5 ms·
The solution to distance isn’t energy; it’s time. Even at speeds much lower than the speed of light, a civilization could have spread across or explored the Mil
by cgriswald 6y ago
The solution to distance isn’t energy; it’s time. Even at speeds much lower than the speed of light, a civilization could have spread across or explored the Milky Way in a few millions of years. These needn’t have been biological creatures. Von Neumann probes, “Genesis” machines, or just flinging rocks with sensors on them to tour the stars would do the trick.
- blueblisters 6y agoWhat would motivate a civilization to undertake such an experiment? A probe a 50,000 light years away would take 50,000 years to send back any meaningful information. Unless alien life-spans are significantly longer than humans, I would think this would probably not be funded by their science department.
- RobertoG 6y agoA probe of the sophistication of a Von Newman machine, that can reproduce, would be the alien in itself. A network of such probes would be a civilization.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_the_Lifemaker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_the_Lifemaker http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200203/0743435265___0.htm http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200203/0743435265___0.htm :-)
- RobertoG 6y agoThanks! I'm going to read it.
- sterlind 6y agoVon Neumann probes would be great at asteroid mining. If you just let the probes keep going rather than limiting their distance, they'd cover the 50k light years easily. Not much overhead on the civilization.
- GoblinSlayer 6y agoThey spent 50000 years exploring space, we spent 50000 years waging wars. Who spent their time better?