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FQXi FORUM
May 24, 2013

CATEGORY: FQXi Essay Contest - Spring, 2012 [back]
TOPIC: Cosmic Engineering by Abraham Loeb [refresh]

Author Abraham Loeb wrote on Aug. 10, 2012 @ 16:41 GMT
Essay Abstract

Cosmologists routinely make the assumption that the observed large scale structure in the Universe was shaped by gravity. However, given that the cosmic expansion accelerates, intelligent civilizations which were used to communicating with each other across cosmological distances might have decided to propel themselves closer together so that they would not be pulled apart and lose contact with each other in the distant future due to the accelerated expansion. Could we identify the related motions or artificial clustering of sources in cosmological data sets? I show that the power required to move a star at a constant speed across cosmological distances can be supplied by the nuclear energy production in the star. Assuming that a significant fraction of this power is emitted in the infrared, the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to detect a single stellar-mass object propelled at a constant speed v out to a distance of 10(v/10^4 km/s) Mpc. Detection of the non-gravitational clustering and dynamics of many such sources would provide evidence for a new phenomenon of cosmic engineering.

Author Bio

Professor Abraham (Avi) Loeb is Chair of the Astronomy department and the Director of the Institute for (ITC) at Harvard University. Loeb has worked on a broad range of research areas in astrophysics and cosmology, and authored more than 400 research articles and 3 books. Some of his papers pioneered areas that have become the focus of established communities of astrophysicists. Loeb received many honors, including the Guggenheim fellowship (2002) and the Galileo Galilei Chair (Cattedra Galileiana) at Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy (2012). He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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Frank Makinson wrote on Aug. 11, 2012 @ 01:58 GMT
Professor Loeb,

You mention one assumption and then make several assumptions that exist only in "physics fiction" books, intelligent civilizations communicating with each other across cosmological distances and they moving entire star systems, with their planetary objects, in a direction contrary to their established inertia. When you mentioned inter-galactic communications, I was expecting to see references on alien beacons by the Benford brothers, one a Professor of astrophysics.

An intelligent species will have learned how to harness the superluminal phenomena that keeps planetary orbits from becoming ever expanding spirals. If a species hasn't learned how to exploit the superluminal phenomena for communications across cosmological distances, there will not be any content communicated that is topical, so why bother moving a star?

Based upon the number of habitable planetary objects within a galaxy, I consider it logical that intelligent biological species exist elsewhere in the universe.

I don't think we can be considered an intelligent species at the moment, using the scientific community as a gauge of intelligence, when that body considers the meter a scientific unit of measure..

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Author Abraham Loeb replied on Aug. 11, 2012 @ 02:56 GMT
Dear Frank,

Thank you for sharing your insights.

Note that civilizations might choose to propel themselves towards the most massive objects (such as clusters of galaxies) even without communicating with civilizations there. They might do so simply because the most massive gravitationally-bound systems have the largest resources of energy and supplies that could serve them in the distant future.

But more generally, my view is that we should not make simplifying assumptions when searching for signatures of other civilizations. Instead, we should act as explorers with minimal educated guesses, simply because the extra-terrestrials might be very different from us and our experience might not serve as a useful guide (for the same reason that an explorer like Christopher Columbus could not have anticipated the outcome of his journey). In my essay I show that JWST, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, will allow us for the first time to detect individual intergalactic stars out to cosmological distances. Searching through the deepest images of JWST for unusual speeds or clustering patterns of intergalactic stars will not require any investment of new funds. We should simply do the search because it is possible rather than convince ourselves that it is not worthwhile.

The rationale here is similar to the one explored in a paper I wrote with Matias Zaldarriaga in 2007 (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007JCAP...01..020L). There we showed that newly developed radio observatories for cosmology will enable unprecedented sensitivity for eavesdropping on signals from Galactic civilizations. I do not know how many of these exist. We should have a flat Bayesian prior and simply check the sky.

