Posts by Walla
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Message boards :
SETI@home Science :
Relativity Questions
(Message 597647)
Posted 3 Jul 2007 by  Walla
Post: 1. Recently I was traveling on the freeway at night. I wondered if the taillights of the truck in front of me would appear red shifted. The truck was doing exactly the same speed as I was. I came to the conclusion that the light from the truck would not be redshifted from my point of view. When the truck is moving forward the light behind it is being stretched out. However I am also moving forward and I would be moving towards the light waves and the light would be blue shifted the same amount it was red shifted. So to me there would be no noticeable change in the lights color whether the truck and I are at a stop light or if we are both traveling at 70mph. This can also viewed as if the truck and I are in a completely empty universe. Whether we are at a complete stop or if we are both moving at speed X the situations are exactly the same. 2. This got me thinking about galaxies and the expansion of the universe. Pretend for a moment that our universe is shaped like a figure 8. Galaxies and matter are required to move along the figure 8 like race cars on a track. Right now they are on the track moving away from each other but soon they will both turn and be heading directly towards each other. Now we have two galaxies on the straightaway heading directly towards each other. If you are in Galaxy A and you shoot a light beam at a observer in Galaxy B you will see the light moving away from you at the speed of light and the observer in Galaxy B will see the light heading towards them at the speed of light. Now if you launch a spacecraft from galaxy A and get it traveling at 99.9% of the speed of light would the observer in galaxy B see the spacecraft heading towards them at a rate greater than that of the speed of light? Even though the spacecraft is traveling at 99.9% of the speed of light and galaxy B is moving towards galaxy A the observer in galaxy B would not see the spacecraft moving towards them faster than the speed of light. Since speed is a distance traveled in a certain amount of time and since galaxy B is in motion, time has slowed down for observers in Galaxy B. So observers in Galaxy B would not see the spacecraft heading towards them faster than speed of light. Are these two conclusions correct? I have done some reading on relativity and those are the conclusions that I have drawn from my present understanding of relativity. If they are wrong please elaborate because I would like to get it right. 3. A couple users have posted about Quantum Tunneling being used by ETIs to communicate. My question is how? This is how I understand tunneling. If you have a electron and you move it towards a electric field classically it will be repelled by the field. That is as long as the energy of the electron is below the energy level of the field. But since quantum mechanical objects do not behave like classical objects and instead behave more like waves this scenario is inapplicable. In quantum mechanics wave function of the electron can extend to the other side of the energy hill. This represents the probablity of finding the electron on the other side of the hill. According to Wikipedia Quantum tunneling was later applied to other situations, such as the cold emission of electrons, and perhaps most importantly semiconductor and superconductor physics. Phenomena such as field emission, important to flash memory, are explained by quantum tunneling. Tunneling is a source of major current leakage in Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) electronics, and results in the substantial power drain and heating effects that plague high-speed and mobile technology. Quantum tunneling has some useful consequences. However no where in here does it say anything about interstellar communications. Could someone please explain? |
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Message boards :
SETI@home Science :
Astrology vs. Astronomy
(Message 567979)
Posted 15 May 2007 by Walla
Post: No one here wants to hear this, I couldn't believe it myself. I'm in the information technology block classes at my high school. We currently have a professor from a local community college who comes down and teaches us macromedia flash. One day I had a photo of a galaxy as the wallpaper on my computer. Our professor came over started talking to me about astrology, he asked me if I had a telescope, and he went on to talk abut the sun. A COLLEGE PROFESSOR DIDN'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ASTRONOMY AND ASTROLOGY! |
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Message boards :
SETI@home Science :
New Seti@home Video with STS 116 Night Time Lanuch!
(Message 561803)
Posted 6 May 2007 by Walla
Post: Awesome. Nice work. |
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Message boards :
SETI@home Science :
how can humans attract eti?
(Message 559535)
Posted 4 May 2007 by Walla
Post: Shall we kiss and make up? Indeed. I've got a better idea. We'll flip a coin. Heads I win, tails you lose. Sound like a plan? :) |
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Message boards :
SETI@home Science :
how can humans attract eti?
