1. As far as UFOs go, I think the physics rule out any visitors to our blue ball. Before I have to go through a speed of light discussion with someone. It is impossible for a carbon based life form to travel even close to the speed of light.(from our frame of reference It gets a little complicated outside of that, but for us the only frame of reference we have is our own.) The gravitational and electro forces would make space warping impossible. Do I think we could get a spacecraft to go close the speed of light absolutely.....Not!!!!!!!!! So even unmanned spacecraft are out of the question. Gliese 581 C is over 20 light years away. It is the only planet we have found that might be able to keep water in a liquid state. Water is the bastion of life as we know it. How far away is that? Well, if we convert it to km it is 1.89x10 14 km. Lets look at some history. The fastest man made object ever build was a satellite built almost forty years ago to study the sun. We launched it from earth and sent it to the sun on an elliptical orbit. This is important be cause as the object orbits closer to the sun it is able to use its kinetic energy relative to the sun. Earth is a long way from the sun. The sun's gravitational force pulls the object closer and accelerates it at amazing numbers. We used the Earth relative position to pull the satellite into a very high velocity. In other words, we cheated. If we had to leave the gravitational pull of the sun we would have to fight this force. All said and done , we achieved about 70 km/s top velocity. Lets say we had a huge leap in technology. One that is mind boggling and we build a craft to maintain .1c (30,000km/s) . If we were to make the trip at this velocity it would take us nearly 199years to reach this planet. (frame of reference is important here the 199 years is how long the space ship would travel for a person on earth watching the spacecraft travel. The people on the space craft would make the journey in 199.8 years) And thats not counting years of accelerating and decelerations. If the acceleration was slow it could take thousands of years. If we accelerated at 10 gs it would take us 95 years to achieve this velocity. I don't think you could live more than a few hours under this amount of force, much less 95 years. It would be impossible to raise three generations under these extreme conditions. Could you imagine mateing and childbirth? I could figure out what acceleration we have achieved with man made objects and multiply that by 420 just like I did velocity, but I don't really want to work out the integral for the trip using acceleration and deceleration this morning. Lets just say it is no easy feat changing velocities that quick moving away from the sun. Could a group of people spend thousands of years away from earth? Even If we used multiple generations, where is the energy for environmental control going to come from? Energy for operating the growing and sustaining the generations? If there was a 1 in 100,000 chance of contacting space debris per day there is a great chance the space craft will be destroyed. How are we going to protect the craft from corrosion over great times and extreme conditions like these? We won't have a mine to get metals from. So to answer the first question. Yes, there may be life in our Universe besides us, but No, we will never see it.
- Psychic powers!!!!!! Please... There are only 4 know fundamental interactions in the Universe Gravitational, Electromagnetism, Strong nuclear, and Weak Nuclear. Also known as non contact forces. The nuclear forces don't work in a macro environment either. Show me someone tie Psychic powers to one of these forces and I will be a believer. Please don't post some fringe "scientist" research on this subject. The nicest word I can come up with is quack to describe these individuals. (The scientist not the believers. I don't care what people believe in)
- Conspiracy theories, Kinda...... Do I think the government hides things from citizens for the betterment of the government. Yes, I do. Do I think something as complex as a multiple target attack involving the deaths of thousands of people could be kept a secret? No, too many people like to talk.
4.Religion. This is where I pull away from main stream science. I was in my house while I was in school watching tv. I flipped thorough the channels and I saw my Department head preaching on the local church channel. I was flabbergasted. This was a guy who had multiple Phds from Duke. I thought how could he believe in God. I wanted to but couldn't anymore. I came from a cult background and thought it was all hooey. So one day, I was working on a project for this guy and asked him how was he religious when he had the knowledge he did. He looked at me with a smile. I think he could see how serious and perplexed I was by all this and said, "You can't always be an absolutist there will be things you don't and won't understand." and walked away. I thought about his words for years. I didn't fully understand them until I had my first child. The first time I held her I knew there was magic in the Universe. I couldn't measure it, describe it, or quantify it with any known means, but it was there staring me right in the face.
Everybody is different. I think if your belief interest you or helps you accept conditions you can't control the idea is a good thing. Sometimes it's nice to have a little magic.