In the early 1960s, a panel of ``experts'' was assembled by NASA to evaluate the merit of a proposal to launch an X-ray telescope into space. The panel concluded that the scientific justification for such a mission was weak, since all we could expect to observe are stars like the Sun emitting in X-rays. The proposal was therefore rejected. After a decade of delay Uhuru, the first X-ray astronomy satellite, was launched. Contrary to expectations from the original panel of experts, we now know that the X-ray sky is rich and contains accreting black holes, supernova remnants, galaxy clusters,

and many other unexpected sources. The lesson is simple: whenever there is a technological opportunity to open a new window for exploring the Universe, we should open this window without hesitation.

Avi

this post has been edited by the forum administrator

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Frank Makinson replied on Aug. 11, 2012 @ 05:16 GMT
Dear Avi,

I dowloaded the arXiv version of the Eavesdropping 2007JCAP...01..020L paper. I have stated my objections to SETI people, to no avail, on the manner in which they are searching for artificial signals from space. We are essentially a primitive culture that learned how to utilize electromagnetic signals for communications in the atmosphere for just a little over one hundred years. I received my General Class Amateur radio license in 1948, when I was in high school, thus I have observed a number of changes in modulation schemes used to transfer information. It is well illustrated by the Shannon Capacity Curve that AM modulation is an inefficient modulation scheme for information transfer, and that is what the SETI folks are listening for.

Unless a signal is deliberately broadcast to space from a planetary surface, through the atmospheric window, the chances it will be detect by a receiver many light years away, even with the proper spatial orientation, will be slim to zero. I do agree with some of the Benford brothers premises, that an intelligent species would use a simple easy to detect beacon to attract attention, such as a pulsed AM signal, and it would be off-planet and in a position that looks stationary to a far away observer. However, the actual information modulation scheme would be something that is efficient, and the manner in which it can be demodulated would be identified in the obvious simple beacon signal characteristics.

We can establish a beacon signal in a Lagrangian point that would look like a fixed point to a far far away observer. I suspect there is some obvious very efficient signal modulation technique that we haven't discovered yet that can be used for far space communications. Considering how we are currently doing things, it may be awhile yet before we identify an intelligent method of modulation that can be readily deciphered by a distant receiver operated by some biological entity that, hopefully, is more intelligent than we are.

Oddly enough, I had submitted a paper proposal to a 2011 DARPA/NASA 100 Year Starship Study Symposium, that included a communications protocol that would have provided enhanced communications well beyond our solar system, but my proposal was not accepted by the individuals that screened the paper. I found out later that James Benford, the twin brother of Gregory, the astrophysicist, was head of the screening group. I proposed something that is not in the textbooks, which gets one in trouble with any peer review. The IEEE paper I reference in my topic, 1294, includes concepts that are not in the textbooks either, but it was published anyway, because it was so obviously simple, something an intelligent species would readily recognize as useful.

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Author Abraham Loeb replied on Aug. 11, 2012 @ 10:40 GMT
Frank,

You might also enjoy my other paper on the subject, this one proposing a new detection technique for optical telescopes,

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Lawrence B Crowell wrote on Aug. 11, 2012 @ 03:11 GMT
Your essay is entertaining. I find these speculations to be potentially very unrealistic, but I noticed this was inspired by discussions with Freeman Dyson. Dyson is given to these types of speculations. I did at one time think about what a star might look like if it had a ring world around it, or a Dyson sphere. I never got around to this in any serious manner, and it turns out that a few years back this was looked at. I never considered the prospect of beings dragging a star around.

There is a problem with so called intelligent life that develops technology. Technology primarily exists so we can access more planetary resources. We can modify our immediate and enclosed environments, produce food in controlled ways, transport ourselves around and so forth. We have been able to circumvent any environmental constraint imposed on us, such as by growing more food per acreage, curing or treating diseases, mining out new materials and so forth. The problem with intelligent life that does this is that it eventually exhausts its energy-resource base and contaminates its planet. We are doing a marvelous job of it. Intelligent life that has promoted itself by overthrowing limits must in order to survive limit itself. This is a bit of a conundrum.

My suspicion is that intelligent beings have a fairly low density. I might hazard a guess of 1 per 1000 galaxies at any time on the Hubble frame, or the past light cone of some observer. Given there are about 10^{11} observable galaxies this might mean there are 10^8 ETI in the observable universe. I suspect that maybe only a tiny fraction of them avoid the problem of mass death through imploding their planetary life support system.