(Message 558832)
Posted 3 May 2007 by Walla
Post:
I believe that there is other intelligent life in the cosmos. I just don't think that it is here. There are about 10 sextillion stars in the universe. Each one has the possibility of planets. We have seen the building blocks of life floating in great clouds between the stars. The haze on Saturn's moon Titan is composed of complex organic molecules. We are here. We humans are proof that the laws of the universe permit matter to form into thinking, self-aware beings. "We must be careful not to foist our wishes and fears upon the cosmos. Instead, in the usual scientific tradition, our objective is to find out what the answers really are, independent of our emotional predispositions." - Carl Sagan |
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Message boards :
SETI@home Science :
how can humans attract eti?
(Message 558825)
Posted 3 May 2007 by Walla
Post: First there is no such thing as a completely unbiased person. I'm saying that in general people are terrible witnesses and many times we let our preconceptions distort what really happened. Secondly the burden of proof shouldn't be on me to disprove them. But rather on you to prove your statements. To me it seems like a large leap from seeing a light in the sky to jump to the drastic conclusion that we are being visited by aliens. There is no evidence whatsoever for this. I will admit though that there is some phenomenon going on here. Whether it be aircraft or new unexplained physics or pranksters at work. I think the explanation that there are creatures from other worlds piloting these white dots should be the last one we arrive at. I myself have seen a UFO. And it was exactly that. A unidentified flying object. I work as a lifeguard. I was in the guard stand by the diving well. A low flying disk like shaped object caught my eye above the tree line moving from a residential area. I watched it descend into the woods. I think it was either a flock of bees or some other insect. Or perhaps some balloons released from a party or a piece of mylar or some other material that got loose. |
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Message boards :
SETI@home Science :
how can humans attract eti?
(Message 558771)
Posted 3 May 2007 by Walla
Post: I don't what evidence there is for you to try and prove your UFO spacecraft. There is no good anecdotal evidence, nor is there good physical evidence. When hoaxes and anecdotes are excluded, there is nothing left to study. The process of finding truth. Scientific Skepticism from Wikipedia A scientific (or empirical) skeptic is one who questions the reliability of certain kinds of claims by subjecting them to a systematic investigation. The scientific method details the specific process by which this investigation of reality is conducted. Considering the rigor of the scientific method, science itself may simply be thought of as an organized form of skepticism. This does not mean that the scientific skeptic is necessarily a scientist who conducts live experiments (though this may be the case), but that the skeptic generally accepts claims that are in his/her view likely to be true based on testable hypotheses and critical thinking. |
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8)
Message boards :
SETI@home Science :
how can humans attract eti?
(Message 558754)
Posted 3 May 2007 by Walla
Post: Those accounts in the bible all sound like UFOs because you are reading them with preconceptions already in your head. I haven't gone and looked any of those up yet, but if you read a paragraph in front of and after the quote I bet the vast majority of them will be dismissed. Again this is only the first thought I came up with. You cannot go through every historical text and take out sentences that just say something about fire in the sky. "Lets pick and choose which parts we like and which parts we don't like to find stuff to fit our ideas." "Once I spied a bright, "hovering" UFO, and pointed it out to some friends in a restaurant, soon found myself in the midst of a throng of patrons, waitresses, cooks and proprietors milling about on the sidewalk, pointing up into the sky with fingers and forks, and making gasps of astonishment. People were somewhere between delighted and awestruck. But when I returned with a pair of binoculars which clearly showed the UFO to be an unconventional aircraft (a NASA weather airplane, as it later turned out), there was uniform disappointment. Some felt embarrassed at the public exposure of their credulity. Others were simply disappointed at the evaporation of a good story, something out of the ordinary- a visitor from another world. In many such cases we are not unbiased observers. We have an emotional stake in the outcome-perhaps merely because the borderline belief system, if true, makes the world a more interesting place;but perhaps because there is something there that strikes more deeply into the human psyche......The interest in UFOs and ancient astronauts seems at least partly the result of unfulfilled religious needs. The extraterrestrials are often described as wise, powerful, benign, human in appearance, and sometimes they are attired in long white robes. They are very much like gods and angels, coming from other planets rather than from heaven, using spaceships rather than wings. There is a little pseudoscientific overlay, but the theological antecedents are clear: in many cases the supposed ancient astronomers and UFO occupants are deities, feebly disguised and modernized, but easily recognizable." - Carl Sagan |
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Message boards :
SETI@home Science :
We all help SETI for a reason...what is yours? Share your thoughts here.
