Its easy, just jump in a worm hole. Didn't you guys see Contact?

Husker wrote:

Ejnar Fjerdingstad wrote:

kolbi2112 wrote:Seriously.....assuming the earth is the only life-supporting planet in our solar system, the next closest system is about 4 light years away (or 40 trillion kilometers). Doesn't seem very likely that we've had any visitors.....

EDIT: 40 trillion kilometers

Unless they invented some kind of faster-than-light spaceship. There was an article in Science once, claiming that was theoretically possible!

According to Einstein form his E=mc2- as you approach the speed of light, both mass and length increase and approach infinite. Therefore not possible.

Yes, but the man had some very complicated mathematical argument that I didn't understand about it being possible to make a kind of envelope around the spaceship that isolated from these effects. Anyway, I saw in a recent Scientific American that somebody in trying to make gravity fit quantum mechanics had found that this could be done if one assumed a Newtonian universe (in which of course these weird relativistic effects would not exist). It is a well-known fact that relativity and quantum mechanics can't both be completely true (in their present form, at least).

Day Hiker wrote:The place is just so big -- so unpopulated and so spread out -- almost as bad as Pahrump, Nevada. The likelihood of finding intelligent life is about the same to.

http://www.pahrumpnv.biz/town/index.php ... e&Itemid=1

I cannot allow the fine city and people of Pahrump to be disrespected so. Have at you man!

My wife has relatives in Pahrump. Day Hiker speakes the truth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus

Reading about project Daedalus makes me think that if our society was sufficiently motivated to undertake interstellar travel it would be possible to reach nearby stars. The interesting thing here is that at 10% the speed of light a craft could reach the nearest star in 50 years. So why couldnt a more advanced society reach earth? I think they absolutely could.

When my oldest daughter was about 4 or 5 years old she used to call them a-wee-ins.

IagosGhost wrote:When my oldest daughter was about 4 or 5 years old she used to call them a-wee-ins.

sweet!

mrh wrote:Its easy, just jump in a worm hole. Didn't you guys see Contact?

Great film. Sad there has never been a Contact 2

calebEOC wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus

Reading about project Daedalus makes me think that if our society was sufficiently motivated to undertake interstellar travel it would be possible to reach nearby stars. The interesting thing here is that at 10% the speed of light a craft could reach the nearest star in 50 years. So why couldnt a more advanced society reach earth? I think they absolutely could.

Very sensible post! And during these fifty years one might well become able to keep them in suspended animation, much like animals that hibernate!