Space is turning out to be a very tough frontier for us humans to live in. The manned space program appears to be going nowhere, with the possible exception that China might put their taikonauts on the moon. The ISS is an orbiting white elephant, and the space shuttle is no longer available. It seems very possible that we will never really fulfill many of these science fiction scenarios of starships, planetary colonies and so forth. Other ETI might face the same limits as well. Any ETI that is capable of moving a star or planetary system around is way beyond our technical abilities in space.

It is maybe worth some effort looking for these nongravitational motions of stars. However, I suspect this will be a long hunt and one that could find nothing.

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Joe Fisher wrote on Aug. 11, 2012 @ 15:28 GMT
Dear Professor Loeb,

Because of my having an averaged intelligence quotient of only 93 as measured by the British Army testers in 1953, I was unable to understand much of your essay, although I did think that the writing was superb. As I have thoughtfully pointed out in my essay Sequence Consequence, no two snowflakes of the trillions that have fallen have ever been found to be identical. Although I did not specifically mention it, I meant to include man made fabricated snowflakes are also of unique singularity. One Universe can only have one of anything once. Technology is the attempted enforcing of an identical system into a singular state, and because of this all technological systems are counterproductive and ultimately become quaint and unusable. Announcing that a clock has been activated that cannot gain or lose a second in a billion years and then having to broadcast four months later that a leap second has to be inserted into the official time because some identical co-ordinate was more identical than expected seems to suggest a lack of the understanding of reality in the scientific community.

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Ernst Fischer wrote on Aug. 11, 2012 @ 20:03 GMT
Dear Professor Loeb

With great interest I have read your essay, in which you point out possibilities to get hints to the existence of intelligent life far in the universe. But there is one problem you have overlooked. Inside our galaxy the normal Hubble flow does not work. The distances of intelligent populations do not change with time. Thus your idea does only apply to populations in distant galaxies. If we assume that any intelligent population inside some galaxy will not give up her comfortable situation, allowing intelligent life, with respect to neighbouring stars or planets, only to stay in contact with foreign intelligence in other galaxies, they must be able to compensate the increasing distance of the whole galaxy by the expansion of space. This would require energies about 10^11 times larger than you propose. From the definition of intelligence this appears very improbable.

But nothing is impossible. You write that with the James-Webb-telescope additional information could be obtained with no additional costs. But if we really want do go the way to counteract the expansion of space, we should hurry up and increase funding of the corresponding research. Even if we not yet know in which direction to move, we must try to provide the corresponding techniques. And as we know that expansion is accelerating, it will be the more expensive the later we begin. Otherwise it may be possible that in a few billion years we are no longer able to do the job and will be left lonesome forever.

Best regards,

Ernst Fischer

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Author Abraham Loeb replied on Aug. 12, 2012 @ 03:23 GMT
Dear Ernst,

Of course, any object inside a gravitationally bound system is not subject to the accelerated cosmic expansion. As mentioned in my essay, this applies to groups and clusters of galaxies, not just galaxies. But a galaxy like the Milky Way is not bound to a cluster of galaxies, and so a civilization like ours might prefer to move to the nearest cluster where the number bound galaxies is of order a thousand.

My essay refers to civilizations that prefer to belong to a bigger community in the future (i.e. larger than the community associated with the galaxy they belong to). I show that a star (=nuclear energy source) like the Sun produces enough power to carry such a civilization across cosmological distances of order tens of Mpc.

I agree with your last paragraph.

Avi

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John Merryman wrote on Aug. 12, 2012 @ 03:40 GMT
Professor Loeb,

While I admit I have only glanced over your entry, I don't see any tie in with the subject of this contest, "Questioning the Foundations." It would seem more suited to the 2009 contest, "What's Ultimately Possible in Physics?"

If you do happen to read through many of the other entries, you will find quite a few offering up serious questions about where the current physics establishment is taking the discipline and where it might have originally strayed, ie, questioning the foundations. I'm afraid your entry seems to be more of furthering the questionable logic many are uneasy with, than dissecting its causes.

