Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

[sojourner]

And this is where you don't understand science. Most Scientists, when confronted with irrefutable proof of something, will merely go to their (metaphorical) chalkboards, cross off the work on the problem at hand, and start over on a new problem. Until that point, they remain skeptical.

Science requires verifiable and repeatable proof. Not "I saw something I can't explain".

To use your example against you, at one point in human history every light seen in the night sky was attributed to the supernatural. Science, in the short time that humans have come, has wittled that down to only %5 to %10 of the unexplained remaining that way. Not too bad. Give it another hundred years or so and see what that percentage is down to. Without "aliens" or "sky gods" showing up on the Whitehouse lawn.

 

[The Castellan]

wow, you really, really got something against the idea of life out there, and being more advanced than us, don't you? Something tells me you'd be thrilled as hell if we are, however unlikely, in fact alone out here.

And as I said, that 5-10 percent represents a large number of what ca not be explained.....weather balloons, meteors, swamp gas, military projects, and so on.......and what is left, however improbable, least to the close minded, has to be the answer. And, the folks who say show me the proof what's out there....I got a few questions.....what proof will it requite, how much of it, and also, I ask you to prove to me there is nothing out there, which can not be done any more than me proving to you there is something. Like with the megalithic structures from ancient times and the mainstreamers getting angry when even suggestions the idea the ancients were helped, especially considering the actual process of cutting huge pieces of dense, hard stone like durrite, which you need a diamond to cut it with (and not diamonds in those regions many times), and then carry it across some really harsh terrain with hills, valleys, and water...and then to lift them up and fit them into position with precision, without the aid of modern techology, and in a fast time (to build the great pyramid in the time they said it took, you'd need to move one block into position every 9 to 10 seconds) Give me real proof they did that.....same with the SPhinx, it's at least twice as old, but the mainstreamers say no, but won't offer proof themselves, despite the fact there's water erosion on it. I say the same for both alien life and FTL travel, gimme proof they don't exist. The mainstream folks need to realize they gotta do it as well. And given that so many people today (especially in non english speaking countries....you talk to the Hindus of alien life and we being visited, they go "Yep, and not tell me something I don't know") believe in ET life and that we been visited, both now and long ago, and openly talking about it, and government trust at an all time low, maybe there's something to it, yes?

And the idea of them being on the whitehouse lawn is just as arrogant as saying there's nothing out there. Thing is that politics and greed pretty much is what says what advances we make, be it propulsion, energy (you really think big oil will go, "So, you found a new, better energy source than us?! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! We shall proudly step down and and move aside so we can begin a new era of clean, better energy! Doubt it. Same with Mon Santo, a company infamous for its actions, and the president hired one of its top dogs to be on the FDA, in the height of times where Europe has made strict labeling laws for GMO food, as well as banning it in some countries, and with a majority of Americans demanding similar label laws....it's not a coincidence that nothing has been done, so far, and the mon santo guy being put on the FDA.....that's like hiring the drug lords to be in the government to fight the silly and pointless war on drugs.....money and power talk, not people's wants and needs these days), medicine, and all that. Just look at the mess of the world we are in, and they can be solved with technology, used right, but politics and greed gets in the way. I mean look at Tesla, he was on the verge of free, clean, and safe energy, but JP Morgan and Thomas Edison (Edison was a business man first and an inventor, second) pretty much did everything possible to destroy both Telsa and us being free from the energy trap we are in, today. If not for politics and greed, we'd be probably another century ahead in technology right now. If you think I am crazy, Eisenhower warned us about all this after he left office, plus as much as I hated Reagen, he did say one thing I agree with, and there was 'The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' And if you got scientists working for the government, they are not going to do what's right, they are going to do what they are ordered to do, mainly because even though they might be smart cookies, they don't wanna risk their paychecks, pensions and maybe their own safety in trying to do the right thing. Same if they work for a big corporation. Of course they are gonna say what the bosses want.

All I am saying here is that just because someone with a title or a position in authority says something, it is not necessarily true. Even guys like Einstein himself spoke about stuff like that, hell, he came from a government infamous for that.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Two thousand years ago, a writer envisioned a trip to the Moon...

And people thought the same thing when a writer envisioned that same trip 100 years ago.

I think that space travel to the nearest stars may be a series of leaps, like what the Polynesians did when exploring the Pacific.

