UFO Evidence From SOHO Satellite 892
Anonymous Coward writes "EuroSeti is set to reveal during the week of Jan 24-27 National Space Centre in Leicester, UK scientifically sound and verifiable evidence based on observations taken by the SOHO satellite and other satellites that indicate UFOs are present within our solar system. For the past two years, hundreds of extraordinary UFO-like images have been gleaned by a Spanish-based team using two space-based satellites. NASA initially tried to explain the images away as pixel faults, passing meteors or asteroids, etc., but when a European-led consortium presented them with images that clearly were none of the aforementioned, they 'clamped up.'"
Who knew (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Who knew (Score:5, Interesting)
Supposing this isn't some stupid scam, there's no doubt a simple explaination for what they've seen. They just probably aren't skilled enough to explain it, so their imaginations are running wild.
Re:Who knew (Score:4, Funny)
And how do we know that you, my friend, are not part of the conspiracy to cover this up?
(/me puts on a tinfoil hat on to protect themself from the programming rays put out by the government that they learned to produce from the Du'horti that they learned from the Ma'khal that they learned from the J'dar that are really in control of us all!)
Re:Who knew (Score:5, Funny)
The conspiracy to cover it up involved the DoS attack aka being slashdotted. The boys in the black jackets knew that no one of slashdot would accept the aliens because they used a closed non-open source computing environment and that it had already been done in Star Trek and X-Files. Plus they are all too hard for regular people to understand anyway. Then the UFO site goes down under the load and the government conspiracy can get back to doing trilateral control of the oil reserves.
Re: Mind Control Lasers vs. Tin Foil technology (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks to recent advances in technology mind control lasers have never before been as safe and as effective as they are today. Insights from confidential sources have allowed us to make past limitations in our systems obsolete. Now mind control lasering technology relies on non-material interference bands and goes directly into each subject regardless of most terrestrial technologies jamming efforts.
Please cease your
Thank you,
They
Re:Who knew (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe an alian race has an unusually easy to pronounce name. Like "Bob" or "people of Bob"
Re:Who knew (Score:4, Insightful)
You have just got to laugh - the alternatives aren't good
I'm not being insensitive- I've spent half my laugh in a mental hospital..
Re:Who knew (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Who knew (Score:3, Insightful)
When UFO's Attack! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait, they already did...
Let's hope they come soon. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Let's hope they come soon. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:When UFO's Attack! (Score:5, Funny)
Just remember guys, a few things we know about these aliens so far: They're VERY susceptible to dying from earth based bacteria (War of the Worlds), their computers can be interfaced via Macintosh computers.. although I'm afraid we'll need to use OS9 or Classic mode to do that since they aren't advanced enough to use a BSD kernel yet (Independence Day), and water is deadly to them! (Signs) Remember this when they start invading guys.
Re:When UFO's Attack! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:When UFO's Attack! (Score:5, Funny)
A Mac, of course... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:A Mac, of course... (Score:4, Funny)
Unless Alien hardware developers are more open with their driver specs
Re:How does the virus work? (Score:4, Funny)
1)Completely different CPU instruction sets
2)They probably have some form of network security.
3)Even us stupid human sysops know that you don't just run any old program that you get off the network. You verify that the person who gave you the program is trustworthy, then you verify that the program itself doesn't do anything bad by running it on a standalone system.
4)The only way to get their computers to run our code would be to root their OS.
5)Of course, we wouldn't know anything about their OS. And since they're aliens, they probably use EBCDIC instead of ASCII
Another UFO... (Score:3, Funny)
hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Look, Chief... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:hmm (Score:3, Funny)
yet another business plan?.. (Score:5, Funny)
2. Release CD
3. ???..
4. Profit!
Re:yet another business plan?.. (Score:5, Funny)
2. Release CD
3. ???..
4. Profit!
Apparently,
3. Get linked to slashdot
Re:yet another business plan?.. (Score:5, Funny)
But if they're REALLY lucky, CmdrTaco will read about it and post it again in a couple of hours!
Id love to believe this but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Id love to believe this but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Science as a belief system (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best. (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you trust the source?