Personally I find such scenarios to be akin to the foam of a cresting wave. Ever more nebulous, as the real energy starts a downward slide.

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Author Abraham Loeb replied on Aug. 12, 2012 @ 11:47 GMT
Dear John,

The most fundamental question about our Universe is whether we are alone. Just imagine how our world view will change if we discover evidence for intelligent civilizations elsewhere. It will affect not just science, but also philosophy (our fundamental view of reality), religion and politics. There is no other aspect of physics that can have a bigger impact on society.

So far, cosmologists made the fundamental assumption that the Universe has no life in it, and that any cosmological observable can be interpreted in terms of interaction between "dead" bodies. For example, cosmologists assume that large scale structure was shaped by gravity. This assumption is at the foundation of modern cosmology, and it is widely adopted by the current physics establishment. I am questioning this foundational assumption, hence my essay in the context of this competition. You should read my essay more closely; you might even enjoy it.

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John Merryman replied on Aug. 12, 2012 @ 14:54 GMT
Professor Loeb,

I certainly agree that if we were to observe the possibility of sentient life being able to move galaxies, it would raise serious questions as to what is possible and what would be required to attain such capabilities. That is why it would have been fitting for the "What is possible" contest.

Would it really change our understanding of gravity though, since we...

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Frank Makinson replied on Aug. 12, 2012 @ 15:43 GMT
Avi, John,

Quote from John, "As an effect of action, rate of change, time is similar to temperature, level of activity. The reason clock rates vary is because rates of change vary when levels of activity vary, as velocity or gravity do to atomic activity. The twins simply have different metabolic rates in different environments."

By increasing the precision and duration of measurement processes, researchers have identified atomic decay rates that vary by the season, our relative position (distance) to the Sun. Some of the absurd suggestions for this decay variation are the result of refusing to abandon the cherished assumption that the vacuum of space is constant everywhere.

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Peter Jackson wrote on Aug. 12, 2012 @ 15:28 GMT
Dear Avi

Might there so many intelligent civilizations around that they're all congregating at the 'great attractor' of CMB anisotropic 'flow' in the direction of Leo?

I enjoyed your essay, finding it playfully speculative and certainly 'black sky' thinking (I found 'blue sky' parochial in my essay) if teetering at the end of a string of a string of assumptions.

My own astronomical taste (and essay) is more in complex analysis of the falsifiable, but why not explore all those strings? I'm certain the JWT will massively increase the pile of anomalies, so now is the time for predictions. Nice one!

Last year I found, extraordinarily, a way of getting a rest frame up to something over 10c, fully explaining (along with Rees-Sciama) the phenomena centred on M87 that caused the crisis meeting at Jodrell Bank in the 1960's, but also compliant with the SR postulates. Based on simple collimation of course. (see 2020 vision), which this year I rationalise, reducing the anomaly pile. I do hope you're able to read and comment on my offering this year, also playful but in a different way.

Best of luck

Peter

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Author Abraham Loeb replied on Aug. 12, 2012 @ 15:54 GMT

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Steve Dufourny wrote on Aug. 13, 2012 @ 16:50 GMT
Hello Mr Loeb,

It is always a pleasure for me to see discussions about the lifes inside our Ubniversal sphere. I dream all the nights about that. I imagine exoplanets and lifes. You imagine the number of galaxies, I am persuaded that it exists a lot of planets with lifes. The intelligence is universal. It is an evidence that we are not alone inside this sphere in optimization spherization. It exists planets more evolved than ours and less evolved. So probably that it exists a lot of civilizations more intelligent than ours. It is even an evidence when we see the entire Universal Sphere. So it implies correlated technologies. In the logic, if they are intelligent , so the consciousness is correlated also.Like a kind of Universal Wisdom. It implies a real relevance about the interactions of optimization between cosmological spheres. An other relevance is the infinite light behind our walls.The infinite optimization spherization is not a probelm when we prefer the complementarity instead of competition. It is a simple evidence when we understand the entropy in its pure physicality and the infinite entropy in its pure meaning.The finite evolutive Universal sphere is created by a kind of infinite light.You shall understand of course that the increase of mass is not a probelm when we analyze the whole of Our Universal sphere.

