I know enough physics to say no Even inter-Stellar is out of our reach (without generation ship).
We have zero reason to believe in an effective way to build wormhole, jump gates or anything similar. Even high energy cosmic rays have a limited range (due to collision with photons) which is a strong clue that there is no shortcut in space
I think the closest we will come is detecting radio signals from another species. But like obviously 2 way communication would be almost impossible due to sheer distance.
Sadly the universe is filled with enough random radio radiation that its unlikely any coherent signal is going to travel more than a few light years. With our current technology there could be an identical version of earth around the nearest star and we probably couldn’t detect it.
The signal isn’t destroyed though. So one could argue that isolating it in the noise is doable with enough math.
Obviously the real limit is still distance since we’d need a radio dish like the size of earths orbit or something to pick up a signal weakened from many lightyears away.
Why do you say wormholes are impossible? We don’t need a reason to believe it, because what we do or don’t believe doesn’t change whether or not something is possible.
Humans didn’t have a reason to believe in electricity until they did. Humans didn’t have a reason to believe in computers until they did. Humans didn’t have a reason to believe in gravity, nuclear energy, relativity, or quantum mechanics until they did. Same deal for germs, internet, cell phones, the list goes on.
Point is, until someone solves Unified Field Theory and unless it definitively proves that wormholes, alternate dimensions, and parallel universes are fundamentally impossible, we can’t claim to know what isn’t possible a hundred or a thousand years from now.
We might not have a particular reason to believe, but we don’t have any reason to disbelieve, either.
Bright flashes and jagged bolts of light doesn’t necessarily lead one to intuitively believe “Oh, look, there’s a source of energy in the sky which can somehow be generated and harnessed to power machines and light bulbs.”
We think that way because we have the scientific knowledge of what it is and how it works, but that’s all retrospective. Prior to the discovery of electricity as a concept, lightning simply appeared to be some divine weapon wielded by angry gods. Even atheists of the early-Enlightenment era wouldn’t have understood it.
That’s like saying “Humans have observed fire since prehistoric times, so they must have understood chemical bonds and exothermic reactions.” It simply doesn’t apply.
In theory yes… but the oldest frozen specimen of humans we’ve found is only a few thousand years old. We don’t even know if long term cryogenic reanimation is possible.
Assuming the ship travels at 10x our current capabilities we’re still looking at ~8,000 years to reach our closest stellar neighbour at only 5 lightyears away.
We’ll still run into the same assumption/problem; shelf life.
Consider how memories work. Every time you remember something, your brain alters that memory slightly. Even looking at how the brain parses the data through several cortex (visual etc) implies that consciousness is potentially inseparable from the components of the brain. In this video about Cockatoo intelligence they speculate that birds brain anatomy causes them to think in ways that seem limited to us.
Basically we don’t even know if its possible to preserve human consciousness for that long. Similar to cryogenics we have to question if reanimation is even fundamentally possible after centuries.
Then take the solar system with us. Strap a solar thruster to the sun, and off EVERYTHING goes. It’s a byproduct of figuring out starlifting, and that buys us all the time in the universe, at least till we run out of Hydrogen and Helium to shove into the sun as fuel, but there’s literally entire solar systems worth of that stuff hanging around in deep space. Like 72 solar masses per cubic light year of “empty” space.
So like if you visualize how the sun/planets actually move around the milky way. It seems plausible to focus solar flares to alter our trajectory. We’d still be stuck in the whirlpool but we could change lanes.
I think that you might think that the flares are a whole lot bigger than they actually are, or that the sun is far less massive than it actually is. You’d need a LOT more energy than those puny flares to move the sun.
I know enough physics to say no Even inter-Stellar is out of our reach (without generation ship).
We have zero reason to believe in an effective way to build wormhole, jump gates or anything similar. Even high energy cosmic rays have a limited range (due to collision with photons) which is a strong clue that there is no shortcut in space
This is the correct answer.
I think the closest we will come is detecting radio signals from another species. But like obviously 2 way communication would be almost impossible due to sheer distance.