(Message 558416)
Posted 3 May 2007 by Walla
Post: How far away could SETI detect Earth? Wouldn't it be ashame if we missed finding "ET" because we just didn't listen? On the SETI League website it says that Arecibo can communicate with an identical telescope 10,000 light years away. |
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Message boards :
Cafe SETI :
UFO Videos & Documents
(Message 558407)
Posted 3 May 2007 by Walla
Post:
Great book. And I completely agree. As a high school student myself almost every day I debunk a story about ghosts, the supernatural, alien visitations, intervention of gods, and many others. What gets me the most is knocking on wood. I ask people how they come to the conclusion that banging their hand against a piece of wood will affect the outcome of a event days away. Some people dislike me because of this, and also because I am an atheist and I apparently don't believe in anything.(End rant) I also suggest Broca's Brain : Reflections on the Romances of Science Broca's Brain And my personal favorite. A Pale Blue Dot A Pale Blue Dot |
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Message boards :
SETI@home Science :
how can humans attract eti?
(Message 558386)
Posted 3 May 2007 by Walla
Post: Why does it have to hide far away up in the sky? Why can't it come down close? How is it that by him creating vibrations in the air (talking) he is somehow able to summon aliens who are out in space. One book I suggest that everyone read is Carl Sagan's "Broca's Brain : Reflections on the Romances of Science" It is essentially about thinking critically and being skeptical. "In many such cases we are not unbiased observers. We have an emotional stake in the outcome-perhaps merely because the borderline belief system, if true, makes the world a more interesting place;but perhaps because there is something there that strikes more deeply into the human psyche......The interest in UFOs and ancient astronauts seems at least partly the result of unfulfilled religious needs. " He continues on for several more pages. I would post it but I duno how much I can quote before I infringe on copyrights. |
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12)
Message boards :
Number crunching :
Please Set No New Tasks For Now
(Message 558219)
Posted 2 May 2007 by Walla
Post: My one machine is out of work so I turned it off. My other two machines each have about 3 days worth of work, so I set them to "no new tasks". Also I'm having one heck of a time trying to report completed work at the moment. |
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13)
Message boards :
SETI@home Science :
Visitors from the future?
(Message 557475)
Posted 1 May 2007 by Walla
Post: Try this. http://www.digitalphilosophy.org/download_documents/digital_mechanics_book.pdf |
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14)
Message boards :
Cafe SETI :
UFO Videos & Documents
(Message 556686)
Posted 30 Apr 2007 by Walla
Post: Is it a rock or a skull? Indeed. I found it interesting. It looks like a rock to me and the way the shadows fall on it makes it appear to be a skull. I was just curious to see what the local UFO enthusiasts thought. |
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Message boards :
Cafe SETI :
UFO Videos & Documents
(Message 556357)
Posted 29 Apr 2007 by Walla
Post: Is it a rock or a skull? This image was taken from one of the rovers. 
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Message boards :
SETI@home Science :
Current snapshot
(Message 555665)
Posted 28 Apr 2007 by Walla
Post: Whoa, Ceres is much bigger than I thought. I figured it was a large asteroid but I was wrong. |
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17)
Message boards :
Number crunching :
How do I use BOINC to monitor network clients
(Message 554341)
Posted 26 Apr 2007 by Walla
Post: Nevermind I figured it out. Wiki |
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Message boards :
Number crunching :
How do I use BOINC to monitor network clients
(Message 553849)
Posted 26 Apr 2007 by Walla
Post: Nevermind I figured it out. |
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19)
Message boards :
Technical News :
Why Why Why (Apr 24 2007)
(Message 553547)
Posted 25 Apr 2007 by Walla
Post: Dear Peoples, I have been having the same problems myself. |
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20)
Message boards :
SETI@home Science :
Has seti found anything yet?
(Message 553417)
Posted 25 Apr 2007 by Walla
Post: Also we humans have only been looking for signals from other civilizations for a mere 40 years. It could very easily take hundreds of years or possibly thousands of years before we discover that elusive signal. Even if we don't discover any ETs than that would still be useful knowledge. So whether we discover them or not, either way we still learn something significant about the universe. I run SETI@home because I believe. |
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