Best Regards

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Ted Erikson wrote on Aug. 13, 2012 @ 20:18 GMT
Interesting idea..1st timer submission, not yet submitted, while reviewing selected works for adding End Notes

Curious. Are you related to Arthur Loeb, who wrote Preface in Fuller's "Synergetics"?

(I approach problem geometrically) Simply, mass and energy, respectively, as the inscribed sphere, tangent to the face of a regular tetrahedron where sphere and tetrahedron have equal surface-to-volume ratios at ANY size, e.g. equivalent "activity" as free energy , unbounded as size approaches zero and zero as size approaches infinity. Conclusion, birth and death via an angular frequency proportional to E.

Comment? (may use in end notes)

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Daryl Janzen wrote on Aug. 13, 2012 @ 20:20 GMT
Dear Avi:

In this paper, you begin with a calculation for the maximum age of distant galaxies that we'll be able to observe in a flat Lambda CDM universe (by which I mean an actual infinite three-dimensional Euclidean space that expands in cosmic time according to the scale factor given in your equation (5) or (incidentally) equation (5) in my essay---regardless of whether that rate of...

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Author Abraham Loeb replied on Aug. 14, 2012 @ 00:19 GMT
Dear Daryl,

My basic point is that we will not be able to send/receive new information to/from a distant civilization after some time in its rest frame. This conclusion holds true irrespective of how long we wait or when we started to receive information from that source.

Speaking about how long we wait, note that even if a photon will arrive to us at very late times its wavelength will be stretched by a factor of exp{100} if its travel time is 100 Hubble times. At this time the "observed" wavelength will span a scale larger than the Hubble length (~10^(28}cm) and we will only probe a tiny constant electric field and not even a single photon!. So you should be careful of over-interpreting spacetime diagrams without checking if the signal is at all detectable.

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Daryl Janzen replied on Aug. 14, 2012 @ 21:51 GMT
Dear Avi:

Thanks very much for responding! Of course, I agree fairly well with what you wrote. In fact, I probably should have explicitly stated that my point really does not affect the main thrust of your paper, even on the basis of space-time kinematics; i.e., regardless of the physical interpretation of the mathematics, no distant galaxy can be observed after a finite proper time on its...

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Author Abraham Loeb replied on Aug. 15, 2012 @ 01:11 GMT
Daryl,

Avi

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Daryl Janzen wrote on Aug. 16, 2012 @ 02:39 GMT
Dear Avi:

I thought you might be interested to know that I quoted part of your response to John Merryman from Aug. 12 @ 11:47 in a post I just added to my essay topic, in response to a comment that George Ellis left for me. His comment gave me reason to elaborate on my ideas surrounding the result I've mentioned at the end of my essay, and I eventually offer theoretical grounds for questioning the assumption that the large scale structure was shaped by gravity; therefore, I thought it would be worth mentioning the connection to your interesting and enjoyable essay. When you do manage to read my essay, I hope you're able to also read the responses I've left for George there.

Best regards,

Daryl

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Avtar Singh wrote on Aug. 17, 2012 @ 15:56 GMT
Hi Avi:

I enjoyed reading your paper, especially the treatment of the star dynamics using nuclear energy. I would like your comments on my paper - -“ From Absurd to Elegant Universe”, which describes the dynamics of stars, galaxies, and universe based on energy production from spontaneous decay of mass, similar to your paper. This approach not only successfully predicts the observed accelerated expansion of the universe and galactic star velocities but also resolves paradoxes and singularities of the Cosmic Conundrum today.

Best Regards

Avtar Singh

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Author Abraham Loeb replied on Aug. 18, 2012 @ 01:33 GMT

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Jayakar Johnson Joseph wrote on Aug. 19, 2012 @ 08:57 GMT
Dear Abraham Loeb,

I think the detection of non-gravitational clustering and the observational findings that indicates the expansion of universe is accelerating; is suggestive of segmental universe with topological isomorphism.

