Aliens
- Thread starter Exorcet
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niky
Yeah, I was just referring to the bit about them being the missing mass. I wouldn't think civilizations would get straight to a sphere/shell anyway - you'd probably begin with swarms and such. Dyson's original idea, was that they are probably something we should be looking for - and it seems SETI is starting to agree.
If the whole Singularity thing works as the hip guys advertise, then the issue is that a civilization surviving that far goes through the tortuously slow physical evolution process for millions of years (emitting nothing but spectrograph lines), gets to industrialization, parties noisily a while later, and assume they don't kill themselves before coming out the other side, completely changes inside a thousand years or less. Now that's a tan line....
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It may be that the "Singularity" never comes about. Extrapolation of trends can suggest some pretty weird things, but extrapolation suggests we'd need exponentially greater energy resources to power exponential growth... And that's not happening any time soon.
That will likely be the same problem facing any planet-bound civilization.
That will likely be the same problem facing any planet-bound civilization.
Dotini
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Ealirendur and Niky, you guys might be interested in a recent astrophysics discovery which locates much (or maybe most or all) of the missing baryonic matter in giant plasma clouds around our galaxy and probably all the others, too. These clouds are vast, likely overlapping between galaxies, and operate at fabulous temperatures - a million Kelvin! - similar to the Sun's corona.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/H-12-331.html
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1205.5037v4.pdf
The existence of these huge, hot, charged structures has astrophysical and cosmological implications that may go well beyond any current reckoning.
Respectfully submitted,
Steve
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Cool... not sure how I missed that. Thanks!
There go my dreams of visiting Andromeda.
Tell me... we have anything that can withstand a multi-millenia trip through a glowing plasma cloud?
From the NASA article:
So... charged, not dense, extends possibly all the way between? Seems like handy fuel for the trip! (EM scoop?)
Of course, that means the Berserker probes coming the other way are fine, too.
WRT the exponential energy increase needs, I would think it depends on how fast the first AIs/combined intelligences start spitting out ridiculous efficiency, and how long it takes until the planet-bound limitation is bypassed.
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Still... the insulation required... or perhaps pump all that heat into a propulsion laser? Or funnel the plasma into a ram? Yeah, fuel would not be a problem at all.
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Right now, we have to assume that fundamental limits to energy efficiency given by physics will hold. Right now, there's very little left in it. We simply need more material and more money to make enough solar to harvest what is available to us. The fundamental constraints of our civilization is how much capital we have to spend to create energy-harvesting resources.
By the way, I find this blog ridiculously interesting:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/
There's a section there on energy and how it affects growth.
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If we ever get to finally making AI that can self-replicate and do all our work for us, then the limits will depend on what the Von Neumanns are made of. On the planet, there's no problem. We've got lots of metals, minerals and the like to build things with. Out in space...
If they've got a store of heavy materials to work with, typically locked up in planets, then they will "just" need to take them apart (ignoring energy requirements at the moment. Let's suppose they blow the planets to bits with giant sun-focusing mirrors made out of ice).
If they need to create the elements making up the Dyson Sphere and the other Von Neumanns, with metals or superconductors for the control circuits and/or optical AI hardware, then they'll take a bit longer, because they'll need to collect more energy to fuse hydrogen and other common materials into heavier elements.
I don't think we're anywhere close to creating Von Neumanns... let alone ones that can function in space. Maybe we're going about it wrong. Maybe we should be creating space-bacteria that can build mega-structures out of carbon, instead, although we'd have to find a way of making bacteria that require nothing more than CHON to survive and replicate. Seed those around Jupiter and wait a few decades for them to start spitting out carbon-nano-tube girders millions of miles long...
And then there's the heat: all that construction activity should create vast amounts of heat, which will limit the amount of construction that can go on within a certain volume.
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Come to think of it. That hot plasma cloud might just be someone else's Von Neumanns working on bottling up our galaxy to tow away.
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Right now, we have to assume that fundamental limits to energy efficiency given by physics will hold. Right now, there's very little left in it. We simply need more material and more money to make enough solar to harvest what is available to us. The fundamental constraints of our civilization is how much capital we have to spend to create energy-harvesting resources.
By the way, I find this blog ridiculously interesting:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/
There's a section there on energy and how it affects growth.
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If we ever get to finally making AI that can self-replicate and do all our work for us, then the limits will depend on what the Von Neumanns are made of. On the planet, there's no problem. We've got lots of metals, minerals and the like to build things with. Out in space...
If they've got a store of heavy materials to work with, typically locked up in planets, then they will "just" need to take them apart (ignoring energy requirements at the moment. Let's suppose they blow the planets to bits with giant sun-focusing mirrors made out of ice).
