4 ms·

From all I've read for this, it should not be possible for such a slow star to emit anything, ie against known physics of natural objects. Why are they so qui

From all I've read for this, it should not be possible for such a slow star to emit anything, ie against known physics of natural objects. Why are they so quick to discard a technological origin?

ceejayoz 2y ago
Because we’ve run into plenty of “huh we didn’t think those existed” in astronomy so far. We’ll try to understand more mundane possibilities first.
ben_w 2y ago
> Why are they so quick to discard a technological origin? A sufficiently advanced society could cause any possible phenomena we ever observe, Occam's razor says you should look for other solutions first.
- xqcgrek2 2y ago
  Occam's razer also says we should not have different laws of physics in different places. Something very interesting is going on here.
  - rimunroe 2y ago
    > Occam's razer also says we should not have different laws of physics in different places. You're starting from an odd place if you're assuming that's the case. There's absolutely no reason to believe the laws of physics are different in this star's case compared to any other we've seen. It's an absurd leap to believe aliens are at work here rather than this being yet another case of our knowledge of physics being incomplete.
  - tithe 2y ago
    > Something very interesting is going on here. Agreed. If we interpret Occam's razor as to "choose the simplest solution with the greatest explaining power," then the "solution" may be to admit that we have an inadequate understanding of how these things physically work. This doesn't rule out the possibility of a technological origin, but I think Ben's point is that we should explore possiblities that generate more answers than questions first.
  - Sharlin 2y ago
    No, there’s nothing except the fact that the "laws of physics", ie. our models of nature, are eternally incomplete simplifications. All that’s going on is that our models have a prediction error and thus tell us we’ve failed to take something into account. Which is an utterly standard part of scientific progress. Papers will be written, hypotheses proposed, more evidence gathered, and after some number of years we’ll have a new, more complete theory of neutron star evolution and/or emission processes.
goatlover 2y ago
Because as of yet, there's no evidence of ETs, but there's plenty of evidence for natural phenomena that were puzzling for a while.
kstrauser 2y ago
That path is riskily close to "shrug God did it! shrug", which is kind of a conversation stopper in science.
margalabargala 2y ago
> Why are they so quick to discard a technological origin? For the same reason that they haven't presented God as a serious option. It's not falsifiable, it being true would require a truly enormous amount of preconditions that are utterly unknown, and it's much more likely that something about our current understanding isn't correct. If you say "aliens!" every time you see something that doesn't make sense, you'll be saying it a lot, but you will find it will actually be normal physics hiding behind a curtain.
nurettin 2y ago
Ok let's assume aliens at the first sight of unexplained phenomenon. Now what?
- bunabhucan 2y ago
  Obviously, "now what?" is that they fly here and leave detection traces only certain people can see.
spacecadet 2y ago
Because "space" can contain almost anything at this point... and I doubt we have discovered 1% of natural entities or combinations of natural entities.

From all I've read for this, it should not be possible for such a slow star to emit anything, ie against known physics of natural objects. Why are they so quick to discard a technological origin?

ceejayoz 2y ago

Because we’ve run into plenty of “huh we didn’t think those existed” in astronomy so far. We’ll try to understand more mundane possibilities first.

ben_w 2y ago

> Why are they so quick to discard a technological origin? A sufficiently advanced society could cause any possible phenomena we ever observe, Occam's razor says you should look for other solutions first.

xqcgrek2 2y ago
Occam's razer also says we should not have different laws of physics in different places. Something very interesting is going on here.
- rimunroe 2y ago
  > Occam's razer also says we should not have different laws of physics in different places. You're starting from an odd place if you're assuming that's the case. There's absolutely no reason to believe the laws of physics are different in this star's case compared to any other we've seen. It's an absurd leap to believe aliens are at work here rather than this being yet another case of our knowledge of physics being incomplete.
- tithe 2y ago
  > Something very interesting is going on here. Agreed. If we interpret Occam's razor as to "choose the simplest solution with the greatest explaining power," then the "solution" may be to admit that we have an inadequate understanding of how these things physically work. This doesn't rule out the possibility of a technological origin, but I think Ben's point is that we should explore possiblities that generate more answers than questions first.
- Sharlin 2y ago
  No, there’s nothing except the fact that the "laws of physics", ie. our models of nature, are eternally incomplete simplifications. All that’s going on is that our models have a prediction error and thus tell us we’ve failed to take something into account. Which is an utterly standard part of scientific progress. Papers will be written, hypotheses proposed, more evidence gathered, and after some number of years we’ll have a new, more complete theory of neutron star evolution and/or emission processes.

goatlover 2y ago

Because as of yet, there's no evidence of ETs, but there's plenty of evidence for natural phenomena that were puzzling for a while.

kstrauser 2y ago

That path is riskily close to "shrug God did it! shrug", which is kind of a conversation stopper in science.

margalabargala 2y ago

> Why are they so quick to discard a technological origin? For the same reason that they haven't presented God as a serious option. It's not falsifiable, it being true would require a truly enormous amount of preconditions that are utterly unknown, and it's much more likely that something about our current understanding isn't correct. If you say "aliens!" every time you see something that doesn't make sense, you'll be saying it a lot, but you will find it will actually be normal physics hiding behind a curtain.

nurettin 2y ago

Ok let's assume aliens at the first sight of unexplained phenomenon. Now what?

bunabhucan 2y ago
Obviously, "now what?" is that they fly here and leave detection traces only certain people can see.

spacecadet 2y ago

Because "space" can contain almost anything at this point... and I doubt we have discovered 1% of natural entities or combinations of natural entities.