The speed of light and discovering

[RozKek]

It feels as if some didn't read my post properly. I don't care if we find alien life or not, what I'm interested in is if it's possible to work our way around that problem, I'm simply curious about it and it seems interesting what our limits are.

edit: and I used aliens and us humans in other planets as an example to why this can be important.

[abaris]

Except older civilizations out there could've sent plenty of messages that would've reached us by now.

Why? If their message missed us, as in today, by a measly century, noone would have heard the message. Hell, if they missed us by 55, 60 years, nobody would have noticed. Don't you realize how tiny that pinhead of reception still is?

[vorlon13]

In regards to Mars, should it be colonized at some point:

the 'trick' is to not shut up.

IOW, as the population increases more and more full time data channels back to earth will be established, and vice versa.

Do I currently care if the news report on MSNBC tonite from some shithole in the Middle East has been spooled up for a few hours on a server somewhere? No, I'm given to DVRing the shows anyhow, I'll watch them when I want. If I was on Mars, even worst case time lag to earth (and it varies throughout the Martian year) is likely shorter than than my 'DVR lag', LOL.

Would my duties here be affected? I log on a few times a day, keeping up with some rapidly moving threads might get a little iffy, but even hot threads, if there are several, might sit for up to an hour before I get back to them.

Ebay auctions I'm probably effed, but there is always Buy It Now, and the ordering time lag ain't nothing compared to the shipping lag I'm going to experience.

[Kosh]

I'm not a physicist, but I do read a bit on the subject.  I've always wondered if quantum entanglement could be used to create a faster-than-light communications device.

[TheRealJoeFish]

It feels as if some didn't read my post properly. I don't care if we find alien life or not, what I'm interested in is if it's possible to work our way around that problem, I'm simply curious about it and it seems interesting what our limits are.

edit: and I used aliens and us humans in other planets as an example to why this can be important.

I believe the answer is, essentially, no, there is no workaround. I recall vague notions about wormholes possibly providing some communication across spacetime that violates normal speed of light principles, but those are tiny and uncontrollable and theoretical and don't really answer the question. Others will know a lot more about this, but, my understanding is that, in any way we think about "observing" far across the galaxy from our earth, we're necessarily looking at the thing as it was minutes or years or millennia ago. When it comes to the SOL (speed of light), we're SOL (not speed of light).

If the sun blew up now, we couldn't tell on earth for 8 minutes.

[bennyboy]

The point of QM entanglement is that it allows spooky action at a distance, and that this action is instant. But I'm pretty sure that the entanglement effect would need a steady stream of newly entangled particles to "read."

[Excited Penguin]

It feels as if some didn't read my post properly. I don't care if we find alien life or not, what I'm interested in is if it's possible to work our way around that problem, I'm simply curious about it and it seems interesting what our limits are.

edit: and I used aliens and us humans in other planets as an example to why this can be important.

I believe the answer is, essentially, no, there is no workaround.  I recall vague notions about wormholes possibly providing some communication across spacetime that violates normal speed of light principles, but those are tiny and uncontrollable and theoretical and don't really answer the question. Others will know a lot more about this, but, my understanding is that, in any way we think about "observing" far across the galaxy from our earth, we're necessarily looking at the thing as it was minutes or years or millennia ago.  When it comes to the SOL (speed of light), we're SOL (not speed of light).

If the sun blew up now, we couldn't tell on earth for 8 minutes.

Lovely, that is.

[LastPoet]

It is true. We are 8 lightminutes from our own sun.

[Excited Penguin]

I know we are, I was just commenting on the fact.

[Alex K]

Where is our physicist?

In Eastern Time + 6

Good morning everyone