With best wishes,

Jayakar

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M. Wagner wrote on Aug. 21, 2012 @ 05:41 GMT
According to professor Loeb,

"all galaxies outside the Local Group (which includes the Milky Way and its nearest massive neighbor, Andromeda) will exit from our Hubble horizon within ~ 10^11 years."

As director of astrophysical engineering for the Terran system I would advise putting this project on the back burner. In fact, we can comfortably delay for tens of billions of years -- until long after our sun goes nova. And that's really the problem with this concept. Time scales for our cosmic cousins disappearing over the Hubble horizon are much greater than typical stellar lifetimes.

There may be perfectly good reasons for propulsion of stellar objects. Hanging out with like-minded civilizations would probably not top the list. Taking evasive action to avoid a cosmic hazard is plausible, however evacuation seems a more feasible alternative.

M. Wagner

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Steve Dufourny replied on Aug. 27, 2012 @ 10:10 GMT
Hello Mr Wagner,

The travels inside our Universal sphere is our future. I d say even that it is our rational logic. The earth will be too small. In fact, the spaceships are really our future. In fact, it is even a necessity for our protection. I d say even that we must create a lot of specships. We can put them in orbits for example. The hour is serious in fact on earth. There are priorities for the earth. In fact the global system must be balanced harmoniously.

ps the minded and intelligent civilizations are numerous inside our universal sphere in spherization.It is fascinating.

Regards

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M. Wagner replied on Aug. 27, 2012 @ 11:19 GMT
I deeply disagree with your point of view Mr. Dufourney -- my previous post was intended as a joke. I don't believe in spacefaring aliens nor do I think that it will ever be practical to transport large numbers of humans into space. We must find other ways to deal with overpopulation.

Robotic space exploration will continue, but people will remain on Earth, safe from cosmic rays and other hazards of space.

Sorry to disappoint,

M. Wagner

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Steve Dufourny replied on Aug. 27, 2012 @ 12:23 GMT
I totally disagre with you also, I am sorry also to dissapoint,

If it is your point of vue, so perhaps it could be intersting to learn the real generality,after we shall speak perhaps , and it is Mr Dufourny, I don't say Mr Wagnery for example .

Bye bye Mr Wagnery. and good engeniering of course.

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Anonymous wrote on Sep. 5, 2012 @ 02:20 GMT
Your essay was very fun to read! Thank you for submitting it.

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Armin Nikkhah Shirazi wrote on Sep. 5, 2012 @ 07:26 GMT
Dear Professor Loeb,

I found the basic premise of your paper mind-stretching, and I applaud your courage in submitting this idea. Although I seriously doubt that the specific proposition may ever be practical, I completely agree with the basic philosophy underlying your paper, which I understand to be that novel ideas that could be scientifically relevant should be explored to their fullest without regard to prevailing prejudices, even if they seem like science fiction under contemporary viewpoints.

I had read a couple months ago your paper on nurturing scientific discoveries, and while its subject matter is completely different, it struck me as reflecting the same basic philosophy as this one. I find that in general, over time scientists tend to become more conservative in their scientific views, so it is very refreshing to see an exception.

All the best,

Armin

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Helmut Hansen wrote on Sep. 21, 2012 @ 12:25 GMT
Dear Abraham.

I like the spirit of your proposal, in particular with respect to two aspects:

a) technologies of cosmic cocern

b) intelligent life in our galaxy

You said: ...whenever there is a technological opportunity to open a new window for exploring the Universe, we should open this window without hesitation. I totally agree.

I am convinced, that technology concerning hyperspace travel is such a window. I discovered a window to a branch of superluminal velocities, but I do not know for sure whether we can open this window oder not.

This window - a sort of STARGATE - exists at a specific bifurcation point of velocity. At this specific point the relativistic function is splitted into two branches. One branch is our usual relativistic space-time-continuum, limited by the speed of light, the other one is a superluminal section embracing all velocities only limited by the velocity of infinity. This section I am calling GOEDELS TRENCH.

The bifurcation point can be reached - at least in principle: It is given at the velocity of .707 c (or exactly: 1/SQR 2 c). But I have no idea, whether it is possible or not to switch from the relativistic part of spacetime into Goedels Trench.

