"The reason aliens aren't doing crop circles anymore"

[Venom]

What about corn and wheat fields is so appealing to aliens anyway,...does it make landing smoother or something? There are no grass circles or dust circles so I think that's a safe hypothesis for now.

 

[Orphia Nay]

What about corn and wheat fields is so appealing to aliens anyway,...does it make landing smoother or something? There are no grass circles or dust circles so I think that's a safe hypothesis for now.

Apart from the lack of any landed spaceships, yes.

 

[Aepervius]

Actually our radio waves would be detectable from a few light years away. Any further and it would be hard to differentiate from background noise. Read something here http://zidbits.com/2011/07/how-far-have-radio-signals-traveled-from-earth/ or here http://io9.com/are-we-screwing-ourselves-by-transmitting-radio-signals-493800730

Not really. Only a few minutes high powered highly directed radio signal are detectable beyond 1 light year. The rest is not. The article is wrong.

Basically the furthest of our random signal (TV, Radio, etc...) would be distinguishable from background noise is.... 0.3 LY. 1/3 of a LY.

The only signal which went further are the arecibo one.

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/part6/section-12.html

 

[GlennB]

How should I know? I'm certain there are people way smarter than me that could hypothosize what kind of technology would be needed, hence I simply say "the relevant technologies".

One isn't allowed to just 'suppose' that some technology or other will make interstellar travel possible and then justify its use by having it become easier and cheaper. You have to begin by pointing to known technology or postulate something plausible.

Upthread, rjh01 pointed to the energy expenditure required to reach even a low % of light speed and, as long as we stick to actual physics, that kind of question can't be avoided by conjuring esoteric devices out of nowhere.

 

[Akhenaten]

This post is 100% garbage.

And yet it draws a witty and insightful response.

Go figure.

It is not the % of people who speak English that is important it is the % of TV, radio broadcasts that are in English that is important. I would suggest that this number is higher than 5%.

It's easier for ET to decipher English than any other Earth languge, is it?

Seriously travel between the stars at close to the speed of light would require enormous power. At 10% of the speed of light it would require 0.5*(3X10^7)^2 = 1.5*10^5 Gigajoules per kilogram.

I'm pretty sure this is why I expressed some doubts about our potential alien overlords having visited the Earth 100,000 times, as was suggested in an earlier post.

Whoever does it must first discover a new way of generating power.

So will whoever does it second. And third. And so on.


And?

The alternative is something like warp drive, which we have no idea how it works or even if it exists.

You've obviously never heard of the Personal Incredulity Drive™.

Maybe in 200 years time we would never have left the solar system (bar a few unmanned space craft that took decades to do so).

Or the Totally-Out-Of-Left-Field Non Sequitur Drive™.

 

[Akhenaten]

On the contrary it's likely that we'll find, as the relavant technology advances, that even interstellar travel will become easier and use less resources.

I'm inclined to agree with this and in fact it's a large part of what makes me wonder what kind of demented alien race would send 100,000 unmanned probes to our little blue dot before taking the time to come over and have a little lookie for themselves.

 

[Akhenaten]

Seriously travel between the stars at close to the speed of light would require enormous power.

What about "just for fun" travel between the stars? Surely that would require a few less thingamybobs, wouldn't it?

 

[Cuddles]

Crop circles slammed as the work of 'amateurs' as their numbers plummet

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...ork-of-amateurs-as-their-numbers-plummet.html

I do like the description of them as amateurs, followed by one of the main complaints of a crop circler being that they didn't make any money from it and didn't like other people trying to do so.

 

[Akhenaten]

Upthread, rjh01 pointed to the energy expenditure required to reach even a low % of light speed and, as long as we stick to actual physics, that kind of question can't be avoided by conjuring esoteric devices out of nowhere.

And if it's a question that stopped George Stephenson then by golly it'll stop these upstart alien invaders!

Oh, wait . . .