If a professor at Cal-Tech released this, I would be midly interested. If it was then further verfied by a research team from the University of Arizona and then later by another team from a Sweedish University, then I would consider it pretty legit.
Now, if you have the resources, the training and capability to validate claims yourself then by all means go ahead. As for me, I use my "BS detector" to the best of my ability but in the end I know where my shortcomings are and in these areas defer to the experts.
Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because evidence that appears on its face to be strong yet comes from a completely incredible (i.e., not credible) source can usually dismissed without further examination. It's a time-saver.
We use this technique all the time here on Slashdot. Remember all those Microsoft press releases about how Windows is more secure than UNIX? Because Microsoft released them, or funded the company that released them, we don't even bother to try to refute them. They're obviously not objective. Same thing here. When a UFO nut says, "Satellite detects UFO!" it's not even worth reading the article.
Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best. (Score:3, Funny)
This is a techniques which the shadow government use to keep there work secret.
They mix facts with fiction and release it trough a not credible source.
The most used source is Hollywood.
You can find clues about real projects in films/series like.
X-files
7 days
Stargate.
MIB
Re:Shoddy Thinking at it's best. (Score:4, Insightful)
Once this has been verified by some more reputable sources, I'll be interested, and it'll be worth posting on slashdot. I know this place is a fringe site as it is but there's no reason to go THIS far off the path of reason.
Why (Score:5, Insightful)
A "UFO" is just an unidentified flying object. Anything whizzing through the air that I can't identify is a "UFO", whether or not it has anything to do with spacecraft from another world.
Re:Why (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah; I just saw a UFO out of my window here. It landed in a nearby tree. It was probably either a sparrow or a downy woodpecker, both of which are fairly common in this neighborhood. But it's getting dark, and the critter was too far away to identify clearly.
So it was definitely a UFO.
Re:Why (Score:5, Funny)
-- Calvin
They will land (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, they're coming (Score:5, Funny)
Can anyone prove the web-site exists? (Score:5, Funny)
Grrr...not even pseudo-science - an advertisement! (Score:5, Insightful)
This article exemplifies the growing problem of apathy amongst the editorial staff of Slashdot. I'm disappointed, too, because I like this place.
Woops they are gone already! (Score:3, Funny)
Dark Helmet: "No, no, no, Light Speed is too slow."
Colonel: "Light Speed too slow?"
Dark Helmet: "Yes. We're going to have to go right to...Ludicrous Speed!"
Profile (Score:5, Funny)
ufo conspiracy garbage (Score:4, Insightful)
So they found some satellite images with some objects (asteroids / space debris) that hadn't yet been named / catalogued as it only showed up in a tiny mesh of 4x4 pixels before it crashed into the sun. Because of lossy image compression artifacts they think it looks like a UFO and NASA stops talking to them (something the UFO nuts take as "proof" that they're right).
Big deal - I'd stop talking to them as well.
Now they want to sell tickets to a "conference" where they'll reveal all. Wow. The only thing this scam is missing is an official from the Government of Nigeria / promise of Hot Teens / free Viagra / cheap home refinancing.
I want to believe, but.. (Score:5, Informative)
News story [icnetwork.co.uk]
good link, great pic (Score:3, Funny)
except... (Score:3, Informative)
great, by every measure you've posted an excellent link to provide a reasonable explanation for the image.
note that it should be a trivial matter for a reasonably competent scientist look at the date/time the pic was taken, the direction it was pointing, and identify the exact planet beyond any doubt.
when the required info comes out, this will surely happen, exposing the UFO site as a fraud, or not, as the case may be.
Re:except... (Score:4, Insightful)
Brush up on your reading skills.
"NASA initially tried to explain the images away as pixel faults, passing meteors or asteroids, etc., but when a European-led consortium presented them with images that clearly were none of the aforementioned, they 'clamped up'."
If the images that "clearly were none of the aforementioned" were clearly of overexposed planets, the above statement remains 100% true. 'clamped up' is a meaningless phrase, irrespective of who's supposed it's supposed to be 'quoting'. I'd suggest that by 'clamped up' (by which I imagine they mean clammed up) they mean that NASA just stopped dignifying them by looking at any more of their amateurish splodges.
Buyer beware... (Score:5, Informative)
Supposedly, you are supposed to be able to view a video interview with some guy, but there are no links to that interview. You've got to buy the CD.
