False Beliefs

Misidentified Objects and the Mythological Construction

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Intellectual property of the researcher Ruben Hector Tesolin.

False beliefs arise from ignorance, but also unwillingness to stop being ignorant. Of course it is easier to attribute the unknown areas beyond current science to take the hard work of researching the known science and more on topics of cutting-edge science.
When the general public objects seen in the sky does not know the first things associated with known and when the comparison fails, then passed directly, secondly to speculation, making deductions with little or no solid knowledge base in particular and even less scientific.
All this lack of information, and training mainly leads people to consider the ease with complete simplicity and feasibility of interplanetary and interstellar travel even worse trips.
Here it is shown in full and detailed the impossibility of Earth being visited by alien spacecraft as far impassable astronomical distances therefore met and founded the lack of rationality expressed by the figure that every six minutes arrives an alien to our planet from outer space vehicle.

Extraterrestrials Visit the Earth

As clearly stated the researcher Luis Alfonso Gámez "An alien spacecraft visiting Earth every six minutes. Only then it explained that in the last 50 years, 5% of the world population claims to have witnessed the evolution of flying saucers. Although the vast majority of comments has its origin in misperceptions of astronomical bodies, atmospheric phenomena, aircraft and helicopters ... when not on mere fabrications and fraud; of the 200 million seen flying saucers in the sky since 1947, 4 million are real aliens mills, according to the most conservative estimates ufologists. Our planet is a cosmic Benidorm beings who come from all corners of the galaxy. "
Therefore, global public opinion, all UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft, manned by intelligent and advanced beings from distant planets who come to earth. What is not justified is that "ufologists" think the same, when they should apply the so careless and sometimes forgotten "scientific method" are or are not themselves scientists.


The Fermi paradox

The lack of success of the search for intelligent extraterrestrial signals leads to a paradox, as set by the physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950, when asked about the absence of alien visitors to our planet.

Enrico Fermi was an Italian physicist known for developing the first nuclear reactor and his contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics and statistical mechanics. In 1938 Fermi was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity and is considered one of the leading scientists of the twentieth century.
He is recognized as a physicist with strong capabilities in both the theoretical and experimental level. The Fermio element, which was produced synthetically in 1952, was named in his honor.

Aliens Popular Culture

Fermi's paradox:

Obviously it is hard to imagine what would resemble an extraterrestrial civilization. One fact, however, seems to prevail is that such a civilization would inevitably end by pretending extend beyond their home planet. They can cite at least three reasons for which this objective seems natural: the exploration, colonization and survival.

The exploration would be a first step, a mission towards other stars, motivated, or intellectual curiosity, or for reasons of prestige. The settlement would for political or religious economic reasons. The third reason, more implacable, is survival, because the life of a star is limited in time. For example, in five billion years, the Sun will cease to be the stable star we know today. It will become a red giant that will absorb the Earth. Therefore, sooner or later, then interstellar, interplanetary travel will be essential for the survival of humanity. Any alien civilization will face sooner or later the same problem.

Simulations of expansion show that interstellar travel is entirely possible considering the colonization of the entire galaxy of a single civilization in a time of the order of 10 million years. This length, however astronomical it is, however, very short compared to the age of the galaxy (about ten billion years). Paradoxically, it is this: as a single extraterrestrial civilization could spread in a relatively short time in the Galaxy, why have we never seen aliens on Earth and why our radio telescopes have never grasped intelligent extraterrestrial signals in the vicinity of the sun?

Alien Contact

Some answers to the paradox

The simplest solution Fermi's paradox is to say that we have not seen anything because there is nothing to do. We are alone in the galaxy or at least are the first to reach the threshold of technology. This hypothesis may seem reasonable at first glance: the likelihood of intelligent life could be so low that the Earth is unique in the Galaxy. The explanation is, however, unsatisfactory as it returns to give a special role to Earth, while astronomy has shown throughout its history that our planet is nothing special.

Another hypothesis is jeopardizing the simulations of the expansion of a civilization. So interstellar travel could be very fast, but the colonization process much slower. The speed at which the boundary zone of spread would be colonized without relationship with the speed of a single interstellar travel. The time required for colonization could be about the age of the galaxy, which would explain why there has been yet reached the solar system.

Some answers are based on the impossibility or difficulty of interstellar travel. This is perhaps more difficult than is generally supposed. Factors such as cosmic rays and interstellar dust could indeed impossible again.


Faster than light?