That works for planets just fine... but not stars. That's a category error you're making: the polynesians never managed to explore the moon, for example.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I really don't think you appreciate the distances involved.

I am going to say this once, since all this will get is either tinfoil hat jokes or cheesy pictures with infantile captions for some cheap lol factor.

I am a paranormal investigator.

That pretty much sums up your entire post.

wow, you really, really got something against the idea of life out there, and being more advanced than us, don't you?

it's not "life out there" that people are questioning. It's "aliens have/are visiting the Earth" that people are questioning. Those are two COMPLETELY different premises that have almost nothing to do with each other.

All I am saying here is that just because someone with a title or a position in authority says something, it is not necessarily true.

Everyone knows that already. The problem is you continually fail to apply this same standard to yourself: just because YOU have the title of "Paranormal Investigator" doesn't mean your theories are any more valid than those of mainstream scientists. However, what sticks in the minds of a lot of people is that you appear to be positioning yourself in direct opposition to people who have done better quality research than you, who have spent more time studying the subject than you, who organize and support their data better than you, and by all other accounts they appear to be smarter than you.

Perhaps that's unfair to you, or perhaps it's just unfortunate. Perhaps it merely obscures the fact that you, the non-expert, have noticed something obvious that the experts have somehow missed. But science doesn't have a handicapped parking space; if you have a fundamental disadvantage, then you DO have to work that much harder to provide hard evidence for your claims. Continuing to whine about how nobody takes you seriously is simply a waste of energy.

 

[The Castellan]

I really don't think you appreciate the distances involved.

I am going to say this once, since all this will get is either tinfoil hat jokes or cheesy pictures with infantile captions for some cheap lol factor.

I am a paranormal investigator.

That pretty much sums up your entire post.

wow, you really, really got something against the idea of life out there, and being more advanced than us, don't you?

it's not "life out there" that people are questioning. It's "aliens have/are visiting the Earth" that people are questioning. Those are two COMPLETELY different premises that have almost nothing to do with each other.

All I am saying here is that just because someone with a title or a position in authority says something, it is not necessarily true.

Everyone knows that already. The problem is you continually fail to apply this same standard to yourself: just because YOU have the title of "Paranormal Investigator" doesn't mean your theories are any more valid than those of mainstream scientists. However, what sticks in the minds of a lot of people is that you appear to be positioning yourself in direct opposition to people who have done better quality research than you, who have spent more time studying the subject than you, who organize and support their data better than you, and by all other accounts they appear to be smarter than you.

Perhaps that's unfair to you, or perhaps it's just unfortunate. Perhaps it merely obscures the fact that you, the non-expert, have noticed something obvious that the experts have somehow missed. But science doesn't have a handicapped parking space; if you have a fundamental disadvantage, then you DO have to work that much harder to provide hard evidence for your claims. Continuing to whine about how nobody takes you seriously is simply a waste of energy.

Hold it, PAL. Your entire post is negated when you did the paranormal investigator response. Just because someone studies the stuff the mainstream won't touch does not make that person stupid or a kook. And given that many of us are being listened to via alternative media in radio, books, television, internet, etc, we seem to be taken seriously, just not by some, is all......we're now in an era where CNN and FOX are not your sole sources of information, anymore. And I won't take seriously an organization like NASA first because they can't even convert metric to English, which is too stupid to be stupid, and the fact we've done nothing but go in low earth orbit for 30 years (that's not exploring space in my book...plus the Curiosity landing made huge news because it's the first thing since the moon landing in the space programs that actually did something new and exciting in the past 3 decades, though we need more ,especially since robots don't make good role models for future generations, and let's face it, role models are an endangered species these days) and the fact we got the Brookings Report saying we'll all go crazy and kill each other if we find alien life or evidence of it....not what I'd call them having done better research....oh, and from past experience, when someone outside the mainstream puts up evidence that can hold up in a court of law, the mainstreamers and naysayers will shout 'tinfoil hat, conspiracy theorist! LOL!" (but then again, seeing how people are supposed to be expected to behave in post 9-11 America, where you do what you're told and shut up, the name callers are not often the sharpest knife to begin with), even, like I said, when the evidence/proof is up.....so I can put up reams of actual data and documents till you are blue in the face, but, dealing with this before....most are unwilling to read anything more than a few paragraphs long (unless it's something littered with innuendo and toilet humor), and some people to even try. And even guys like Buzz Aldren, who were there, are talking about this stuff, now.

