We are alone....
'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech
311–320 of 347 posts
Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
To high-five all the other monkeys round the outer edge of the face, of course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBIg7LEHs-0
Of all places, I did not expect to see a Rhythm Heaven reference on HN. :D Brings back memories
It's not my first: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38927430
Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is not at all clear to me why the harmonics makes it any more worth searching for aliens than any other solar system. a) Why would aliens expend the enormous energy required to engineer this? b) Isn't it vastly more likely to occur naturally as some sort of resonance effect?
"Why would aliens expend the enormous energy required to engineer this" Is a very similar answer to why humans would make microprocessors out of logic gates. I'm in school for digital design at the moment, and stuff like oscillators and frequency dividers are at the very base/root of almost all electronic circuits. One guess could be that alignments of planets in specific ways could be used to generate specific impul…
I studied EE and identity with what you’re saying, but I suppose the natural follow-up questions would include an interrogation of the relative benefits of scale. In other words, why build a solar system sized oscillator? Surely, if one simply needs to maintain a clock—and if one has sufficient advanced knowledge and technology to influence the motion of planetary orbits on a large scale—why bother, when the decay of cesium atoms is readily available? The fun answer is because the intelligence responsible for such an endeavor exists on a scale such that this solar system is its equivalent of a cesium atom. But other smarter folks have already established the more likely scenarios elsewhere in this thread. It’s just fun to think about.
Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
This could be a natural phenomenon. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_resonance
It's mentioned in the preceding article and the two papers that are linked. In spite of the title no one is wondering if aliens moved planets around to park them in special orbits. It's infinitely more likely the resonances developed naturally. Also, none of the planets are in the habitable zone, so it's unlikely there's life on them. Which is a shame, because if the star was much dimmer and they were in the habitabl…
Habitable zone is made up concept. Life forms can exist in many conditions.
Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
To use, not to collect. And thermodynamics appears to say you can't just store it. A stellar mass black hole might be an interesting "cold end" in this regard… if you can find or make one, but to do that you'd need to start with a Dyson swarm.
> To use, not to collect. And thermodynamics says you can't just store it. I don't think these semantic games are productive. Thermodynamics says you can transform energy. "Collect" in this context means using energy in a way that allows you to retrieve it in the future. For example, charging a battery or condenser with light with a PV panel, powering a motor that accelerates a flywheel, coiling a spring, heating a m…
Unless your civilization has ways of infinitely storing energy or exporting it somehow you'll need to be in equilibrium over the long term. This means radiating away the waste heat, at stellar scale.
Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
…mostly big piles of rocks… nothing too special…
So these ancient granite constructions exhibit tool markings of computer-aided design precision, laser cutting, and power drilling. These enormous granite obselisks weigh more than even modern cranes can lift. But they were allegedly "hand-chiseled" and lifted from quarries by a dozen men with ropes. Yet no-one with actual modern computers and lasers and drills and cranes has been able to replicate any of it. Oh and…
What exactly is a “marking of computer-aided design precision”?
Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how temperature is measured for an object this far away. If it's calculated based on the expected energy absorption of a planet with this level of reflectivity, the measurement would be wrong anyway, assuming alien tech. Instead of the energy being absorbed as heat by the planet, it'd instead be stored in some other form or used for interstellar travel, construction etc, right?
> I wonder how temperature is measured for an object this far away. From the black body radiation spectrum. [UPDATE] It turns out that the temperature of TrEs-2b is not directly measured, but extrapolated from other measurements (at least according to Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrES-2b#Temperature ). > Instead of the energy being absorbed as heat by the planet, it'd instead be stored in some other form…
Theoretically a civilization that could capture 100% of the energy from it's star would be able to use however much of that energy it wanted to heat or cool the planet. They could make the conditions perfect for them. There could be a reason why they'd want the surface to be extremely hot.
Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every value being equally likely does not mean we expect every value to appear only once. Throw a d6 seven times and we expect a configuration to come up twice, even though the distribution is uniform.
Throw a d6 seven times and the pigeonhole principle requires that a configuration will come up twice. The example is weakening your argument; it's still true that if you throw a d6 five times, you expect a configuration to come up twice. A better example wouldn't involve a probability that can achieve 1; maybe ask about the probability of rolling a 3, or of rolling another 3 given you've already observed one 3. None…
Throw a d6 six times and you probably won't see each value exactly once.
Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn’t that the expected outcome when energy production eventually outpaces the planet’s ability to dissipate energy into space?
No. The temperature of the atmosphere has nothing to do with whether or not aliens are harvesting the energy. At equilibrium, all of the incoming energy has to get radiated back out into space eventually whether there are aliens harvesting that energy or not. The problem with an atmosphere hotter than lava is that very few materials are solid at those temperatures, and it's hard to imagine how a civilization could bu…
What would be an equilibrium if they spend collected energy on some process with low entropy output?
Re: 'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien tech
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. The temperature of the atmosphere has nothing to do with whether or not aliens are harvesting the energy. At equilibrium, all of the incoming energy has to get radiated back out into space eventually whether there are aliens harvesting that energy or not. The problem with an atmosphere hotter than lava is that very few materials are solid at those temperatures, and it's hard to imagine how a civilization could bu…
What would be an equilibrium if they spend collected energy on some process with low entropy output?
Like what?
I can't think of anything that would make a difference in the long run. Anything they do is still subject to the Second Law and the limits of Carnot efficiency. They can shunt a little bit of the energy off to the side and store it for a while, but it all has to end up as heat sooner or later.