How easy is it actually to reverse engineer a UFO?

Doesn't "quantum" imply that the uncertainty principle is involved in it? Maybe a computer that would make random mistakes in a completely unpredictable way will turn out to be impractical.

 

Yeah, quantum computers aren't at all like regular ones. The output is effectively probabilistic and not deterministic. It's intrinsic to how they (and underlying quantum reality) work.

 

Are you familiar with the Vulcan Love Slave programs at Quarks...?

 

I voted almost impossible, but it really depends if the basics are at all similar.

It's very possible that skilled engineers could figure out the basic input/output of every component and rig up some kind of converter to interface with the individual components even if the individual components are black boxes.

So I guess it depends whether or not the aliens are good programmers.

 

Yeah, as @dupersuper implies, you forgot entertainment purposes.

 

And if these inputs/outputs could be determined, you might try to duplicate them, leading to...a kludge?

 

Yes, but you could need activation codes in order to get the right outputs and that could take forever.

 

True, if the aliens have any kind of cryptography that would make it much harder. But something strictly mechanical, I'm just saying we wouldn't have to totally understand the technology in order to rig it to work the way we want.

 

There is the possibility aliens might want their ship to be understood simply

 

I have a hard time believing that they would land on an inhabited world by violent and acquisitive people such as we are at that without taking some sort of precautions.

 

I didn’t say land...Oumuamua’s trajectory really is about what I would expect from an aging, damaged Bracewell probe that coasted in on more or less on target...but instead of a braking burn, accelerated out—maybe for the reasons you cite...but if this was a spacecraft, it was likely just a Voyager on steroids. Now, if there is a tiny core to it...I could see a two Starship/two SLS NTR—NEP catching up with it, leaving the tankage to coast on...and cutting off the payload and slowing it down for an eventual return by a follow up craft. Interstellar rock sample return if nothing else. Even at this late date...a LYRA on steroids could get an extrasolar sample back in a human life time. We can still run it down.

 

I hedged my bets and picked the first and 3rd option..... It's either going to be impossible, or somewhat possible if their tech is something we might understand. We might not be able to sort everything out but maybe low level systems first and then work our way into the more advanced systems.

 

AT this point in time we don't have the slightest idea of how to even send people to the moon without enormous expenses that make it practically impossible (we're no longer in the situation we in the early seventies when a sizeable budget was attributed to the project with approval of the powers that be). Going to another Star System in less than a lifetime is less believable than practical immortality or turning garbage into food with no noticeable expense of energy. If aliens have managed that, it's no doubt way beyond our current level of technology or our understanding.

 

I suspect that much of the technology would be incomprehensible to us.

UFOs reportedly have flight characteristics beyond those of any conventional aircraft. Suggesting that flight is based on principles different from our technology.

Concerning the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis....do UFOs have an FTL drive, or FTL communications? We might not recognize such devices.

Concerning the Interdimensional Hypothesis....presumably such a craft would have means to shift between dimensions...would we recognize the machinery?

 

But maybe they are not form other dimensions, but use that as a form of space hopping by using wormholes or some other exotic means to take shortcuts through normal space. So yeah not so sure we'd recognize the equipment unless it uses a lot of magnetic coils and other tricks to slip dimensions, which we MIGHT recognize but that's a bloody huge longshot.

 

Long shot indeed, Gingerbread Demon. Technologies that-if they are possible-are likely the products of a super civilization.

 

That's a given..... I think the only way to cross interstellar space in almost real time would be to take short cuts, either using wormholes or warp bubbles, neither of which we can even fathom to do right now. I'd call wormholes a form of interdimensional travel.

 

It's likely that wormholes that would allow such shortcuts would be subjected to intense variations of gravity that would destroy anything or anybody using them, pretty much like black holes before you can even get to the event horizon you'll be torn apart.

 

Not if it's artificially generated with a centre "eye" where transit can happen.

 

I don't think so.