So, "uh-huh".
And let's keep in mind that UFOs are unidentified flying objects. A meteor *IS* a UFO, if it hasn't yet been identified.
In fact, if they have identified it as anything, it's not a UFO any more.
image filename: Disney.jpg?? (Score:5, Interesting)
The name of the image file on the page is Disney.jpg.
Hmmm.
Consistent Aliens (Score:3, Funny)
If humans had these ships they'd at least have have fins or something by the next season.
Two Words: Bull Shit. (Score:5, Informative)
UFO Mag says there are UFO's around the world and we're supposed to believe them? There is absolutely no evidence that even remotely validates their claims that a bright blur on some SOHO images are UFO's, versus meteors, comets or cometary fragments. They don't even describe what wavelength or anything. I say bull shit now!!! The burden of proof is on their shoulders!
alien economy? (Score:4, Funny)
should ask at http://www.badastronomy.com (Score:5, Informative)
Its a site run be a real astronomer with real scientists there ready and willing to answer questions.
StarTux
Re:should ask at http://www.badastronomy.com (Score:3)
You obviously didnt watch the interview. Take a look at it, listen carefully to the explanation offered, then come back.
Interesting use of the word "cure" as if someone is ill.
Yeah, and looks like they are in trouble... (Score:3, Funny)
Oh no! Tinkerbell's going down!
Heh, just a memory of MST3K and the cheesy effects of some movie... How can you not laugh your ass off after seeing that 'actual picture'. They should have stuck with weird blurry blobs they could blame on poor atmosphere/camera focus, this is so ridiculous.
Why is this not 'it's funny, laugh'?
They have been ./'dotted (Score:5, Funny)
"The US Govt hit us with a massive denial of service attack after we broke this story, which means they are trying to hide something".
StarTux
There is no group called Euroseti! (Score:5, Informative)
More seriously, the first google link is a bunch of eurofolks running seti@home. I seriously doubt that seti@home has generated any pictures of "ufos" in our solar system. The second link is the one above. The third seems to be some crank who regularly gives speeches on "SETV" (the "Search for Extraterrestrial Vehicles") -- he claims to be a "professor", which may be true, as advanced degrees are hardly a prophylactic against insanity.
So, ooh, ahh, some bunch of UFO freaks have announced that some obscure other group (which may or may not also be a bunch of UFO freaks) have proof (proof! At last, real proof! Mwuah-ha-ha-ha-ha!) of UFOs. Geeze, there's news for ya! Guess what, one group or another of UFO freaks has been claiming that they have proof (real proof, see, it's a genuine photograph of a blob, what more do you want, sheesh!) for years. Wake me when someone with a operating brain gets involved.
Frankly, without a little more than this, I'm sticking with Timothy Leary's theory that so-called UFOs are actually human time-travellers from our future astral-projecting themselves back to our time.
Re:There is no group called Euroseti! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm thinking of submitting one of these stories:
UFOs, maybe, maybe not (Score:5, Interesting)
- It might be some dynamic physical or electric behaviour in the CCD or optics. The hardware is a few years old, after all, in extreme conditions. Might be water condensating on lenses, might be reflections from ice crystals, might be obscure electric charge dynamics on the CCD.
- SOHO is located in one of the 5 Lagrange points where it stays at same relative position with both Earth and Sun. Since this is an exceptional point, some space garbage such as rocks or space suit gloves might get stuck in the vicinity of the (unstable) point for some time.
- UFOs, as flown by some extra-terrestial intelligent beings, might generally be rather small objects. Space is big. SOHO's cameras do not have extremely good resolution and any visible object would have to be either enormous, very bright, or somewhat close to SOHO (and Earth), but between SOHO and Sun. Somehow that wouldn't seem to make much sense.
- Similar bright objects have not been observed from Earth based observatories, which would mean that it's a local phenomenom to SOHO. This would hint towards the first two possibilities above.
IANAA, IAAAA.Re:UFOs, maybe, maybe not (Score:3, Informative)
I've gotten precisely those sorts of odd effects when taking digital pictures at night. The camera slows down the "shutter speed" to gather more light, and the slightest jiggle causes really odd effects.
