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>does anyone know if there is any theory to support the idea that sufficiently advanced civilizations rely on something other than radio waves or light to perfo
by ryanmercer 8y ago
>does anyone know if there is any theory to support the idea that sufficiently advanced civilizations rely on something other than radio waves or light to perform communications?
At a scienctific level no, but in science fiction you have devices like the 'subspace ansible' and similar things that allow FTL communications by using some sort of currently-undiscovered 'subspace'.
I actually remember in the mid 90's seeing, in the Weekly World News (a sensational tabloid for those unfamiliar) or its primary competitor at the time, mention of a intelligence agency that had laptop like devices that allowed for real-time encrypted communication anywhere on the world which was likely a spin on this idea (IIRC it was suggesting some sort of quantum entanglement where doing something to one would instantly cause the same to happen on the 'paired' device so you'd just type on one and it would instantly appear on the display of the other).
There's no valid reason to think something like this isn't possible, or even plausible. We didn't discover infrared until 1800, x-rays and radio until 1895.
There could very well NOT be anything that would allow for FTL/real-time communication over any distance but then again there could be. There could very well be some sort of radiation or similar particle that we've yet to discover too which might be the preferred means of communication for an advanced enough civilization.
Look how far computers have come since I was born in 1985. Look at other technologies like genome sequencing, the human genome project took 13 years and cost many millions but now you can do whole genome sequencing commercially with an 18 hour turnaround and hire your own whole genome sequencing out for 500$ with a 10-12 week turnaround. I know these examples don't compare but what I'm getting at is we are barely a technological species and who knows what possibilities exist for us.