At the end of the article on "The increase in relativistic mass" (this article was presented at the end of the page, with exposure of underlying scientific basis, authored by Pablo City Skeptic Circle, expands impartially applying physical principles) He said that, having been clear long time and immense energies needed for interstellar travel, it seemed that this must discredit the hypothesis of UFOs as extraterrestrial craft. The kind of views that posit fans -visits celestial lights frequent, repeated, constant and aimlessly, relatively small vessels without visible means of production or release of energy, as if it were as easy to come to the Earth seem a priori a ridiculous idea.

Science-fiction Stellar Spaceship

Especially in terms of science-fiction

Therefore, unfortunately, unrealistic dreams of science fiction as the Galactic Empire Asimov or travel USS Enterprise to boldly go where no one has gone before. Asimov was well aware of the problem and tried to outline a mechanism that would make it possible to "jump" between worlds through a "hyperspace" with special geometric properties.

* In "Star Trek", meanwhile, took advantage of resource warp, whereby the ship does not go faster than light but moves inside a bubble that distorts space and shortens as you go: A little more witty, but also unworkable.

* In "Babylon 5" ships traveling through hyperspace that arises as a place with few rules other than the normal space; He is traveling with conventional engines by him a short distance (in astronomical terms) and goes a great distance in the "normal" space; large ships can enter hyperspace alone, but others require "jump gates" made by an ancient alien race which nothing is known. In Battlestar Galactica there are also "jumps", but these are instant (no interludes in hyperspace) and do not require a very complicated team; a ship with up to ten people can take.

* In "Deep Space Nine", in addition to the warp technology, the use of passing to the ships by a wormhole theoretically possible entity but whose use would in the best case, a technology absurdly advanced it used and prohibitive amount of energy.

* In "Contact" Carl Sagan makes its characters build (with drawings sent by radio from the star Vega) a machine that creates something similar to a wormhole here on Earth, but the return brings some paradoxes well thought They are making it useless for routine use.

Star Trek Spaceship

* In "Ringworld" at the end of velocístico absurd Larry Niven arrives: there is not only conventional ships traveling (hyperspace) at three days and a half light-year (ie, more than one hundred times the speed of light) but the players use a secret ship design covers that distance in a minute and a quarter (about 420,000 times the speed of light), all with engines that override inertia and do not use reaction mass, technology in the world of Niven is advanced but not great. (Niven also out of the galley without any scientific justification, materials like scrith fable, which has a tensile strength comparable to the strong nuclear force, and few meters which are capable of blocking 40% of the neutrinos collide with it.)

By contrast, Ursula K. Le Guin chose to resign themselves to the protagonists in his series of "Ekumene" travel in suspended animation in ships Nafal (Nearly As Fast As Light, "almost as fast as light"), which gave step some material to explore the psychological conflicts and political effects of time dilation, long journeys and the inability to effectively intercommunicate a union or confederation of worlds apart. Roger Zelazny wrote a story, this time of the storm, which incidentally is the matter at its protagonist.

The time dilation is also an important starting point for the work of Arthur C. Clarke, "Voices of a distant world", in which he speculates with a "vacuum energy" extracted from the "quantum foam." Today this energy (misunderstood, of course) is a favorite of pseudoscientific. Clarke, however, also remained within the boundaries of science fiction hard: none of their ships went faster than light. He even imagined (and is another key point of the argument of his novel) how he could protect spacecraft from abrasion caused by particles with which it is located. (In space there are atoms and loose hydrogen ions, and it does not matter if you hit a ship or ship strikes against them: the fact, as you approach the speed of light, is a fierce bombardment of cosmic rays. )

Quantum Impulse Spaceship

Specifically on the issue of relativistic mass increase Wandrei Donald wrote his story "Colossus", giving a return in his time (1934) is perhaps not seemed so absurd as we now know it is: a space traveler accelerates his ship until about the speed of light but this, instead of becoming more massive, it expands, until it becomes bigger than the universe, which turns out to be an atom within a larger universe (this idea, derived from the outdated view of atom as a miniature version of a solar system, is repeated in several fictional narratives from the same period).

As seen in this brief and necessarily very partial review, the fiction has been seeking ways to travel interstellar distances plausibly, at times, following the latest findings of science available, but for now all these ideas remain impractical, if not ridiculous.
Skeptics often criticize us for lock ourselves in the strict empiricism or orthodoxy. We are asked, rhetorically: the theory of relativity is dogma? Can not be that Einstein was wrong, it was possible to accelerate above the speed of light or have a body to lose its momentum? Why the aliens, developed thousands or millions of years in technology, they could not have found a way?