I'd post a link to an example, but I have no wish to have my machine slashdotted! :^)
Re:UFOs, maybe, maybe not (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad fact is that all too often, people in general (and Americans in particular), believe that they really 'know science', when the reality is that much of what we see is based on an incomplete understanding. We Americans are particularly bad about believing pseudo-science, and its supporters. For that matter, there is a famous test (I don't recall whom did it; please feel free to elaborate), in which test subjects were told to turn a knob which would inflict pain on another person. The 'real' scientists who were performing the test were observing how the average American tends to believe anyone who looks like they are educated about something. The test subjects were told that turning the knob would do no harm, in spite of the actor in the next room screaming in 'agony' and begging for mercy. Basically, there are a lot of human sheep who just want to believe a liar because it's easier than educating oneself, and trusting his/her own judgement-- so they trust the judgement of someone else, often con artists.
It's this lack of understanding of science that enables groups to claim that the Apollo moon landings were faked. Con artists found some loopholes in what people believe about physics, and exploited them. It doesn't even take a degree in physics to show they're lying, or at least mistaken. But too many people do not know the real nature of how light works, how it is percieved, and how our machines translate and process light into data we like to believe is useful. The fact is simple: Light is extremely complex, and its behavior is still extremely difficult to understand. There is so much about the nature of light that isn't taught in even a mid-level college physics class, that people just think that it must be simple, when in fact it is very, very complex. So when a lie is presented to them, they believe it fully, because it 'makes sense', even though it is pure rubbish.
75% of the Variance in UFO Sightings (Score:5, Funny)
(FemaleStateLegislatorsPercapita2001*CostOfLivingG roceryItems2000*(AIDSTotalPercapitaThru2001/4+Suic idesPercapita1990+10*MurderPercapita2001)*(America n_Indian_Eskimo_or_AleutPercapita1990+Scotch_Irish Percapita1990)/BlacksPercapita1990)
Damn it (Score:5, Funny)
and read this (Score:3, Informative)
What are those flying saucer-shaped objects in the LASCO images?
The "funny-looking spheroid" is a typical response of the SOHO LASCO coronagraph CCD detector to an object (planet or bright star) of small angular extent but so bright that it saturates the CCD camera so that "bleeding" occurs along pixel rows. There is a bright horizontal streak on either side of the image, because the charge leaks easier along the direction in which the CCD image is read out by the associated electronics.
CCD stands for charge-coupled detector, and refers to a silicon chip, usually a centimeter or two across, divided into a grid of cells, each of which acts like a small photomultiplier in that an incoming photon knocks loose one or more electrons. The electrons are "read out" by row (fast direction) and column (slow direction), the current converted to a digital signal, and each cell or picture element ("pixel") thus assigned a digital value proportional to the the number of incoming photons in that pixel (the brightness of the part of the image falling on that pixel). This is the same kind of detector as is used in a hand-held video camera, though until recently, the ####og-to-digital conversion was left out in consumer devices.
If you point a video camera at a very bright source (say, the Sun), the image "blooms" or brightens all over --- there are so many electrons produced in the pixels corresponding to the bright source that they spill over into adjacent rows and column, perhaps over the entire detector. Better CCD's will "bleed" only along the fast readout direction (a single row), and perhaps a few adjacent rows.
The LASCO and EIT CCD cameras include "anti-bleed" electronics which limit the pixel bleeding around bright sources to less than the full row (and usually no adjacent rows). In the case of a marginally too-bright object, the pixel bleeding will be only a few pixels in either direction along the fast readout direction. Thus, the "flying saucer" images.
A few of the LASCO images that have appeared on the "extraterrestrial" Web sites show much larger and brighter, but still saucer-like features. These images are in fact obtained with the instrument door closed, but with an incorrectly long exposure. The big "saucers" result from massive pixel bleeding along every row of the detector containing part of the image of the "opal," or small diffusing lens, in the instrument door, that is used for obtaining calibration data.