I agree, too, that one of the most fundamental questions about our Universe is whether we are alone or not. I am convinced we are not. In Buddhism there are esoteric sources, which are talking about intelligent life in our galaxy. These sources are in a way very precise. According to them there are f.e. 12 intelligent civilizations in our galaxy, three of them in each direction. As I got this information the first time, I was surprised, because a calculation of the GREEN-BANK-Equation predicts a number, which is very close to this esoteric data. It is talking about only 15 intelligent civilizations in our galaxy.

That cannot be a coincidence.

Kind Regards

Helmut

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Sergey G Fedosin wrote on Sep. 21, 2012 @ 16:43 GMT
Dear Abraham,

Your idea about cosmic engineering at large scale structure of Universe may be supported in the Theory of Infinite Hierarchical Nesting of Matter (my essay).

Good luck,

Sergey Fedosin

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hoang cao hai wrote on Sep. 26, 2012 @ 01:26 GMT
Dear Professor Loeb

Very interesting to see your essay.

Perhaps all of us are convinced that: the choice of yourself is right!That of course is reasonable.

So may be we should work together to let's the consider clearly defined for the basis foundations theoretical as the most challenging with intellectual of all of us.

Why we do not try to start with a real challenge is very close and are the focus of interest of the human science: it is a matter of mass and grain Higg boson of the standard model.

Knowledge and belief reasoning of you will to express an opinion on this matter:

You have think that: the Mass is the expression of the impact force to material - so no impact force, we do not feel the Higg boson - similar to the case of no weight outside the Earth's atmosphere.

Does there need to be a particle with mass for everything have volume? If so, then why the mass of everything change when moving from the Earth to the Moon? Higg boson is lighter by the Moon's gravity is weaker than of Earth?

The LHC particle accelerator used to "Smashed" until "Ejected" Higg boson, but why only when the "Smashed" can see it,and when off then not see it ?

Can be "locked" Higg particles? so when "released" if we do not force to it by any the Force, how to know that it is "out" or not?

You are should be boldly to give a definition of weight that you think is right for us to enjoy, or oppose my opinion.

Because in the process of research, the value of "failure" or "success" is the similar with science. The purpose of a correct theory be must is without any a wrong point ?

Glad to see from you comments soon,because still have too many of the same problems.

Kind Regards !

Hải.Caohoàng of THE INCORRECT ASSUMPTIONS AND A CORRECT THEORY

August 23, 2012 - 11:51 GMT on this essay contest.

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Sergey G Fedosin wrote on Oct. 2, 2012 @ 14:08 GMT
After studying about 250 essays in this contest, I realize now, how can I assess the level of each submitted work. Accordingly, I rated some essays, including yours.

Cood luck.

Sergey Fedosin

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Sergey G Fedosin wrote on Oct. 4, 2012 @ 07:10 GMT
If you do not understand why your rating dropped down. As I found ratings in the contest are calculated in the next way. Suppose your rating is
$R_1$
and
$N_1$
was the quantity of people which gave you ratings. Then you have
$S_1=R_1 N_1$
of points. After it anyone give you
$dS$
of points so you have
$S_2=S_1+ dS$
of points and
$N_2=N_1+1$
is the common quantity of the people which gave you ratings. At the same time you will have
$S_2=R_2 N_2$
of points. From here, if you want to be R2 > R1 there must be:
$S_2/ N_2>S_1/ N_1$
or
$(S_1+ dS) / (N_1+1) >S_1/ N_1$
or
$dS >S_1/ N_1 =R_1$
In other words if you want to increase rating of anyone you must give him more points
$dS$
then the participant`s rating
$R_1$
was at the moment you rated him. From here it is seen that in the contest are special rules for ratings. And from here there are misunderstanding of some participants what is happened with their ratings. Moreover since community ratings are hided some participants do not sure how increase ratings of others and gives them maximum 10 points. But in the case the scale from 1 to 10 of points do not work, and some essays are overestimated and some essays are drop down. In my opinion it is a bad problem with this Contest rating process. I hope the FQXI community will change the rating process.

Sergey Fedosin

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LaTeX Equation Preview

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