| Author | Message | ||
     Mike Thompson Frequent User Username: vroomrr Post Number: 588 Registered: 04-2019 |
Of course we can, all you have to do is use math. Every alien would know math, right? So all science fiction movies show this as the way to talk to Martians. Well putting a lot of squiggles on the blackboard would not work on me and others like me. That is not how I or others like me do math. I think in pictures, I only use words to explain to myself what I am looking at. Math was a big problem for me. I had to invent a way to do math in pictures. First I used my fingers as most kids, but the teacher would not allow that. Step 2 build a system that worked for me. So here is how I did math. :.: + : = 7 I used pattern recognition to form a picture of a quantity. This worked until algebra then it got much more complex. Here is a video of a guy I know a bit now 21 last month, about to get his Doctorate in Physics at one of the hardest schools on Earth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP-DZMmQBng Now imagine you were to put squiggles on the black board and the aliens did math as I and he does, in pictures. It would not work. So talking to an alien may be much harder than we think. Question (which I have never asked) how do you do math in your mind? | ||
| ross kowalski Grand Master Username: cdfpw Post Number: 1124 Registered: 11-2015 |
Mike, I think the idea is that any intelligent life capable of creating radio telescopes or space craft would necessarily get math. There's little chance that one could build even the most basic of the equipment required for those efforts without an understanding of math. F | ||
| Mike Thompson Frequent User Username: vroomrr Post Number: 591 Registered: 04-2019 |
Ross I agree that they would have to be able to do math, but the way they do it might be very different than us. Just look at the Romans. Let's say the dolphins were allowed to evolve to our or above intelligence. They don't have (external) fingers to count to 5 - 10 etc. Their system of numbering may be binary. Two fins. A 10 base system would be foreign to them. Also it is possible to come up with radio telescopes and spacecraft without the use of math. Harder to do and would take longer to evolve the equipment, but just experiment after experiment could do it. We might see their methods more primitive than ours. We just won't know until we meet them. The Russian MiG-25 was faster than the American planes, when we opened it up it still had vacuum tubes. What a shock to the Americans. | ||
| ross kowalski Grand Master Username: cdfpw Post Number: 1130 Registered: 11-2015 |
Mike, Roman numerals were not strictly speaking math but even then the reason everyone uses the Arabic numerals system is that the Roman system didn't scale well. (at all) Trial and error would not have gotten men to the moon, the sun would have turned red giant and devoured the moon long before that happened. | ||
| Vladimir Ivanovich Kirillov Grand Master Username: soviet Post Number: 1475 Registered: 02-2013 |
Mikoyan. Sohkoi. Personally, I find Russian Jet Fighter Aeroplanes sorry Airplanes far more attractive than US planes. These planes the Russian ones are built for war. They are made to land on a busted ass airstrip, rearm and go back again. I saw what we did in Grozny. A city of one million was reduced to knee height rubble. It did not take long. I asked Svetlana to explain because she is Komonsol. Her answer was emotionless and formal. And it sounded like the teaching hiss of an extremely poisonous snake and I was a pupil. Her mother was different. Just do not ask any dumbass questions about Stalin around her. But Aliens. 1966. I walked into a school bored and instantly knew an answer before a procedure was explained. Something to do with division of fractions. Is space and time infinite? I think both are. Aliens must exist. But the distances are not such that from England you can put cloth and wood together and hitch a free ride on natures wind. Space is a cold nasty as Fort Worth winter vacuum. You just cannot jump overboard and swim or float to a sunny beach like Myrtle South Carolina. We are beaming out at the speed of light and nobody is picking up the phone giving us their email address and pronouncing a promise to send us the data required to go interstellar or intergalactic. But I think perhaps one day another life form will observe something that indicates we were here but we croaked ourselves. | ||
| Mike Thompson Frequent User Username: vroomrr Post Number: 597 Registered: 04-2019 |
Let's say a Wernher von Braun kept experimenting over and over making more and more success at liquid-fuelled rockets. Until he scaled it up to a size larger than the Saturn rocket. A pocket calculator has more computing power than the computers of Apollo 11. The computers were only needed to make sure they stayed on course with there limited fuel supply. Hence why I said larger engines than the Saturn rocket. If you put enough fuel in a rocket to make course changes enough you will eventually make it to the moon. The Mig-25 was so fast because they put essentially a dragster motor in it. The motor would burn up if you went too fast. Did Thomas Edison make the light bulb by math, no he made it by doing 1000 experiments. It can be done it would just take longer. (And possibly a few or more lives lost.) | ||