 

[godless dave]

They would be when the dinosaurs went extinct and the most recent report or two. So a 1,000 year old report would very probably still be accurate.

The dinosaur extinction is only one of several mass extinctions in earth history. It only seems like the most notable because the general public likes dinosaurs.

 

[Mudcat]

One isn't allowed to just 'suppose' that some technology or other will make interstellar travel possible and then justify its use by having it become easier and cheaper. You have to begin by pointing to known technology or postulate something plausible.

All I need to know is general history of technology, specifically naval travel. It is now easier, safer, quicker, and takes less resources to send a ship from Spain to New England than it was when Christopher Columbus was still alive. Any much further than that it would have been neigh impossible.

Upthread, rjh01 pointed to the energy expenditure required to reach even a low % of light speed and, as long as we stick to actual physics, that kind of question can't be avoided by conjuring esoteric devices out of nowhere.

That assumes that an alien race is in a hurry to go somewhere. If they're interstellar nomads living in generational ships they might not be traveling anywhere near the speed of light. In which case the objection is entirely moot.

 

[Akhenaten]

That assumes that an alien race is in a hurry to go somewhere. If they're interstellar nomads living in generational ships they might not be traveling anywhere near the speed of light. In which case the objection is entirely moot.

Agreed. The leisurely ET scenario certainly makes more sense than the "Ohnoes, we're doomed! Let's send out 100,000 probes!" one does.

 

[DavidS]

So in order to visit us they would have to slow boat it through the past hundred years of radio transmissions that we have been transmitting. Why a decently intelligent space faring race would at the very least understand English is hard to accept is beyond me.

To me, at least, it's not obvious that a language can reliably be understood without some degree of association with the objects and concepts it's talking about.

If somebody hears "Dave" and sees me point to my chest, he may work out that "Dave" means me, or somebody like me, or a chest, or a shirt, or blue (today), or west (right now), or at least something about one of those. If he just hears "Xixclaiblar" unassociated with anything else except other untranslated sounds, what will he learn?

How much is a language stream, in isolation, like a one-time-pad ciphertext? The latter is equally decryptable into any possible plaintext of the same length; given only the ciphertext, there simply is no way to determine anything about the plaintext other than maximal length.

Is there any reason to believe such truly universal translator technology is more likely than FTL technology? (besides that not knowing one is possible may be weaker than thinking we know the other is impossible) Even if there is, is it surprising that some aren't sufficiently aware of it to presume aliens could learn our languages on approach?

How much context could an alien associate with language received from radio transmissions on approach? When he hears "Dave" does he know it relates to me pointing to my chest, or is he just hearing "Xixclaiblar"?

Similar questions apply to the radio signals themselves. Sure, he'd receive a TV signal and notice the amplitude and frequency variations... but how sure can we be he'll recognize the intent to encode a related image and audio stream? Granted, if he can recognize TV signals for what we intend it will give him lots of language context to work with.

 

[Mudcat]

Agreed. The leisurely ET scenario certainly makes more sense than the "Ohnoes, we're doomed! Let's send out 100,000 probes!" one does.

I see a lot people whining about how some are making assumptions that any potential space faring aliens are anything like humans and then turn around and make the same assumption. Lets suppose for a moment that our first contact is wit a race descended from reptiles, what if we encounter a planetoid race, or what if the majority of intelligent life are living machines? Wouldn't their lifespans be much longer than ours? What if there's a race out there who sends clones out in their stead for interstellar exploration? And on, and on, and on.

To me, at least, it's not obvious that a language can reliably be understood without some degree of association with the objects and concepts it's talking about.

Your point is rendered invalid by the fact that we can figure out extinct languages.

But yeah. I don't think that their proficiency of our languages will be particularly stellar, but English (or any other earth language) speaking aliens shouldn't be surprising.

 

[erwinl]

All I need to know is general history of technology, specifically naval travel. It is now easier, safer, quicker, and takes less resources to send a ship from Spain to New England than it was when Christopher Columbus was still alive. Any much further than that it would have been neigh impossible.



