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They held seances, and brought forth spirits. Ufology is a substitute for religion, in many respects.
Originally Posted by starjasmine
The Day the Earth Stood Still. Many UFO stories are remarkably similar to Sci-Fi stories. Originally Posted by starjasmine
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09-29-2023 03:00 AM
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Oh really, you don't say? Originally Posted by Christian Miller
His arguments against Oumuamua being a comet are totally coherent.
Careful that kind of comment doesn't backfire.
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I found him annoying before - the ‘scientists don’t want it to be aliens’ guy - which I think is completely untrue - but when he accuses the former head of flipping SETI of that I completely lose interest in listening to what the dude has to say. Which is rarely anything of substance anyway (as far as I can tell.) Originally Posted by Peter C
Here’s the case against from someone more knowledgeable than me.
From her account he sounds like a sort of academic grifter tbh. Now I think he’s on the podcast gravy train. Naturally he’s been on JRE! (Tbf so has Roger Penrose; but I like Penrose haha.)
im not active in the field. I can say what I like.
Bottom line I tune into this type of thing for entertainment, I’m not a scientist. So with that in mind Loeb could be a legit discoverer of ETI and I’d still find him irritating… who knows? Annoying people do sometimes discover stuff.
Look up Fritz Zwicky Or bloody Fred Hoyle, professional troll who happened to do important work in cosmic nucleosynthesis…Last edited by Christian Miller; 09-29-2023 at 04:37 AM.
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Really I’m mad because my favourite dorky podcast got derailed into a UFO channel for about a month and then it was two weeks of bloody Loeb talking about his boat trip….
Happily i can report we are now back to in depth and important discussions of how Galaxy sized scissors can close faster than light.
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Loeb pointed out, quite rationally at the time, that Oumuamua had a bizarre shape (much longer than wide) and orbit, and showed no sign of outgassing or trailing debris. Its acceleration was also uncharacteristically smooth. Not a comet as we know it Jim.
I don't know what he's been up to since then, apart from some "tiny metal spheres" that fell in the ocean. Haven't followed that but, anyway, he's smart and articulate and doesn't seem to fit the crackpot profile at all.
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watch the vid, if you haven’t - it’s pretty much the sum total of my knowledge haha - and see if you agree or disagree (if you have time) I think she has a case here - not just taking potshots. You do have to pay close attention to what she’s saying tho and they are long vids. Originally Posted by Peter C
(Like Becky Smethurst she’s pretty grounded. Anton Petrov is good too, seems to have good instincts. They all called it right on the South Korean ‘superconductor’ for example.)
She doesn’t follow the YouTube sensationalism template and I like that.
there’s a definite infotainment industry out there… Michio Kaku and the like… nothing wrong with it per se, the important thing is to know where that starts and real science ends. Some science communicators more so than others… it helps when people are young active postdocs doing actual research.
In a way I kind of have more respect for the obviously woo stuff, one can enjoy it for what it is. Some of the science fiction shading into science stuff is a little sketchy to me….
Loeb does seem to regard himself as a scientist rather than an science communicator, anyway I can simply choose not to tune in. The great thing about science if anything substantial comes up re ETI, everyone else will be on it like a shot (contrary to popular belief)…
I’m old enough to remember the Martian ‘microfossils’ haha - remember those fellas? Shortly after found to be extremely similar to non-organic geological formations so the conclusion (without further evidence) is that that is what they are.
If we followed Loeb’s rhetoric we’d still be holding out on them as positive evidence of Martian life.
it’s not that scientists don’t want them to be microfossils or are close minded about them possibly being microfossils - in the sciences if you want something to be true you have to be more skeptical not less. This is why he doesn’t pass my sniff test ultimately.
To characterise this hard nosed skepticism is close mindedness definitely rings the crank alarm to me. I doubt he’s onto much, but maybe I’ll be proven wrong!Last edited by Christian Miller; 09-29-2023 at 03:09 PM.
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for the hardcore ufo/etc junkie
Coast to Coast AM - Wikipedia
there are some on this show that could make you believe
way back when in NYC ..I would listen to the prototype of this kind of "ufo radio"
a guy named "long john nebel" would have guests from other planets and
the usual UFO/conspiracy folks and beyond
Long John Nebel - Wikipedia
its real if you believe
In India today there are many "holy men" said to be the reincarnation of the many hindu gods
one such was a guy Sai Baba who was said to raise the dead performed bi-location materialize many objects..and communicate to devotees in their dreams
he had (still has) millions of believers .. who dont care that it was revealed in public many times that all the miracles were just slight of hand tricks and his knowledge of an persons past
was done with a team of researchers .. it was a good act and of course made him very wealthy and famous..a rare event in much of poverty heavy India
These days I doubt the Icons of major religions would recognize themselves today reading their own press
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She says: "(Loeb) suggests that because we didn't see a comet tail it's more likely that radiation pressure is the cause of the acceleration and the(n) jump(s) from that to ....so it's more likely that it's aliens" and lambasts what she perceives as the random, spurious nature of his all-too-brief scientific papers.