If your correspondents still prefer to believe that the pixel-bled images of planets or bright stars are something else, ask them why the extended part of the "saucers" (i.e., the pixel bleeding) always occurs in the same direction relative to the image --- even when the spacecraft is rolled relative to its normal orientation relative to the Sun.
source : http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/explore/faq.html#F
source to the one above was:
Source: http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100
Slashloid? Tabdot? (Score:5, Funny)
Britany Spears impregnated by CowboyNeal.
CmdrTaco blood is made of taco sauce.
Timothy's brain is removed and no one noticed.
Oh well thats why I keep reading slashdot you never know what is next.
Why Slashdot Isn't Journalism, or To Be Trusted (Score:4, Insightful)
In case anyone is wondering if the people at Slashdot practice journalism or even make an attempt at verifying facts, that quote provides the answer: no.
Who says? What "European-led constortium"? Where's the evidence that NASA "clamped up"? What does "clearly none of the aforementioned" mean? That's an assertion of an opinion.
This story may be perfectly true, but then again it might not be. Meanwhile,
Re:Why Slashdot Isn't Journalism, or To Be Trusted (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet, no radio signals (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps these people will put their computers to better use.
The term "flying saucer" was a 1947 accident (Score:5, Interesting)
clamped up (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't we all know the feeling, when some moron just keeps on talking and we really want them to shut up or go away. First my responses gets limited to "yes" and "no", then "ah" and "hm", then I just stop reacting on what they are saying all together.
SOHO satellite hack??? (Score:3, Funny)
Why is this under the science logo? (Score:3)
Take a look at the image closely. (Score:5, Interesting)
what I see is a VERY low resolution image.
Look at the red trail behind it. There are a bunch of little raster-aligned
four-pointed star shapes. (The one on the extreme left is a prime example).
This is what you get if you take a VERY low resolution image an blow it up
with simple bilinear blending between the pixels. Taking this as evidence
of the original image resolution, we can see that the 'spaceship' at the
righthand end of the image is just about 3 pixels across - but has been
false-coloured so that the bilinear blending has become magenta and yellow
bands. Those are not 'real' they are just a part of the false-colouring.
Isn't it suspicious that the "UFO" is exactly aligned with the raster?
This is a fake...well, perhaps not exactly a fake - but an intentional
mis-use of image manipulation to produce an image that was never really
there.
You could reproduce this image in GIMP in about 3 minutes flat.
1) Create a 20x20 RGB image.
2) Using a 1 pixel brush, paint a diagonal line using bright red.
3) Fatten one end of the line slightly.
At this point, your image (if you'd gotten it from a photo of the
night sky) wouldn't convince you that this was a UFO - would it?
It could be any kind of a trail, meteor, military jet on afterburner,
a flare, a firework, anything like that.
4) Increase the image resolution to 400x400
Notice how the 'tail' now looks EXACTLY like the one in the
ufomag web site. Look at the 'star' shapes in the tail.
So, now let's do some "false-colour enhancement":
5) Choose 'select by colour' - set the threshold down to nearly
zero percent and click on a region at the center of the 'head'
of the trail. Fill it with magenta.
6) Pick a pixel close to that, fill it with a nice lemon yellow.
Notice how your image looks startlingly similar to the one
on the ufomag website. All the artifacts present in their
image are present in yours.
Now, I'm not saying that they painted their image in GIMP,
I'm quite prepared to accept that it's a photo of a real
world night-sky object. However, the pretty pink and yellow
spaceship on the right - complete with spooky red glow and
engine exhaust is no more than a deliberately produced
artifact.
The yellow and pink regions are BOTH narrower than the original
pixel resolution - no feature narrower than TWO pixels wide
(Nyquist sampling limit) can ever be reconstructed from an
image.
Bah. BULLSHIT!!
Re:Take a look at the image closely. (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, here for your viewing enjoyment, are the results of my simulation [lrdesign.com].
Cheers,
Ev
Simple explanation (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
I worked on the SOHO project... (Score:5, Informative)
Most of them are attributable to dust thrown off by the spacecraft itself -- e.g. one of the instruments would close its door, and then another instrument would see loads of moving specks.
Other streaks (like the one at the top of the linked page in the article) are often attributable to cosmic rays (often deliberately mistyped as "comic rays" by my cow orkers) or ionizing radiation from the Sun itself.
The LASCO wide-angle coronal camera often sees stuff moving in strange directions -- most of that is sungrazing comets from the Kreutz family of comets.