If they need to create the elements making up the Dyson Sphere and the other Von Neumanns, with metals or superconductors for the control circuits and/or optical AI hardware, then they'll take a bit longer, because they'll need to collect more energy to fuse hydrogen and other common materials into heavier elements.
I don't think we're anywhere close to creating Von Neumanns... let alone ones that can function in space. Maybe we're going about it wrong. Maybe we should be creating space-bacteria that can build mega-structures out of carbon, instead, although we'd have to find a way of making bacteria that require nothing more than CHON to survive and replicate. Seed those around Jupiter and wait a few decades for them to start spitting out carbon-nano-tube girders millions of miles long...
And then there's the heat: all that construction activity should create vast amounts of heat, which will limit the amount of construction that can go on within a certain volume.
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Come to think of it. That hot plasma cloud might just be someone else's Von Neumanns working on bottling up our galaxy to tow away.
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Yup, all good. Thanks for the blog link. What I was thinking of is that once the simulation capabilities start ramping up, you don't need to do as many pesky real experiments anymore, and if you prototype with whacky stuff like nanomachines or 3d-printers that can work with garbage and waste heat, many of the problems with plant manufacturing costs and economy of scale just go away.
"Here's that 3D fractal solar tree design you asked for, Dave. I figured out that pesky production problem with the carbon aerogel ultracapacitors, too. I tuned the cycle for my reactor when you were out, and installed some upgrades.... would you like me to infect you with the latest round of DNA rewrites?"
All a bit fanciful, of course, but I find it hard to imagine the possibilities.
Thaaat's it 👍 Carbon!
And I did wonder what all that mass is doing out there. Why didn't it accrete?
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Probably pressure from the combined solar wind of the Milky Way's stars keeping it out? Like a billion cosmic farts pushing all the air out of the room?
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Problem with working with waste heat is you need a heat differential to run an engine. Too much heat in general and you can't make it work except where you have heat bleeding out into deep space.
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Problem with working with waste heat is you need a heat differential to run an engine. Too much heat in general and you can't make it work except where you have heat bleeding out into deep space.
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I say lets turn this thread into a math battle between kk20 and Azuremen. 20 bucks says kk20 will bring in Mojo Dojo and kill Azuremen's Buttercup mid-post! Jk!
On topic: I believe that there are many micro organisms and bacteria related to the ones on Earth, on different planets. They look like Aliens... If you were their size.
And once again the city of TownsVille are saved by The Power Puff Girls! Excluding Buttercup, who was destroyed by Mojo Dojo in an epic battle of equations!
On topic: I believe that there are many micro organisms and bacteria related to the ones on Earth, on different planets. They look like Aliens... If you were their size.
And once again the city of TownsVille are saved by The Power Puff Girls! Excluding Buttercup, who was destroyed by Mojo Dojo in an epic battle of equations!
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Dotini
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Kentucky amateur astronomer Allen Epling photographs and videos odd cylindrical unidentified aerial phenomenon widely seen and reported over the Eastern Kentucky region.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdQ_XZMtEtE&feature=plcp
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...r_n_2011817.html?utm_hp_ref=ufo#slide=1682829
To me, this appears to resemble an electrical discharge from ionized particles confined in an electric field.
Respectfully submitted,
Steve
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdQ_XZMtEtE&feature=plcp
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...r_n_2011817.html?utm_hp_ref=ufo#slide=1682829
To me, this appears to resemble an electrical discharge from ionized particles confined in an electric field.
Respectfully submitted,
Steve
- 687
The problem with these kinds of sightings is the fact that it comes from one source. These days, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't have a device on them at all times that will at least take stills, if not video. So how come only one person got footage?
This is also the reason reported UFO sightings have dropped to next to nothing over the last decade or so.
This is also the reason reported UFO sightings have dropped to next to nothing over the last decade or so.
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Dean J
Your first sight? What, when the nurse smacked you one? Or stuck a tube in your mouth, depending on how old you are...
Dotini
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Aliens may be organized electrons, says prominent astrobiologist. I agree with him.
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblo...hnology-could-exist-thats-beyond-matter-.html
Respectfully submitted,
Steve
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblo...hnology-could-exist-thats-beyond-matter-.html
Respectfully submitted,
Steve
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August 2009 and he had it nailed!
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Alien or secret military craft?
http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/2012/11/ufo-cloaked-as-cloud-caught-over-new.html
http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/2012/11/ufo-cloaked-as-cloud-caught-over-new.html
CodeRedR51
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