That assumes that an alien race is in a hurry to go somewhere. If they're interstellar nomads living in generational ships they might not be traveling anywhere near the speed of light. In which case the objection is entirely moot.

Relatively speaking to the amount of resources we use each year. Yes.
In absolute numbers? No way. Columbus went across the ocean with far fewer resources than are used to make even a simple river freight ship.

 

[Pixel42]

Another report on the lack of circles this year:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-23545622

Crop circle appearances in Wiltshire have dropped by almost half in a year, according to researchers.

The county's Crop Circle Information and Coordination Centre (CICC) said they had only seen 25 so far this year - 15 fewer than usual for the period.

A decline in the man-made act and a late harvest have both been blamed.

Charles Mallet, from the centre, said he wished amateur crop circlers would quit because they were "clouding a genuine and real phenomenon".

I've lived in Wiltshire for 25 years but I've never bothered to go and see one. Maybe I should, before it's too late.

 

[DavidS]

Your point is rendered invalid by the fact that we can figure out extinct languages.

We share a lot of common ground with ancient peoples. I'll be surprised to hear of a language we've figured out independently of other knowledge of the speakers and the things they needed to talk about. Can you name one?

To be clear: One of my points is not that developing understanding of a language from the language stream alone is definitely impossible, but that it's not apparent that it's so definitely possible that a few decades of radio transmissions should be enough to understand a language.

The corrolary point is that perceived uncertainty -- true or not -- should make it easier to see how folks might expect spacefaring aliens to arrive without knowing human languages.

 

[rjh01]

<snip>
That assumes that an alien race is in a hurry to go somewhere. If they're interstellar nomads living in generational ships they might not be traveling anywhere near the speed of light. In which case the objection is entirely moot.

You want to go 100 light years at say 0.1% of the speed of light? Simple arithmetic says that takes 100,000 years. Apart from building something that will last such a long time, maybe with repairs, the energy requirements just to keep everything running, like the life forms fed, would be huge. No one way or another to get between stars without something like warp drive you need huge energy requirements.

Worse 0.1% of the speed of light is still a huge speed, requiring enormous energy itself. The whole idea of travelling between the stars is a fantasy and not taken very seriously.

 

[rjh01]

The dinosaur extinction is only one of several mass extinctions in earth history. It only seems like the most notable because the general public likes dinosaurs.

That is why I mentioned 100 million years as my starting point. During that time there has been only one mass extinction. The previous one to that was 141 (or is that 205?) million years ago.
Ref: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Earths-five-mass-extinction-events.html

No, my post should not be interpreted that aliens had visited every 1000 years. That is nothing but a stupid strawman. My point is that the earth does not generally change much over a period of 1,000 years. Nothing more.

 

[Mudcat]

You want to go 100 light years at say 0.1% of the speed of light? Simple arithmetic says that takes 100,000 years. Apart from building something that will last such a long time, maybe with repairs, the energy requirements just to keep everything running, like the life forms fed, would be huge. No one way or another to get between stars without something like warp drive you need huge energy requirements.

Worse 0.1% of the speed of light is still a huge speed, requiring enormous energy itself.

I'm already aware of that. Assuming that no kind of faster than light travel is possible the maximum distance we could travel within the lifetime of just the spacecraft itself would be in our immediate star group. But seriously speaking I don't believe that faster than light travel is impossible, however that's a discussion for another thread.

The whole idea of travelling between the stars is a fantasy and not taken very seriously.

It might be impractical but I wouldn't go so far as to say all that. Any kind of travel, as it first develops, is impractical and full of problems. In the aviation field, for example, passenger transport didn't really get off the ground until the 1940s. It was not very wide spread and travel across the globe could still take days. Here we are in the 21st century and passenger transport happens pretty much twenty-four/seven and global transport can happen in mere hours.