| Mike Thompson Frequent User Username: vroomrr Post Number: 604 Registered: 04-2019 |
60 minutes Australia Apollo 11 Dark side of the moon and Parks Radio telescope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWVgUwMTHEU | ||
| ross kowalski Grand Master Username: cdfpw Post Number: 1133 Registered: 11-2015 |
Mike, The amount of math in getting to the moon was utterly staggering. Yeah, they used slide rules as well as mechanical and digital computers, but Oooh did they use their maths. Wernher also didn't just guess, math there too. | ||
| Mike Thompson Frequent User Username: vroomrr Post Number: 605 Registered: 04-2019 |
Ross, The only math they used to plot a course to the moon was simple Newtonian mechanics. The rest was to not burn fuel and to make sure they kept the crew alive. (Aliens may be like our military willing to give their lives for the cause. Over and over again until they make it.) There was no need for Einstein's General Relativity with much more complex calculations of tensor calculus, of the Ricci curvature tensor, the scalar curvature, the metric tensor and the stress-energy tensor. "NASA does use general relativity to compute planetary ephemerides, but that's because the time spans are long. Space missions are short. For missions to the Moon such as the two satellites just sent into lunar orbit to better measure the Moon's gravity field, NASA still uses Newtonian mechanics." See for an explanation: https://plus.maths.org/content/understanding-unseen | ||
| Mike Thompson Frequent User Username: vroomrr Post Number: 613 Registered: 04-2019 |
By whatever technique aliens used and what language used, they must find a way of traveling for very long times at near the speed of light, or go faster than light. Einstein proved that light is the ultimate speed in our universe. No matter (mass or energy) going through space can reach the speed of light (in the case of anything with mass) or go beyond the speed of light (in the case of energy of zero mass). So how could we go faster than light? The speed limit is set for things going through space, not space (or spacetime) itself. At the very beginning of the universe it went through a very brief period of inflation. Where the universe expanded far beyond the speed of light, at 10^50 times the speed of light (called inflation). If we or any aliens were to be able to go that fast, they would be able to go from their planet to ours in moments. Unfortunately the universe had the entire amount of energy of the universe to use as fuel (as it were). Back in 1994 Dr. Miguel Alcubierre in thinking about warp drives (in Star Trek) came up with a way to travel faster than light (in principle). It involves the same principle as inflation in our universe. We (the travelers in the Starship) would not be traveling faster than light (which would have Einstein freaking out in his grave) but spacetime itself would be what is moving, not us. Using the expansion of spacetime behind the spaceship and an opposite contraction in front of it. This would move this bubble we have created through the universe enclosed in a curvature of spacetime. If you are interested in how this works Dr. Miguel Alcubierre tries to explain it to the interviewer (who obviously does not get it). https://youtu.be/JafY92PhgKU?t=764 In a model of the universe I formed a proof that a singularity (as in a Black hole) cannot exist without violating the very pillar of quantum mechanics, the Uncertainty Principle. If you could fly into a Black hole at faster than light (using the Alcubierre drive) and travel past the so called singularity you could in principle take a picture of the singularity, which is a quantum object. Thus violating the Uncertainty principle. Now most physicists know that a singularity is a product of the breakdown of Einstein's General Relativity, but still call it a singularity at the center of a Black hole. The center of a Black hole is like the center of a gas planet. Where do you point to as the center, it can only be an average. No planet nor Black hole has a perfect surface (the Black hole surface being the Event horizon, where the escape velocity becomes faster than light). So in principle one can travel faster than light, but at a very large cost, which at this time we cannot purchase. | ||
| Chris Gillings Prolific User Username: chrisg Post Number: 142 Registered: 04-2001 |
For an interesting, if somewhat fictionalised, insight into the behind-the-scenes mathematical work on the NASA space program, watch the movie Hidden Figures. | ||
| Mike Thompson Frequent User Username: vroomrr Post Number: 683 Registered: 04-2019 |