Ok, I have no idea if she has any personal agenda here, but will look into.
Thanks (for now
)
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Btw, i fleshed out my thoughts regarding Loeb above. Tl;dr he does have some decidedly cranky riffs ‘ooh science is close minded and arrogant’ is classic stuff. Being a Harvard professor and having a solid physics background obviously adds credence, but it only goes so far before you think ‘that’s kind of a bit like what my hippy mate said when I said crystals probably can’t cure cancer.’ Originally Posted by Peter C
She says: "(Loeb) suggests that because we didn't see a comet tail it's more likely that radiation pressure is the cause of the acceleration and the(n) jump(s) from that to ....so it's more likely that it's aliens" and lambasts what she perceives as the random, spurious nature of his all-too-brief scientific papers.
Ok, I have no idea if she has any personal agenda here, but will look into.
Thanks (for now )
I mean David Bohm did important work in physics (much more so than Loeb) and he ended up going totally woo… *
My main response to him is just not to listen to things he’s in. I don’t get the impression he has anything substantial to bring to the table - but if he does, we’ll know about it from something a bit more substantial than a podcast with a science fiction writer. so no harm done as far as I’m concerned.
In terms of his professional conduct, that is to some extent hearsay, I obviously don’t know the guy, and I’m not involved in the field as a professional, but I have to say he does not come off great in that video clip.
* you see all the time on the internet ‘Nobel laureate y said x therefore x is true.’ Even within the Nobel laureate’s field of expertise, this doesn’t follow.Last edited by Christian Miller; 09-29-2023 at 04:03 PM.
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I've always liked Ayn Rand's description of her Originally Posted by Christian Miller
character Dr. Floyd Ferris; the valet of science.
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Here's something i found. Not saying this is definitive: Originally Posted by Betz
"The fastest speed by a spacecraft is 163 km/s (586,800 km/h; 364,660 mph), which was achieved by the Parker Solar Probe at 21:25:24 UTC on 20 November 2021."
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com...ovember%202021.
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Here, Dr Brian Keating (Professor of Physics at UC San Diego) interviews Avi Loeb on the subject of Oumuamua, specifically starting at min 11:00, so that you can judge for yoursel/f/ves. Don't be mislead by the word "extraterrestrial" in the title; of course it's that, by definition!
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"The $100 million initiative intends to develop light-propelled nanocrafts that will get us to Alpha Centauri..." Originally Posted by Fortune
I think they meant to say it's not us, but the bots that will get there.
If they want to claim that sending something is "getting us there" then we've gotten to all the stars within almost a 100 light year radius (radio and TV transmission).
If they meant receiving something is "getting us there" then we've gotten to all the galaxies in the observable universe (almost 100 billion light year diameter).
If they meant sending something that sends back information to us, we've gotten throughout the solar system out to Voyager 1 which sends signals to arrive here (the diameter of the solar system seems to be a mystery*).
20 years to get up the project to launch status
30 years for the bots to arrive at destination
5 years for information to be sent back and processed
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55 years, so about 2078 before we know what's there.
Reminds me of a short story from the 50s where a space craft was constructed to go to Alpha Centauri carrying a crew in suspended animation on a 500 year voyage. When they arrived they discovered that the Earth had developed a faster than light system shortly after they left and had been making regular transits through the centuries, developing A Centauri to Earth level population well before they arrived.
* diameter of the solar system
The top site on a search vs chatbotAI show they disagree by a factor of 2000!
This site (a physics site,
(the calculation verified as checked)
How many light years in diameter is the solar system?
calculates the solar system is 1 light year in diameter, plus or minus .5 light year depending on if one includes the Oort Cloud or not.
1 light year is about 8760 light hours
This is an Indian site; their space program just landed on the Moon
This site (chatbot AI)
Free AI Chat Website - Talk to AI Chatbot and Writing Assistant Online
"Calculating this gives us an approximate diameter of the solar system of about 0.00216 light years."
That is 18.9 light hours, which is just about how long it takes for Voyager 1 to send us signals (but that transmission is a radius of travel, not the diameter which would be twice that, approximately) so Voyager 1 is about twice as far as where chatbotAI figures the radius of the Solar system.
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(the diameter of the solar system seems to be a mystery*).
most spacy things are based on theory..what else do we have
The Big Bang the size and age of the universe-my faves
sending people to Mars...now we're talkin..and that is all folks
see what happens when you watch too much Star Trek
Should humans survive the next hundred years..and we continue to explore
Mars may be our prime source for expanded theory construction
the effects on the travelers for the long term should be determined in that time frame
our space reality vs our science fiction dreams won't meet any time soon I fear
time/space/water/oxygen .. our limited body endurance and mental fatigue will hinder "far out" trips beyond our neighborhood
meanwhile..Earth may present some science fiction type scenarios of its own..many dont realize..we are already in space
life after death..think I'll pass..once seems to be more than enough
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What I find interesting is how the idea of UFOs or extraterrestrial life seems very like an Jungian archetype.
