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Since their discovery ten years ago, fast radio bursts have confounded astronomers. These intergalactic pulses of radio energy have defied explanation, but a new theory suggests a technological origin, whereby aliens use these beams to propel their ships through space. Extremely speculative stuff, to be sure, but it's an idea worth pursuing given just how weird these pulses are.
The idea that Fast Radio Bursts are produced by advanced alien civilizations in order to drive spacecraft through interstellar space sounds like something a UFO conspiracy site might cook up—but it's actually the serious suggestion of a new paper published by Avi Loeb and Manasvi Lingam from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Of course, much more evidence is needed before we can attribute this unexplained phenomenon to artificial sources versus a natural astrophysical process.
With no good theory to go by, Loeb and Lingam wondered if extraterrestrials might be involved—and not without good reason. In a word, FRBs are weird. Like really weird.
http://gizmodo.com/wild-new-theory-suggests-radio-bursts-beyond-our-galaxy-1793130515
Additional coverage at ScienceBlog.com and Phys.org
Source: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Journal Abstract: Fast Radio Bursts from Extragalactic Light Sails
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Saturday March 11 2017, @07:46PM (3 children)
Me: This looks suspect; prove to me that it won't allow the encoder to rotate about its axis.
Him: It's fine. Prove to me that it will.
Me: You're the one making the claim; don't you have the burden of proof?
Him: *shrugs* What can I say? It's my project.
I fiddled with it for a few minutes and found a situation where the mount allowed the encoder would rotate about its axis, introducing large measurement errors. He subsequently came up with a better way to mount it. If he possessed a scientific mindset/epistomology, he would have thought through possible problems with the first mechanism, found them, and tried new ideas until he settled on one he could prove would work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @04:06AM (2 children)
Sounds more like an ego that wants to protect itself. People are more likely to "science" other people's ideas.
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Sunday March 12 2017, @04:19AM (1 child)
Sure, but the better route to ego protection is criticizing and testing one's own ideas and then improving them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @10:08PM
no, it's to blame others for causing your failures and then trying to diminish any successes they may have.
wait you're a democrat right