I work at the Southwest Research Institute now, and my coworker Dan Durda has done an extensive search through thousands of LASCO images for moving objects that don't fit the pattern of the sungrazing comets -- because he's interested in "vulcanoid asteroids", asteroids inside Mercury's orbit. He didn't find any, but I'm sure that any alien spacecraft jetting through the field of view would have tripped his algorithm.
It's certainly possible that these guys have found something new, but remember that "UFO" doesn't necessarily mean "alien spaceship".
Interestingly enough, SOHO itself registered as a false positive (caught by humans, fortunately) for the earthbound SETI algorithms. It's a strongish radio source that doesn't fit their earth-satellite pattern, since it's sitting at the Earth-Sun Lagrange point.
Gimmie A Fucking Break... (Score:5, Insightful)
*blink*blink*UFO MAGAZINE WORLD EXCLUSIVE*blink*blink*...
Gimmie a fuckin break. I click on the only link on this page, expecting to see hard scientific data. What do I see? A bloated-ass animated GIF of a poorly rendered flying saucer, and three magazine covers. One magazine cover has a picture of a "grey" superimposed over the white house. Lovely. The second picture suggests the Moon landing was a fraud, which is a slap in the face to the tens of thousands of engineers who made it happen. The third image suggests aliens are abducting us with spooky-dookie glowing tractor beams. Yeah, thats great. Tons of credibility there.
This "news" isn't worth the powder to blow it to hell.
Cheers,
Re:One question? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:One question? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who is to say that a more advanced civilization would even bother communicating with Radio? That whole "Light Speed" limit kind of makes communication by this method rather worthless.
I'll leave scientifically valid theories as to other ways they might communicate to someone advanced enough to figrue that out.
Re:One question? (Score:3, Insightful)
Assuming they're not just cruising around stealthily, looking for planets to wipe out, and are in fact searching for other societies, sending primitive beacons would be a good way to find them, since we would be more likely to be able to answer them. Using their latest communications technology would go right over our heads.
Obviously they would use something more advanced for their own communications (assuming they've figured out space travel, they've probably figured out lots of other neat stuff).
On the other hand, they could be using SETI's approach and just cruise around listening for signals with their AM/FM/8-track stereos in their pimped out rides.
Re:One question? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if you assume that that light speed is an absolute limit, there are good reasons not to use radio over any distance greater than a few hundred metres. The reason is simply efficiency: if you know more or less where the entity you want to communicate with is, why waste energy by broadcasting the signal on other directions? Over short ranges, broadcasting is good because it gives you freedom to move relative to a relay station, but between relay stations, hard links like optical fibre, or directional transmission by laser or microwave are the way to go.
This can explain also why SETI@Home haven't found anything. The period of time between an alien civilization starting to broadcast radio and then realizing that there were more efficient ways to communication would have to overlap with the period in which our civilization was listening for said signals. Not only that, but even if a civilization would have overlapped at 50 lightyears, if they happened to be 200 lightyears away, there would be no overlap. We are talking about mere decades out of millions of years. Maybe exactly the signals we were looking for passed us by just before radio invented.
Further, the limitation of lightspeed in communication is only really a problem if you assume that the users of it have to worry about time. I think it is reasonable to assume that before any civilization makes it any distance into space, they will have solved the problem of aging for themselves by whatever means.
Re:One question? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Further, the limitation of lightspeed in communication is only really a problem if you assume that the users of it have to worry about time. I think it is reasonable to assume that before any civilization makes it any distance into space, they will have solved the problem of aging for themselves by whatever means."
But I once was stunned into mental chaos when I heard the eminent Carl Sagan completely and unequivocally dismiss the possibility of extraterrestrials visiting Earth on the grounds that it would take far too long to travel over the vast distances involved. Carl Freakin Sagan! I thought the guy had imagination.
After that I realised that he was, after all, a pothead like myself...
Only I allow myself a bit more imagination when I am stoned out of my gourd.
Re:One question? (Score:3, Interesting)
A theorectical Matrioshka Brain [aeiveos.com] can live as long as its star burns. So what's a few million years lagtime between buddies when you live for hundreds of billions of years? Of course, as you think faster, the world outside seems to come to a standstill; like cityfolk observing countrybumpkins. :)
--
It's about time ... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:One question? (Score:5, Insightful)
Three words: you have no clue.