Sadly the universe is filled with enough random radio radiation that its unlikely any coherent signal is going to travel more than a few light years. With our current technology there could be an identical version of earth around the nearest star and we probably couldn’t detect it.
The signal isn’t destroyed though. So one could argue that isolating it in the noise is doable with enough math.
Obviously the real limit is still distance since we’d need a radio dish like the size of earths orbit or something to pick up a signal weakened from many lightyears away.
Probably with virtual telescopes, smaller receivers arrayed throughout the entire solar system, like EHT but biiiiiiiigger
Of course, astronomers find the Oort cloud and want to turn it into a telescope! Figures.
Why do you say wormholes are impossible? We don’t need a reason to believe it, because what we do or don’t believe doesn’t change whether or not something is possible.
Humans didn’t have a reason to believe in electricity until they did. Humans didn’t have a reason to believe in computers until they did. Humans didn’t have a reason to believe in gravity, nuclear energy, relativity, or quantum mechanics until they did. Same deal for germs, internet, cell phones, the list goes on.
Point is, until someone solves Unified Field Theory and unless it definitively proves that wormholes, alternate dimensions, and parallel universes are fundamentally impossible, we can’t claim to know what isn’t possible a hundred or a thousand years from now.
We might not have a particular reason to believe, but we don’t have any reason to disbelieve, either.
Lightning. Humans have been observing the effects of electricity since they first evolved. They didn’t have a reason not to believe in it.
Bright flashes and jagged bolts of light doesn’t necessarily lead one to intuitively believe “Oh, look, there’s a source of energy in the sky which can somehow be generated and harnessed to power machines and light bulbs.”
We think that way because we have the scientific knowledge of what it is and how it works, but that’s all retrospective. Prior to the discovery of electricity as a concept, lightning simply appeared to be some divine weapon wielded by angry gods. Even atheists of the early-Enlightenment era wouldn’t have understood it.
That’s like saying “Humans have observed fire since prehistoric times, so they must have understood chemical bonds and exothermic reactions.” It simply doesn’t apply.
The fact that it took eons to figure out how it worked and harness it is irrelevant. They knew it existed based on observable evidence.
They didn’t know what it was, so my point stands.
Humans have known the sun exists for as long as humans have been around. That doesn’t mean cro-magnan man believed in nuclear fusion.
You are nitpicking. Get lost.
You’re the one nitpicking. You didn’t have to reply to my comment, so it seems you’re the one who can get lost.
But doesn’t the generation ship / cryogenic technology / nuclear technology make intergalactic travel possible (albeit very slow)?
In theory yes… but the oldest frozen specimen of humans we’ve found is only a few thousand years old. We don’t even know if long term cryogenic reanimation is possible.
Assuming the ship travels at 10x our current capabilities we’re still looking at ~8,000 years to reach our closest stellar neighbour at only 5 lightyears away.
Then don’t do it that way, put a human consciousness into a machine and wait. They said ever, we can get as sci-fi as we want here
We’ll still run into the same assumption/problem; shelf life.
Consider how memories work. Every time you remember something, your brain alters that memory slightly. Even looking at how the brain parses the data through several cortex (visual etc) implies that consciousness is potentially inseparable from the components of the brain. In this video about Cockatoo intelligence they speculate that birds brain anatomy causes them to think in ways that seem limited to us.
Basically we don’t even know if its possible to preserve human consciousness for that long. Similar to cryogenics we have to question if reanimation is even fundamentally possible after centuries.
Then take the solar system with us. Strap a solar thruster to the sun, and off EVERYTHING goes. It’s a byproduct of figuring out starlifting, and that buys us all the time in the universe, at least till we run out of Hydrogen and Helium to shove into the sun as fuel, but there’s literally entire solar systems worth of that stuff hanging around in deep space. Like 72 solar masses per cubic light year of “empty” space.
So like if you visualize how the sun/planets actually move around the milky way. It seems plausible to focus solar flares to alter our trajectory. We’d still be stuck in the whirlpool but we could change lanes.
I think that you might think that the flares are a whole lot bigger than they actually are, or that the sun is far less massive than it actually is. You’d need a LOT more energy than those puny flares to move the sun.