Jimmy Higgins
Contributor
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2001
- Messages
- 47,166
- Basic Beliefs
- Calvinistic Atheist
In structural engineer, the shear, moment, angular rotation, and deflection are all intimately related, with the later being equal to the integration of the prior related equation. Calculus is very very real and very very physical. While numerical systems can vary, can Calculus? Two people invented generally the same thing, somewhat independently on this planet. Can science exist with an alternative to calculus? What would it look like?
The trouble with alien signals is that we need to be intersecting the signal in a sense of space and time. A civilization from 50,000 years ago and 40,000 light years away, could have been broadcasting for 1000 years, up until the 1850s, and then stopped. One possible problem is intelligent races aren't communicating out there with others, because the limits on travel are quite real, and the inability of travel faster than light (for anything), makes the entire thing pointless. Even when signals reach another, it isn't actually possible to respond due to the distance involved. Sure, we could reply, but if they are thousands of light years away, we are less responding and more just saying "hi" to even more random strangers if they are still there. The reality is that intelligent life could be all over the universe, but spaced apart at such distances that tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of light years separate us.
As quoted in the sci-fi classic film Spaceballs, "Lightspeed is too slow."
The trouble with alien signals is that we need to be intersecting the signal in a sense of space and time. A civilization from 50,000 years ago and 40,000 light years away, could have been broadcasting for 1000 years, up until the 1850s, and then stopped. One possible problem is intelligent races aren't communicating out there with others, because the limits on travel are quite real, and the inability of travel faster than light (for anything), makes the entire thing pointless. Even when signals reach another, it isn't actually possible to respond due to the distance involved. Sure, we could reply, but if they are thousands of light years away, we are less responding and more just saying "hi" to even more random strangers if they are still there. The reality is that intelligent life could be all over the universe, but spaced apart at such distances that tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of light years separate us.
As quoted in the sci-fi classic film Spaceballs, "Lightspeed is too slow."