This "quantum pairing" doesn't allow passing of information.
Re:One question? (Score:4, Informative)
As I understand the process, it works like this:
Under controlled situations, one heats up an element. General black box radiation will usually suffice, but you typically need to have some weird constraints like using only a single atom as your emitter. Utilizing various methods, such as a laser, you excite the atom such that it emits a photon and an anti-photon (but, remember that a photon is it's own anti-particle, so the quantum pair turns out to be two photons). These photons are emitted in different directions.
By pulsing the laser and the excitation level of the atom, you can emit photons in a morse-code like manner.
Now then, utilizing affects of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the Schroedinger Wave equation, the trick is to not 'observe' the photons as they are emitted (else, they wouldn't be observable to the folks you're sending them to on the other side of the galaxy).
Anyhow, assume that these photons travel half way across the galaxy and are 'observed' by some other group. When the photons are observed, the quantum wave collapses, and discrete information is passed from the source of the photons to the observation apparatus. Additionally, if the two photon are emitted exactly 180 degrees opposite of each other, and both are traveling at velocity c, the transmission of data has a theoretical velocity of twice the speed of light.
That is, by calculating the direction of the incoming photon with the measurement apparatus, one can discretely calculate where the other photon is. Due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, you loose the velocity information, however, so you know where the other photon is, but don't know how long it took to get there, or how fast it's traveling.
This method of calculation, at the quantum level, is not un-common amongst scientists.
I'm sure I haven't gotten the details exactly right, but this is a basic description of the method.
Re:One question? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Additionally, if the two photon are emitted exactly 180 degrees opposite of each other, and both are traveling at velocity c, the transmission of data has a theoretical velocity of twice the speed of light."
This just doesn't fit with current physics. Why? Because those photons travel in a reference frame...it's not called general/special !relativety! for nothing. The photons (and the data) travel at a speed of c...also relative to each other, due to the space-time dilation effect (ie it space-time compresses the faster you travel). Thing is, we don't know why or with what mechanism paired particles retain that odd connection...that's why it's called the 'strange attraction'
Re:One question? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a HUGE difference between data and assumptions.
It's like saying royalty travels at an instantanious speed, because as soon as the king is dead, his son is king. No data has traveled, and you also don't know at the time that the king has died that something has happened: you only know that that transfer has taken place when you hear the news...so it's not even like royalty, as royalty travels at the speed of newsbroadcasts
Re:One question? (Score:5, Funny)
Three words: you cannot count.
Re:Yes it does (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yes it does (Score:4, Insightful)
This "transcendental modem" idea has been around for a long time, and a lot of very smart people have considered this issue, without ever finding a way to violate the speed-of-light causality (transfer of information rule) - probably because it is inherent in how the universe functions.
Not it doesn't (Score:4, Informative)
Re:One question? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One question? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One question? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:One question? (Score:3, Informative)
Or maybe they never will... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Or maybe they never will... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cool video (Score:5, Interesting)
1. The girl is pointing to the tower and says something like "whats that". The reaction of the cameraman is to zoom right in until we see the craft hovering at the side of the building. I know *I* wouldn't have zoomed in instinctively at once if someone just said "look there".
2. Although the craft is moving *really* fast (exceeding 2000 kph in my opinion) the girl never looses track and continues to point to its exact location. I know that if *I* would ride a helicopter when a strange aircraft is passing by at ludicrous speeds (tm), *I* would be having trouble to track it in real time.
3. (now the most scientific point) Towards the end of the movie the aircraft passes in front of the helicopter at a speed of, say, at least 2000 kph. We can't be sure about distances here but let's say it's distance to the helicopter was 10 meters at its closest. Now: passing by in front of a brittle thing like a small mid air helicopter WITHOUT even making the helicopter shake a bit? Hell, the air draft alone (not to mention engine exhaust) should have gotten the heli into serious trouble at those speeds!
Mind you, I don't know a thing about aviation, that's probably why my analysis is wrong. Any pilots around here? I'd like to hear your opinion!