etc, but we have reached a level of understanding in physics where advancement is painfully slow. It took half a century to confirm the higgs existed. So I stick by my original assertion, aliens exist, we will never have contact.

[jim360]

Thanks by the way Tora for the supportive post you made earlier. Much appreciated.

"Therefore I rule it out because we'd need to make discoveries that would rewrite physics. I just don't buy it."

Indeed, there's the rub. Modern physics might well have to be spectacularly -- entirely -- wrong, in order for at least some of the ideas proposed to be anything other than theoretical curiosities. The idea exists, for example, of wormholes that would allow a relatively speedy transport from one point to another without breaking any form of limit. Unfortunately, the energy involved in what is essentially tearing a hole in the Universe is rather a lot more than that I suggested we needed for a more direct approach, so that's probably not going to lead very far either!

One of the as-yet unsung consequences of the paper that I cited in another thread, that would appear to confirm Inflation Theory, is that it essentially establishes that our understanding of Physics is right, not just here and now, but everywhere in the Universe and for almost its entire history, except maybe the first fraction of a second when something's certainly missing. In that context it would be surprising, to say the least, if we were utterly wrong about how Relativity works after all, or perhaps if the Laws of Physics suddenly change in the near future in a way that would make my calculations wildly pessimistic. As it is I'm fairly sure it's wildly optimistic to assume that you would need "only" 1000 times as much energy as the entire World consumed in 2010, focused into a single burst of maybe a few seconds and utilised with about 100% efficiency.

Still, just because I don't think we'll be able to succeed doesn't mean I don't think we should try. And given how incredibly exciting it would be to be able to interact with another species from an entirely different planet, I'd love to be wrong.

[jomifl]

/And given how incredibly exciting it would be to be able to interact with another species from an entirely different planet /..as in 'be annihilated by'?

[naomi24]

TTT, //I think what Naomi is saying that in the future we may discover ways of travel and communication that allow instant connection to distant parts of the galaxy or indeed even cross galaxies, using some sort of "stargate" type portal.//

I’m not.

//I've said even if we could go faster than light by a factor of 10000, it would stilll be too slow. //

Again you’re assuming the outer reaches of the universe.

Jom, //as in 'be annihilated by'?//

Back to Hawking …. he thinks that’s a distinct possibility. 

[ToraToraTora]

No I'm not talking about the outer reaches of the universe, as I said repeatedly above, the limit is too slow for commnication even to closest star system. Did you read my post above about the phone call to Alpha centauri? Even if I knew someone was there it would take 7hours to say hi at 10000c. Even if we could get a radio beam powerful enough. Jim's eloquent explanations above about interstellar travel are one thing, I don't think we'd ever have the energy to even get a radio beam to go on an 8 light year round trip let alone a space ship, and that is local.

If you are not talking about some sort of "stargate" device would you explain how you envisage interstellar travel/communication would/could work in the future?

[naomi24]

TTT, We're not talking about radio communication - that's something entirely different. Stephen Hawking who is far better qualified than any of us to speculate on this subject has explained how he thinks inter-stellar travel might work, but you're not listening.

[ToraToraTora]

I've not seen an explanation, please share.

[ToraToraTora]

I've found this:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/we-must-travel-to-the-stars-to-save-the-human-race-says-hawking-426557.html
But he's talking about star trek warp speed etc using matter/ anti matter as an energy source. I maintain that even if we get FTL travel*N it's still too slow.