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A meteor or alien tech: Harvard professor plans UFO expedition

nbcboston.com

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Re: A meteor or alien tech: Harvard professor plans UFO expedition

#201

Post by msrenee »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #160
dnadler wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that anything heavier than iron is made by supernovae, so the same could be said of the majority of elements.

Right, but titanium is stronger than steel, let alone iron. > When compared to steel in a strength-to-weight ratio, titanium is far superior, as it is as strong as steel but 45% lighter. In fact, titanium has the highest strength-to-weight ratio of all known metals. There's a reason cherry picked titanium. :)

As your quote says, titanium has a higher strength to weight ratio. It's not necessarily stronger, and it's not necessarily "tougher" against the circumstances described than whatever type of iron they think it might be. The meteor isn't out to minimize weight. The strength to weight ratio isn't relavent here at all and does not make titanium more likely to survive until the object comes to rest on Earth.

Re: A meteor or alien tech: Harvard professor plans UFO expedition

#202

Post by supernova87a »

sailingparrot wrote: post #106
protastus wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Avi Loeb is legitimately excited about this topic. He's also aware that the public is tremendously excited and inspired about the possibility of UFOs, alien flybys of the solar system, etc. I think he's achieved professional recognition, paid his dues playing the game of academia (very successfully), and is now pursuing things that he finds most exciting. The man has co-authored a thousand papers, literally,…

> That for sure is triggering folks who take themselves very seriously. I don't think anyone in the field is triggered by some guy pursuing his interest in aliens and UFO. What they get triggered about, is that guy using his relatively large platform to say that anyone not agreeing with him is part of the establishment or otherwise useless, or to say that there is no other possible explanation to a certain phenomenon…

Yeah exactly. No one is getting "triggered" as in a juvenile college student way.

If anything, I would say the annoyance is that for the department head of Harvard to be spending his time (and seeking fame) on topics like this, instead of using his position to 1) further "real" research, 2) address problems in the field, 3) in general, make more of the role he has, is something of an insult to people trying all their lives to reach such achievement.

Re: A meteor or alien tech: Harvard professor plans UFO expedition

#203

Post by gfodor »

jmull wrote: post #144
gfodor wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1.5M ain’t much depending on your priors and how much you value the discovery of extraterrestrial tech.

Let’s estimate the expected value for that $1.5M… My estimate is something less than $0.01.

You have it backwards, you have to calculate the expected value of the mission and see if it’s less than 1.5M.

For example, if odds of success are one in 10k for a discovery worth $1T then it works out.

Re: A meteor or alien tech: Harvard professor plans UFO expedition

#204

Post by jmull »

gfodor wrote: post #203
jmull wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s estimate the expected value for that $1.5M… My estimate is something less than $0.01.

You have it backwards, you have to calculate the expected value of the mission and see if it’s less than 1.5M. For example, if odds of success are one in 10k for a discovery worth $1T then it works out.

I’m afraid we’re taking about the same expected value: odds of success * value of success
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