Somehow it bounces through everyone’s sub-conscience and conscience in such strange ways.
It reminds me of all the places Odysseus visited on his journey home. Maybe the conscience must take that trip to find home… however, Odysseus homecoming was a little violent.
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The problem with going to Mars is hard radiation. The shortest one-way route exposes one to almost complete lifetime allowable accumulation, which means one dies on Mars, certainly no coming back. Shielding of the craft would need to be a several feet thick of lead - that's not happening. Originally Posted by wolflen
However, with the unexpected fast progress of the human genome project, it may turn out that the way to travel space is to take a pill that rebuilds broken DNA continuously as it gets busted by the cosmic rays. Who knows?
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True. And staying on the b*st*rd is no better. Mars has neither much of a magnetic field or atmosphere to soak up the radiation….
the older I get the more I tend to agree with Martin Rees…
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Life as we know it evolved inside the protective bubble of earth's atmosphere. Outside that atmosphere, survival can be problematic for us. I have no idea what type of atmospheres any extraterrestrial life may have evolved inside, if any. Nor does anyone else, because no one has ever found any such extraterrestrial life. If we do find it, we will learn an inestimable amount.
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I suppose you could live underground. On Mars.
I’m not feeling it.
Tbh I don’t think Elon is either which might be one reason why he’s spending so much time on social media.
(Tbf that’s what I do when I’m miserable too.)
Otoh - Bezos idea might make more sense. But not much.
The thing that’s hard as a wide eyed science fiction nerd is to come to terms with is that so much tech futurism is built around inflating shareholder value. Things like fusion and carbon capture tech don’t have to deliver anything real to make Venture Capitalists a healthy ROI.
I feel it’s kind of charmingly naive and old school that Tesla actually make some cars and Space X launch some rockets. Bless!
At some point Elon realised he could just say mad stuff (by.. the end … ofnextyear… we will be able to download cheese’ *WILD APPLAUSE*) and because he’d done those things, people would buy it and the line would go up. And now we are in the world of Elizabeth Holmes…
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Downloadable Tesla cheese, yeah, I'd invest in that!
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The sweet spot in the solar system for mass human habitation may be Venus.
It seems unlikely at first when reviewing the surface weather conditions... the temperature at the surface is 740 K (467 °C, 872 °F), and the pressure is 93 bar (1,350 psi), roughly the pressure found 900 m (3,000 ft) underwater on Earth.
But at the top of the troposphere about 65 km (about 40 miles) up from the surface, the temperature and pressure reach Earth-like levels. That means the amount of atmosphere above that level is the same as we have on the surface of the Earth (because of the same pressure), so one enjoys the same level of protection from cosmic rays, meteors, etc.
The idea is to assemble a fleet of space craft in orbit around the Earth in the form of very large zeppelins, eventually as large as cities. The trip to Venus from Earth orbit is gravitationally "down hill" and upon arrival a slowly decaying orbit will bring the craft to settle and float at the top of the troposphere (again, because of the pressure, the atmosphere of Venus is mostly CO2 which is much heavier than the Earth's N2 and O2 atmosphere in the zeppelins).
The winds at that altitude are about 360 km/h / 225 mph which carry the craft completely around Venus every 4-5 Earth days.
Because this level is above the cloud tops and because of the large upper surface area of the zeppelins, solar power is plentiful, yet none of it needs to be consumed to hold altitude, and practically none to control temperature. The surface of the craft needs to be protected from the corrosive atmosphere with a skin of Teflon or similar plastics that don't react.
The first ones would probably be more like smaller air bag with crew quarters hanging type zeppelins, later much bigger with all the interior available for living and working...
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zeppelins you say...jimmy page has some work to do..
Im sure the guys at space research and NASA have explored all sorts of "what if" ways to survive in space and get to and from other planets
we are not propelled so much by science fact in this adventure as by science fiction..much more enjoyable and very possible..
and how far away is Venus in earth days
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Hasn’t Venus got a crap magnetic field as well, tho?
Which I suppose means you might actually need a lead zeppelin.
EDIT punning aside, sounds problematic
Revisiting the cosmic-ray induced Venusian radiation dose in the context of habitability | Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A)
Constraints on a potential aerial biosphere on Venus: I. Cosmic rays - ScienceDirect
Would need further data i think… maybe a balloon probe?
EDIT EDIT: holy crap I totally forgot the USSR sent balloon probes to Venus in 1986. That’s kind of mad
Vega program - WikipediaLast edited by Christian Miller; 10-03-2023 at 03:31 PM.
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Fun video
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