And with regards to the stuff like the ancient aliens theory, our ancestors were not stupid, they simply had not the words to describe what they saw (they did not have 'space ship' or 'rocket' or 'alien' back then) and used words like metal bird, metal dragon, flying shield, etc. I find it ironic that so many cultures that date back to ancient days are more willing to discuss this topic than NASA, government, and apparently some fans/nerds of a certain sci-fi series. Double that since they also seemed to have scientific/mathematical/astronomical knowledge long before western culture had, and seemed to have more knowledge than even what would be considered today's educated man.

And for the paranormal investigator 'title', what you want me to call myself, and no, "tinfoil hat wearing, conspiracy theorist, lolz!" is not going to be that, either, thank you.

 

[sojourner]

wow, you really, really got something against the idea of life out there, and being more advanced than us, don't you?

Out there? Nope. I don't have anything against life "out there". I actually think it's a certainty there is somewhere.

I have problems with claims that alien life has come here to earth. As the saying goes, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof". Proof is not "I don't know how ancient man built the pyramids - therefore aliens!". That's just shortchanging the capabilities of our ancestors.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Hold it, PAL. Your entire post is negated when you did the paranormal investigator response. Just because someone studies the stuff the mainstream won't touch does not make that person stupid or a kook.

Never claimed it did. I meant exactly what I wrote: that the only relevant piece of information in your post was you identifying yourself as a paranormal investigator. The entire rest of that post was you attempting to JUSTIFY your paranormal interests in light of the attacks you expect to receive.

Considering this is a science and technology forum, this is a bit like going to a Christian message board and announcing "I am a Secular-Humanist." You could go on to write another 600 words describing your religious beliefs, but they wouldn't reveal anything that wasn't made extremely clear in those first four words.

And I won't take seriously an organization like NASA first because they can't even convert metric to English, which is too stupid to be stupid, and the fact we've done nothing but go in low earth orbit for 30 years

Really? What have YOU accomplished in space for the last 30 years?

and the fact we got the Brookings Report saying we'll all go crazy and kill each other if we find alien life or evidence of it....not what I'd call them having done better research...

Since the Brookings Report doesn't actually say that, that sort of illustrates my point about research quality.

from past experience, when someone outside the mainstream puts up evidence that can hold up in a court of law, the mainstreamers and naysayers will shout 'tinfoil hat, conspiracy theorist! LOL!"

Actually what they say is "We find the defendant not-guilty," since that's usually the kind of evidence that's presented in a court of law.

Please bear in mind, science-themed message boards are NOT courts of law, and neither are pop-sci magazines. Paranomal Investigators get the reputation they have BECAUSE they are constantly claiming to be derided and/or threatened and marginalized by mainstream science.

From MY personal experience, they are NOT derided or marginalized, they are simply IGNORED, because no one in the mainstream thinks they know what they're talking about. You should also bear in mind that this is something paranormal investigators have in common with about 90% of mainstream scientists. Theoretical science IN GENERAL is a pretty cutthroat affair.

so I can put up reams of actual data and documents till you are blue in the face...

Out of genuine curiosity: would any of that be original research? Or would that be hyperlinks to paranomal websites you personally find credible?

And with regards to the stuff like the ancient aliens theory, our ancestors were not stupid, they simply had not the words to describe what they saw

And you never once considered the possibility that they DID have the words and described it exactly as they saw it?

used words like metal bird, metal dragon, flying shield, etc.

Exactly. Why, to you, is a "spaceship" a more likely explanation than any of those things? Especially considering the writings themselves may have been intentional fabrications? (The concept of "fiction" was known to ancient peoples too, methinks; entertainment CERTAINLY was).

I mean, hell, even a metal dragon -- or a heavily armored one -- hints at a recently-extinct reptile species. Aliens, not so much.

And for the paranormal investigator 'title', what you want me to call myself

A paranormal investigator.

Because anything else would be just confusing.

 

[Deckerd]

The Castellan's great. Can we keep him?

 

[larryman]

I don't think you can stretch the ring into a cylinder shape. They seem to have gained great functionality by making the ring a "rounded donut" shape. Stretching it would probably return it to requiring 'planet Jupiter mass' energy requirements. I would think that multiple donut rings in series would also.

