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So we'll never abandon radio technology because everything can do it? That's not a very convincing reason.

akiselev 11y ago
We'll likely never abandon radio technology because it is an absurdly cheap and universal means of communication that propagates throughout the universe at the speed of light, a hard practical limit for how fast anything can send information. We certainly don't know everything, not by a long shot, and there are theoretical frameworks for FTL communication, but we don't have any hard observational or experimental evidence that this universal speed limit can be broken after a century of research that was more productive than the previous ten thousand years. It's great to be hopeful and work towards such technology but you can't discard the very, very real possibility that the speed of light can't be exceeded or that doing so to communicate might require a Type II or III civilization, which might also be practically impossible to achieve due to the speed limit for travel.
- jlmendezbonini 11y ago
  For those equality puzzled about what akiselev meant by Type II / III civilizations, it comes from the Kardashev scale: "The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement, based on the amount of energy a civilization is able to utilize.[1] The scale has three designated categories called Type I, II, and III. A Type I civilization uses only resources available on its home planet, Type II harnesses all needed energy from its local star, and Type III of its galaxy." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
- pheroden 11y ago
  It's almost as if you've never read historical journals of scientists saying silly things like "This obviously if the height of human achievement, we'll never possibly find anything better", over and over and over throughout history.
  - akiselev 11y ago
    That's a great cop out when you don't want to think critically about the history or current state of science. Besides, I didn't say that we are at the "height of human achievement" but that there are physical laws that remain practically unchallenged by centuries of observational or experimental evidence. the speed of light as a cosmic speed limit happens to be one of those.
    - pheroden 11y ago
      No, it isn't. "Heavier than air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin The physics didn't change, just our understanding of how to manipulate them.
      - akiselev 11y ago
        Yes, it is. That argument is nonsense because it can never be falsified. No matter how much we learn, even if it's trillions of years into the future and we're short seconds away from the heat death of the universe, anyone who is too lazy to look at the state of science can just claim "We don't know everything! That magic anti-entropy perpetual motion machine is just around the corner!" and be done with it. It's the scientific equivalent of "God did it." One cherry picked quote demonstrating a famous scientist's lack of imagination does not represent the scientific consensus, especially since da Vinci's lift and thurst research (based on heavier than air flying birds) from centuries earlier was well known.
        pheroden 11y ago
        No it's not. Two words, Em drive. Seriously, we are infants in our scientific understanding of the universe and physics. You speak as if we have a clue. If we had proven unified theory of everything, then your argument wouldn't be nearly as ignorant. But we don't. We don't even know what accounts for the majority of the universe. To assume we already have the answers is literally stupid.
        11y ago

We'll likely never abandon radio technology because it is an absurdly cheap and universal means of communication that propagates throughout the universe at the speed of light, a hard practical limit for how fast anything can send information. We certainly don't know everything, not by a long shot, and there are theoretical frameworks for FTL communication, but we don't have any hard observational or experimental evidence that this universal speed limit can be broken after a century of research that was more productive than the previous ten thousand years. It's great to be hopeful and work towards such technology but you can't discard the very, very real possibility that the speed of light can't be exceeded or that doing so to communicate might require a Type II or III civilization, which might also be practically impossible to achieve due to the speed limit for travel.

jlmendezbonini 11y ago
For those equality puzzled about what akiselev meant by Type II / III civilizations, it comes from the Kardashev scale: "The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement, based on the amount of energy a civilization is able to utilize.[1] The scale has three designated categories called Type I, II, and III. A Type I civilization uses only resources available on its home planet, Type II harnesses all needed energy from its local star, and Type III of its galaxy." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
pheroden 11y ago
It's almost as if you've never read historical journals of scientists saying silly things like "This obviously if the height of human achievement, we'll never possibly find anything better", over and over and over throughout history.
- akiselev 11y ago
  That's a great cop out when you don't want to think critically about the history or current state of science. Besides, I didn't say that we are at the "height of human achievement" but that there are physical laws that remain practically unchallenged by centuries of observational or experimental evidence. the speed of light as a cosmic speed limit happens to be one of those.
  - pheroden 11y ago
    No, it isn't. "Heavier than air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin The physics didn't change, just our understanding of how to manipulate them.
    - akiselev 11y ago
      Yes, it is. That argument is nonsense because it can never be falsified. No matter how much we learn, even if it's trillions of years into the future and we're short seconds away from the heat death of the universe, anyone who is too lazy to look at the state of science can just claim "We don't know everything! That magic anti-entropy perpetual motion machine is just around the corner!" and be done with it. It's the scientific equivalent of "God did it." One cherry picked quote demonstrating a famous scientist's lack of imagination does not represent the scientific consensus, especially since da Vinci's lift and thurst research (based on heavier than air flying birds) from centuries earlier was well known.
      - pheroden 11y ago
        No it's not. Two words, Em drive. Seriously, we are infants in our scientific understanding of the universe and physics. You speak as if we have a clue. If we had proven unified theory of everything, then your argument wouldn't be nearly as ignorant. But we don't. We don't even know what accounts for the majority of the universe. To assume we already have the answers is literally stupid.
        11y ago