Hawking warns of alien contact

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by baftan, Apr 25, 2010.

  1. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Just "drop" them from orbit.
     
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  3. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    But surely it would be better to smash rocks of appropriate size into non-random targets. ie, a huge rock for Paris, a very big rock for Manhatten etc

    Also, rocks are not aerodynamic.
    Are they to be shaped in some way?


    There are other bigger problems too.
    No. I can't agree with this at all.
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2010
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  5. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    I took the word "random" to be slightly facetious...
    If the rock's big enough it doesn't need to be aerodynamic. IIRC the one that hit Norway last year(? year before?) was ~20 metres across when it reached the ground and impacted with the force greater than that of the Hiroshima bomb.
    http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3x1.html#kinetic

    It's relative velocity that counts, and simply "dropped" from orbit with only gravity pulling it in i.e. no initial push will give an impact at ~11 km/ sec.
     
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  7. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    Possibly, but if he means rock from space he should have said so.
     
  8. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    Perhaps not.
    Perhaps Aliens have surveyed our planet, seen all the pollution we have caused and rated the planet as not worth invading, on a cost versus expenditure calculation.
    Our pollution may have saved the earth.
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2010
  9. synapse Registered Member

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    Ditto Dywyddyr.

    If you picked a large enough asteroid, I'm pretty sure it would ruin our day no matter where it hit. However, if you were really bent on directing it to a specific target, I don't see why you'd have to wait for aliens to get the job done.

    Build some sort of spacecraft designed to intercept the asteroid and load it with three or more robots, each capable of:

    a) communicating with the craft (which could act as a signal relay)
    b) moving about and anchoring itself firmly to the surface of our asteroid
    c) generating thrust

    It might take a little while to achieve the desired trajectory, but, if you're trying to destroy most of human civilization, it's probably worth the wait. As an added bonus, if there are any survivors, they won't suspect a thing... it was an asteroid, after all

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  10. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    People would see your spacecraft and know they had landed on the asteroid. I don't think you could reasonably hide what you were doing from anyone paying attention. Once people notice that the asteroid is changing course, stopping your scheme will probably be very high on people's list of priorities.

    Of course, you could always land a bunch of automated weapons on the asteroid to kill anything that tries to interfere.
     
  11. synapse Registered Member

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    Way to shoot down my brilliant scheme, Nasor. Though I do like the idea of automated weapons. That sounds awesome.

    It certainly would be difficult to hide from people who are paying attention, but how many people are actually paying attention? I mean, I'm really only interested in who's going to win American Idol.

    I'm obviously not qualified to be making any of these assumptions, but, having said that, I'm assuming that there are only a few groups monitoring asteroids and these operations aren't particularly secure. If you bribed the right people, you could probably doctor the data and no one would be the wiser. I agree that the launch would be a conspicuous affair and I'm not quite sure how one would get around that. You'd have to have some seriously good connections. Any suggestions?

    On the other hand, you wouldn't really have to keep the plan completely airtight. You could fabricate enough contradictory evidence and convincing news reports to keep people arguing about it for a long time; the longer they argue, the less time they have to do anything.

    Even if people decide that something must be done, when was the last time you saw a global effort to do anything substantial, never mind mutually beneficial? It would take forever to mobilize and there would be bickering about who's going to pay for it because the consequences will be so disproportionate.

    Furthermore, I haven't seen a calculation for the various risks of such a deflection operation, but isn't there a good chance that you'll just end up creating multiple fragments? A cost-benefit analysis might prove that it's smarter to just come up with a strategy to survive the aftermath and emerge as the boss hog of this extinction event.
     
  12. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    Hey, that's the plot of Independence Day! Still, I agree with Hawking that we have no reason to expect aliens to be any more benevolent towards us than we have been towards each other. Perhaps that's why God imposed such a low speed limit (C), he knew we'd not play well together.
     
  13. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    Ha... the "God" you speek of may be the Alian you an Hawkins are concerned about who created this mess of a universe... lol.!!!
     
  14. Mr MacGillivray Banned Banned

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    I would use Newtonian principles.
     
  15. soullust Registered Senior Member

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  16. synapse Registered Member

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    I know Hawking is a brilliant guy and all, but how much sense does his argument actually make? We're assuming that this hypothetical alien civilization has already developed space travel. WHY would they have to rely on our attempts to contact them to find us?

    We aren't capable of any meaningful interstellar travel, but, already, we have managed to develop relatively good telescopes and we're starting to look for distant planets capable of sustaining life. Aliens with the type of technology we're talking about should have no trouble identifying Earth as a potentially habitable planet. They can zip through space but they can't locate our planet? Uhhh, that's like saying "we've constructed the fastest car in the world ...but this windshield thing has eluded us; we can't tell where the hell it's going".

    I mean, you can see the pyramids at Giza from space; it's not like we're inconspicuous or anything.
     
  17. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    The argument you make is so obvous... i dout thats the pont Hawkins is actualy atemtin to make... i thank his pont is... we shud be carful what we "wish" for... cause when mor advanced Alian life desides to deal wit us... it likely wont be to our benifit.!!!
     
  18. synapse Registered Member

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    Right on, I figured he wouldn't have overlooked that.

    On the other hand, I feel like that makes our "wishes" somewhat irrelevant. If advanced civilizations are looking for us, they'll find us. If, by not sending out signals, we are telling them "hey guys, we know you might be out there but we don't want to meet you", that's just silly. Assuming our stuff is what they want, they probably won't be too put off by our reluctance to introduce ourselves. Plus, if I was an alien, I'd consider a cowardly and reclusive race such as you describe especially contemptible and deserving of elimination. If we exhibit curiosity, I think an alien race that's out and about exploring the universe would at least respect our thirst for knowledge.

    Personally, I don't believe that they would behave like us at all. We tend to think of ourselves as being pretty intelligent, but, in reality, we aren't that far removed from the animals we've just recently managed to surpass (we haven't even been able to claim dominion over microbes yet, the simplest forms of life). This tendency to exploit our environment for short-term gain is short-sightedness. In my opinion, the strength of intelligence lies in the ability to intellectually pursue ideas through many steps and thus approximate the future. Our collective inability to see past immediate gratification is what makes me think that comparing our mindset to that of a highly advanced civilization is beyond foolish.

    I have a hard time believing that a society as stupid as ours would survive long enough to develop the kind of technology necessary for extraterrestrial colonization. My experience is that, as you learn more, you become increasingly interested in the world around you. There are plenty of natural resources to be had all over the universe. I think that, if Earth has anything at all to offer an intelligent race of aliens, it's the spectacle of human civilization.
     
  19. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    I look forward to findin Alians which we are surperior to... an if i wasnt in need of what they had i woud only colect 'em for study/zoo purposes... but if i discovered any creatures out thar advanced enuff to potentialy cause me harm it woud be time for som corrective interventon.!!!
     
  20. soullust Registered Senior Member

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    The Mexican Illegals ?

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  21. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    Well kinda... we perty much welcom any Alian we can exploit.!!!
     
    Last edited: May 3, 2010
  22. soullust Registered Senior Member

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    You from Cali by any chance lol ...

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  23. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    We don't know what aliens would look like, or if they'd even be carbon based. But one thing we can be pretty sure of is that their development would be subject to the same evolutionary pressures as our own.

    They, like us, will be the result of millions of years of cut throat competition that they not only survived but prospered under. That such a process would produce a race of gentle space hippies seems unlikely.
     

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