These questions are valid but are raised from a non-scientific imaginative stance. Yes, you may mistake (without more, relativity barely a century of existence). But if we are honest, we must think in terms of what we already know. Some people restructure their life around the belief that aliens visit us. There are people who make a lot of money selling this belief. There are many people willing to make a fool ... and defend this belief because they know not, or will not accept, that the odds of being right are tiny. One can not qualify as true something that is only possible only marginally: this is perhaps the best definition of intellectual honesty skeptical.

Sub-light Speed Spaceship

Why Mass Increases the Speed of Light?

Continuing the theme of relativity, which we talked for a while, we can move to another fascinating aspect of the special theory: how bodies seem to become more massive as they move faster.

Einsteniana the well known formula E = mc means energy of a body is equal to its mass times the square of the speed of light. This energy can be released by various methods, such as combustion or nuclear chain reaction.

Now, when an object moves has more energy than it had standing still, since the energy of motion (kinetic energy) also features. A body at rest does nothing; a body that moves can crush another, compressing a piston down a wall or (if a liquid) drive a turbine, for example.

Before Einstein did not know of the mass-energy equivalence. But now we know, in the above E = mc we can easily change the terms of place and put m = E/c², ie, the mass equals energy divided by the speed of light squared. As the speed of light does not change, and energy (E) increases with speed, the formula seems to emerge that the mass of the object increases when it goes faster!

Extraterrestrial Spaceships arrive to Earth

Talking to property, which in this case increases the resistance of the object to change its state of motion (move or stop it), it ie its inertia. Increasing inertia depends on the relationship between the object and the speed of light. The faster an object is, the harder it is to make it go faster.

In the still young age of space exploration we have not had this problem or we will have for a long time. But suppose we wanted to explore the nearest star to us. If we could go to half the speed of light, it would take almost nine years, but our spacecraft would increase by 15% its inertia, with the consequent need for more fuel to accelerate. It does not seem much but from now complicate matters.

Travel required to bring food and water. If we could go faster, we would save some of that burden. But relativity is to frustrate. At 75% the speed of light would take less than six years, but our ship would rise by 50% its inertia. It is true that we would save a lot of load, because the crew of the ship would only three years and ten months due to time dilation.

Light Speed Interstellar Spaceship

Posts to dream, if we could go with the ship at 90% the speed of light, arrive at their destination in four years and nine months, more or less, that crew would be only two years and a few days ... but most likely we not achieve never accelerate the ship, because it would have increased its inertia more than doubled.

And something even more surprising. As time dilation, only outside observers perceive, increased inertia of the spacecraft would not be noticed by the crew. In its framework the ship engines continue accelerating at the same rate, consuming the same amount of fuel per unit time.

To understand this should return to the example given when we talked about time dilation. Suppose the crew want to measure the acceleration of your ship. For this measure its speed (by whatever means) and record the time of measurement when they pass next to a milestone, say (to be consistent with the genre), a "space buoy". They begin to accelerate to the next buoy, and when they pass by his side fail to accelerate and return to measure speed, noting the elapsed time from the previous measurement. The speed difference is divided by time acceleration: if passed 290 000-291 000 km per second at 1000 seconds has been acceleration (km/s 1000) / (1000 s) = 1 km/s², or that is, its speed has increased at a rate of one kilometer per second for every second you have accelerated (the example is not real acceleration under that crew would be made jelly in a moment).

¿ Alien Spacecraft or Secret Prototype ?

Those who have been paying attention will notice the fault immediately. For the crew, traveling to speeds approaching that of light, time runs more slowly. If we observe as they take their measurements, we find that the time it takes to go from one milestone to another is much more than they receive in their frame of reference. That is, they are growing much slower speed than they believe.

From the point of view of the crew, and both have fuel, so they could accelerate to near the speed of light as they wanted. Seen from the outside, however, the spacecraft would increasingly accelerating. To the crewmen would be something like the Red Queen race, "Alice Through the Looking Glass" would have to give more and more gas to the engine to further accelerate (from the point of view of others) at the same rate. And never, no matter how warm the engine would reach the speed of light.

"There are many other problems, but for me (as expressed Pablo City in the course of the note) this simple equation and its consequences are enough to convince me that UFOs and alien ships are not that big space epics ever will unfortunately fiction ".


Copyright Ruben Hector Tesolin (2013)