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Are we alone? The question is worthy of serious scientific study
Are we alone? Unfortunately, neither of the answers feel satisfactory. To be alone in this vast universe is a lonely prospect. On the other hand, if we are not alone and there is someone or something more powerful out there, that too is terrifying.
As a NASA research scientist and now a professor of physics, I attended the 2002 NASA Contact Conference, which focused on serious speculation about extraterrestrials. During the meeting a concerned participant said loudly in a sinister tone, "You have absolutely no idea what is out there!" The silence was palpable as the truth of this statement sunk in. Humans are fearful of extraterrestrials visiting Earth. Perhaps fortunately, the distances between the stars are prohibitively vast. At least this is what we novices, who are just learning to travel into space, tell ourselves.
I have always been interested in UFOs. Of course, there was the excitement that there could be aliens and other living worlds. But more exciting to me was the possibility that interstellar travel was technologically achievable. In 1988, during my second week of graduate school at Montana State University, several students and I were discussing a recent cattle mutilation that was associated with UFOs. A physics professor joined the conversation and told us that he had colleagues working at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, where they were having problems with UFOs shutting down nuclear missiles. At the time I thought this professor was talking nonsense. But 20 years later, I was stunned to see a recording of a press conference featuring several former US Air Force personnel, with a couple from Malmstrom AFB, describing similar occurrences in the 1960s. Clearly there must be something to this.
With July 2 being World UFO Day, it is a good time for society to address the unsettling and refreshing fact we may not be alone. I believe we need to face the possibility that some of the strange flying objects that outperform the best aircraft in our inventory and defy explanation may indeed be visitors from afar – and there's plenty of evidence to support UFO sightings.
See also: Released FAA recording reveals pilot report of a UFO over Long Island
I-Team Exclusive: Nevada senator fought to save secret UFO program
Related: Pentagon's UFO Investigation Program Revealed
UFO Existence 'Proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt': Former Head Of Pentagon Program
Newly-Released Video Shows 2015 U.S. Navy Sighting of UFO
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @04:31AM (5 children)
IMO, FTL "might be possible", but require finding some other physics rule.
That said it would be related to another point along with the relativity theory: since time would pass differently for someone travelling really fast, you can't really go on a holiday in alpha centauri then go back home on earth, thousands/millions of years would have passed, the same for the destination and maybe when you arrive, the galaxy would have moved on to some other location.
So even if we were to find FTL travel tomorrow, using it right away will give other troubles.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Monday July 02 2018, @04:43AM (4 children)
A warp drive that bends space would not result in the time dilation you're talking about. Presumably, other FTL technologies such as wormholes would work the same way. If you're not actually traveling faster than c, you don't get the time dilation.
You don't even need FTL to get your scenario. If you get your velocity to a significant % of c, you will experience noticeable time dilation:
https://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/timedial.html [fourmilab.ch]
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @10:44AM (3 children)
special relativity says that you can go on vacation on the other side of the galaxy (time dilation allows you to get there and back in a reasonably short subjective time), but what you observe while there is far in the future of the pictures from the flier, and what you find back home is even further into the future (for instance it's likely that your car will have been moved from the spaceport parking lot because it had become an eye-sore).
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 02 2018, @11:50AM (2 children)
Time dilation only kicks in if your velocity approaches the speed of light or if you are near a strong gravitational field. If you are not actually moving, e.g. bending spacetime with a warp drive or wormhole, time dilation does not apply. That's not to say that either method of travel is conclusively possible. But if they are, they could work around time dilation and give you the results you would expect (for example, if your warp capable ship takes a month to travel to Proxima Centauri, about a month of time passed for both passengers on the ship and people back on Earth).
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @09:38PM (1 child)
as far as i understand it the alcubierre drive allows for time travel.
I really doubt time travel ispossible, because of the temporal Fermi paradox (if time travel is possible, where are the time travelers, because there's an eternity of them?).
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday July 03 2018, @01:45AM
Even if it could allow you to observe Earth as it appeared in the past (for example, instantly move 5 light years and see Earth as it was 5 years ago from that distance), that's not real time travel and it does not mean that a glut of time travelers are coming.
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