NASA Tests EM Drive

[Anomalocaris]

To be fair, science is not what journalists and self promoters say, it is what the scientific community does, and scientific community doesn't seem to be rushing to discard the momentum conservation rule.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Do not - I repeat NOT - dis the Stooges.

Boru

[Alex K]

To be fair, science is not what journalists and self promoters say,  it is what the scientific community does, and scientific community doesn't seem to be rushing to discard the momentum conservation rule.

You'd think it would have shown up elsewhere...

[Pyrrho]

How would an alien tell the difference?

The ones who could have the capability of interstellar travel would be really, really smart, so they would figure out the difference between things that are presented as fiction and things presented as fact.  We even provide helpful clues on this, as we have lists of who plays the characters in pure fiction, which we call "credits."  And we have the occasional documentary or talkshow in which actors appear and talk about the characters they play.  So it would not be too difficult for them to figure this out, once they have viewed enough material and have also figured out our language(s).

Once they have the two separated out, they will then be able to look at the stuff that is presented as fact, and see plenty of examples of extreme stupidity.  That will be enough to get them to not want to bother visiting us, regardless of what they might think of our fiction.

If their aesthetic taste resembled ours (which does not seem particularly likely), they could enjoy Bach and Mozart and Beethoven from our broadcasts, and not need to bother with actually coming here.

In my opinion, there is no reason for a truly advanced civilization to visit this planet.

[AFTT47]

I agree with you, Pyrrho, though perhaps for not the same reasons.

I personally like the so-called Star Trek Explanation - or at least a variation of it.

Most people here will be aware of the Prime Directive, a moral idea of Star Trek that forbids interfering in the development of a lesser civilization. While it may be argued that it is impossible to predict alien ethics, it may be easier to predict their practical concerns. What does an alien civilization capable of interstellar travel have to gain with contact with our civilization? Certainly not resources. No intelligent lifeforms capable of interstellar travel needs planets to live on. If you have the practical means to bridge the enormous distances between stars, you also have the means to build artificial habitats from asteroids capable of supporting your needs exactly. You already have all the practical things you need. Even arguing against this, if you want Earth, you will take it. Science fiction aside, we would have zero capability of resisting an interstellar-capable civilization from taking this planet if they wanted it.

An alien civilization may have scientific curiosity about us - even after viewing videos of The Three Stooges. Hell, they might even develop a fan-like appreciation of us. But they will be smart enough to realize that they will fuck us up royally if they reveal themselves to us at this point in our development. It will ruin their observations. And if they don't want to be known. they will not be known. This is the part that stuns me about the UFO crowd. Do you really think an alien civilization capable of interstellar travel would have any trouble concealing themselves from us? And if they didn't want to conceal themselves, wouldn't their presence be as obvious as elephant shit in a rose garden?

[Iroscato]

This picture may go some of the way towards explaining at least one of the many reasons why we haven't made contact yet. We tend to forget how huge the galaxy really is (let alone the rest of the universe), and how insignificant even our largest footprint in the universe - our radio signal sphere - really is.

[Anomalocaris]

This picture may go some of the way towards explaining at least one of the many reasons why we haven't made contact yet. We tend to forget how huge the galaxy really is (let alone the rest of the universe), and how insignificant even our largest footprint in the universe - our radio signal sphere - really is.

So?

The initial Radio broadcast from a civilization that attained radio technology just 0.001% of the age universe before we did would by now be detectable within a sphere larger than the diameter of the disk of Milky Way.   So if radio is the persistent means by which civilizations advertise themselves, or detect others, then any civilization that attain radio technology would be known to the entire galaxy within less time than it took for archaic homo sapien to evolve into homo sapien sapiens.     If there are civilizations that attain radio technology 100,000 years or so earlier than we did, we ought to be hearing multiple overlapping signals from radio broadcasts of multiple technic civilizations that are more advanced than we by different amount.

The explanation why we don't would have to be either that there are no such civilizations within a distance from which our equipment could hear their leaking radio transmissions,  or that radio communication, or radio leakage, is a relatively transient stage in the technological development of cultures.

If radio or low energy EM is a transient means of advertisement and detection, than out signals may elicit no response simple because those who can intercept them and understand them wouldn't be listening for them.

[Minimalist]

The ones who could have the capability of interstellar travel would be really, really smart,

If we detect the Stooges or, worse, Rush Limbaugh, from space I say send them a nuke with the timer already running.

[Alex K]

The ones who could have the capability of interstellar travel would be really, really smart,

If we detect the Stooges or, worse, Rush Limbaugh, from space I say send them a nuke with the timer already running.

There was this quote from that film I really like...

[AFTT47]

We haven't been broadcasting powerful radio signals for even 100 years and already, our RF footprint is rapidly decreasing. We are using satellite transmitters to better focus our emissions where we want them to go. More efficient. We are also turning towards fiber optic transmission of data. Again, more efficient.

Alien civilizations don't need RF leakage to detect us. They could detect us by analyzing the spectra of sunlight filtered by our atmosphere. Our activities have already left an unmistakable footprint there. If they are interested, they know we're here.

It would take radio telescopes enormously larger than what we have to detect RF leakage even from Alpha Centauri. We might detect deliberate transmissions aimed in our direction but why would an alien civilization do that? They know we would detect life once we had space-borne telescopes large enough to look at their atmosphere. We might even detect artificial habitats optically in the same way. There is no need to broadcast one's existence aside from a deliberate effort to communicate. But the closest alien civilization within even a ten thousand year technological window of us is probably thousands of light years away. Catching their message at the right time might be very unlikely.