I think best to just use the saucer-section. Scaled to the max diameter of the football (in proportion to the warp ring), and mount it on a pivot axis to the ring. Then, with the saucer perpendicular to the ring... it's impulse engines can be used to achieve initial sub-light velocity. Then pivot the saucer to parallel with the ring, and engage the warp drive. When slowing to stop... do the reverse procedure.

A. Why pivot it at all?
B. Why use a saucer shape to begin with?

Sorry - my bad. I was thinking of two size-scale ships at the same time. I'll try again.

If the Enterprise saucer-section was no larger than the 'football' ship... then no pivot is needed. But if the saucer is scaled larger then the 'football' ship... then pivot is needed to prevent the saucer's leading and trailing portions from extending into, and being destroyed, in the 'close' warp zones ahead and behind the warp-ring.

The 'saucer shape' is what the Enterprise uses as it's primary hull shape. And it might be desired/required to disconnect from the warp-ring, and land the ship (proper) on a planet. Perhaps as a colony base station.

 

[iguana_tonante]

The Castellan's great. Can we keep him?

Throw him into the physicists' den. They will eat anything.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Castellan, how about some citations for these claims you are making?

The "water erosion of the Sphinx" one, for instance, I know is false. Of course, I would be willing to entertain credible evidence to the contrary, if you have any.

 

[B.J.]

And I won't take seriously an organization like NASA first because they can't even convert metric to English

Okay, that was back in 1999 (Mars Climate Orbiter). You do realize that people *learn* from their mistakes, right? Two independent teams used two different systems of measurement, and NASA has taken careful steps since then so something like that never happens again.

Hell, it's even mentioned in Brookings that scientists and engineers would be the ones to really freak out....and given the egos and arrogance, which is probably higher than those of rock stars and pro athletes, I can easily see that.

You don't know many actual scientists and engineers, do you? (Says the aerospace engineer.)

 

[Trekker4747]

Not to mention the Imperial/Metric problem was from the contacting company who built the Rover and NASA simply didn't know they had had programed it with Imperial units rather than Metric. I'm sure, had they known and all been aware, they could have done the necessary conversions.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Hell, it's even mentioned in Brookings that scientists and engineers would be the ones to really freak out....and given the egos and arrogance, which is probably higher than those of rock stars and pro athletes, I can easily see that.

You don't know many actual scientists and engineers, do you? (Says the aerospace engineer.)

The astrophysicist agrees.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Hell, it's even mentioned in Brookings that scientists and engineers would be the ones to really freak out....and given the egos and arrogance, which is probably higher than those of rock stars and pro athletes, I can easily see that.

You don't know many actual scientists and engineers, do you? (Says the aerospace engineer.)

The astrophysicist agrees.

I wonder what it is he is characterizing as "arrogance," anyway. Could it be that he posits his wild speculations, they tell him he's "wrong," and so he simply concludes they are arrogant?

To me, this is probably one of the worst aspects of the Internet: that complete hogwash can be listed in search results alongside credible scientific research, and that fact leads certain people to conclude that facts are a matter of opinion, and you just get to choose which facts you accept as true--and then they are the truth.

I understand the conspiracist's worldview. It's comforting to believe you've got it all figured out. It's the same sense of satisfaction people get from religious belief. You "know the truth," and the others are just blind. It's okay that they don't believe you, because you will be proven right in the end. And anything that comes along to challenge this worldview, you can quickly assimilate or reject without questioning any of your underlying suppositions. You build this internally consistent house of cards out of cherry-picked data and anecdotes, and it all makes sense, because you've tossed out everything that contradicts it.

To me, it seems a lot like a mental illness.

 

[Deckerd]

What it is, is intellectual laziness. I didn't do physics/maths/engineering at university but I don't need to because I can learn more watching YouTube and websites which confirm what I've already decided to believe.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

You are exactly right. Intellectual laziness is what enables that sort of mindset to take hold and endure. It's easier than living with uncertainty and having to learn things, after all.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I didn't know Chinese, but I've just watched Shaolin Soccer and now I can speak Mandarin, Cantonese, I know at least five styles of kung fu and I can cook some kick-ass mantou.

 

[Psion]

I didn't go after my doctorate, but I still think I can keep my posts on topic.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Staying on topic is for arrogant, egocentric, close-minded priests in labcoats!