Many for their morning constitutional they may read the news paper, do crossword puzzles, or sudoku etc. I either think about physics (extreme detailed analysis of the big bang and pre-big bang cosmology) or do math. Here are some I worked on this week. If you like math (and who doesn't, ha ha) you might enjoy these. They came with no answers so I checked it by calculator. Just put in any number (excluding 0 or 1 in the variables A-f, I have (for no good reason) A=5 B=2 C=3 D=4 E=5 F=6. Then do the problem and hit equal. It will come up with some large number, and as long as all the steps have that same large number you have done it correct. I use a very cheap Casio fx-115ES Plus (make sure it is a Plus). Simple ones.   | ||
| Mike Thompson Frequent User Username: vroomrr Post Number: 729 Registered: 04-2019 |
I know you all have been waiting with baited breath for the final problem on the page we last saw. (Yeah right.) It is a story of battle, romance and love. Between two couples A and B who come together through all their differences, and in the end merge into one radical family. Here is their story. The original problem.  Solution.  . | ||
| Vladimir Ivanovich Kirillov Prolific User Username: soviet Post Number: 1508 Registered: 02-2013 |
Fascinating stuff Mike. Indeed, and thus I need your advice on something of most importance. What I am looking for is a country that during November, December, January and February that has a temperature from nightime down to 0 C to around 22 C in the day. Language is not important as I have the ability to communicate. I love where I am but at these months at my outback lair, the humidity and heat and other things like flies and mosquitoes are lost on me. I wish to spend these months abroad. Corrupt countries are okay. Well I am Soviet, and nothing is as corrupt as a Russian Man without a handbrake(wife) Whoring status is secondary. Oh by the way, I will be in Texas again but at Port Arthur, as I wish to pay homage to Janis Joplin who gave me so much but asked for nothing in return. | ||
| Vladimir Ivanovich Kirillov Prolific User Username: soviet Post Number: 1509 Registered: 02-2013 |
Bugger David I double dipped accidently perhaps it was Omars fault because he got the Yeoman to do it Omar got the car he wanted and then admitted to a trick, something like two cars out, look dear, I put two in and got only one back. I like the guy. Anyway onto another post before the ADMINISTRATOR makes another anouncement. | ||
| Patrick Ryan Grand Master Username: patrick_r Post Number: 2116 Registered: 04-2016 |
Great movie Chris. Very enjoyable and an eye opener for sure. Vlad, You might be onto something here. SURELY it couldn’t have been that easy with Mrs Shams?? I think there is some skullduggery afoot here. I am of the thought there was a lot of sucking up, bargaining, maybe even some begging, and 2 years worth of house work and endless shopping trips with the whole family Mr Shams is having to do. Not to mention, the removal of the hoist outside the kitchen window? Omar??? | ||
| Mike Thompson Frequent User Username: vroomrr Post Number: 731 Registered: 04-2019 |
Vlad San Diego California is like 21°C (70°F) all year long, little rain, but in the USA another police state. Fiji (nearer by) is 31°C (88°F) to 26°C (79°F) range all year round. Hawaii with an average temperature of 80°F (27°C) and the coldest is January at 73°F (23°C). All islands in my experience are expensive. Bought a car in Puerto Rico which was junk, and in the USA would only cost $200 at that time was $500, outrageously expensive at that time. But hey you drive a Rolls Royce you can afford it. ;) | ||
| Mike Thompson Frequent User Username: vroomrr Post Number: 732 Registered: 04-2019 |
Vlad see above weather. OK I was looking for old reviews on Silver Shadows like by Road and Track and came across a boy who reviews toys and stuff and makes like $14 to $22 million dollars a year off of youtube. I mean like really. Grab your kids, if you have them, buy a toy have them talk about it and be set in money for life (you and them). His newest video out only 7 hours ago has 109k views. Example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKBLHf2hIf4 Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChGJGhZ9SOOHvBB0Y4DOO_w Older review Dailymail https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5168073/Ryan-Ryan-Toysreview-earns-11-million-year.html | ||
| Mike Thompson Frequent User Username: vroomrr Post Number: 813 Registered: 04-2019 |
If you want to do math and want to see the answer there are two sites out there. To see the longest answer step by step go to: (You'll need to copy and paste them.) https://quickmath.com/#c=simplify_algstepssimplify&v217=sqrt%25282a%2B5*sqrt%25284a%255E2-8%2529%2529*sqrt%25282a%2B5%2B2*sqrt%2528a%255E2-2%2529%2529 Click on the Enter expression to see what problem I put in. You have to learn their language though. (To see it all you probably have to sign up.) Then there is Wolfalpha (it is a pay site). https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?source=frontpage-stripe&i=sqrt(2a%2B5*sqrt(4a%5E2-8))*sqrt(2a%2B5%2B2*sqrt(a%5E2-2)) |
