'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#151

Post by andrewflnr » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #141

comicjk wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible that there are other stable particles besides the ones we know now (like protons, neutrons, electrons, photons, neutrinos, etc). And maybe they can form stable arrangements which are not atoms, but which can still interact with ordinary matter. In that case you could have a material that was not made of atoms. I don't think a lump of such material is in a warehouse in Nevada, but maybe it exists somewh…

I would think those would just be made of different kinds of atoms but OK.

An atom is a particular type of arrangement of protons, neutrons, and electrons. If something is not made of protons, neutrons, and electrons in that particular arrangement, it's not made of atoms, by definition.

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#152

Post by joshuaheard » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 5:42 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #72

jonstokes wrote: post #15

I totally buy it that there is no such thing as an "unidentifiable alloy." I also buy it that journalists, not being materials scientists or indeed scientists of any sort, do not know the difference between an "alloy" and "a hunk of some hard material," so at some point they wrote down "alloy" because the word sounds exotic, like something you'd find at Area 51. This happens in the press /all the time/. Journos get s…

Alloys, composites, raw materials, you can identify them. If they have atoms you can identify what is in them. Now there could be weird materials that are hard to more difficult to identify. But you need a more compelling argument. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

If they have a vehicle whose flight defies our knowledge of physics, maybe it's made from a material that does the same.

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#153

Post by InclinedPlane » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 6:19 PM UTC

andrewflnr wrote: post #131

InclinedPlane wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is different. Any example of "Damascus steel" that you can point to you can use an XRF device on to figure out the actual alloy composition. That doesn't tell you exactly how to make it, it just tells you what elements it's made out of.

How is it different? You're practically making my point for me: knowing the composition doesn't mean you understand a material in any meaningful way. If the people supposedly running these warehouses are honest, we have to assume they've done all the obvious tests and are still confused. Just to belabor the point some more, we didn't know until recently that damascus steel contains carbon nanotubes (probably derived…

What point are you trying to make here? Again, the claim of an "unidentifiable alloy" without XRF data backing it up is simply not credible. Period. Worse, the claim here is of an "unidentifiable alloy" without any evidence whatsoever. That is not credible.

The issue of being able to reproduce an alloy or material is an entirely separate one from being able to identify what it's made out of. Nobody calls Damascus steel an "unidentifiable alloy". We know what it is, a type of steel, we know what it's made out of. Whether or not we can manufacture something with identical properties is irrelevant to whether or not we can identify it.

This whole "unidentifiable alloys" thing is a lot of meaningless speculation that hinges on a throwaway phrase with zero evidence backing it up. Show me the XRF data then we'll have a discussion. Until then it's just a bunch of hot air.

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#154

Post by titzer » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 6:21 PM UTC

byebyetech wrote: post #41

titzer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, I read the article and the "guy a thousand miles away" gave pretty damn good reasoning why it'd be short work to identify and categorize "alien alloys". Or do you have an actual argument as to why these materials couldn't be readily identified and studied by competent physicists using well known technology?

Would a material composed using highly advanced nanotechnology have strange properties purely due to its structure? Does it have to be an alloy?

If it is Earthish temperature, it going to be made of normal atoms (i.e. elements we have identified on the periodic table) and mass spectrometry and X-ray crystallography would be common tools that physicists would use to identify its molecular structures. And yes, highly advanced nanotechnology uses regular old atoms, as far as Science can see today.

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#155

Post by rbanffy » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 7:02 PM UTC

naiyt wrote: post #139

legulere wrote: post #128

One such "alien alloy" we still haven't been fully able to analyze or even reproduce: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel

After reading that it sounds like they just haven't been able to reproduce the process of making it, not that it's an alloy that they don't understand the composition of.

Understanding the composition is just the first step of duplicating the process that made something. It can be as simple as melting two bars of different metals to etching elaborate patterns through complicated physical and chemical processes.

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#156

Post by rowdown » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 7:39 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #19

There is a very simple explanation for why the alloys are so mysterious. Harry Reid was able to get the program funded, and directed most of the $22M in spending to one of his closest backers, Robert Bigelow so he could build a fancy warehouse. If that fancy warehouse wasn't storing super valuable alien artifacts it just looks like Reid filling the pockets of a close friend with government monies, and people might th…

I understand your sentiment but there's more going on here. It seems to be a Pentagon PR push.

Some of people involved with Tom are legitimate.

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#157

Post by dang » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 8:45 PM UTC

donald_knuth wrote: post #59

As a former scientist well practiced in x-ray diffraction it has been really fun watching these blatant flasehoods spread. We have mastered identifying the atomic structure of materials. Sadly spreading these claims is how these programs self propegate. Luckily they don't do much real damage other than misleading the public and wasting government funding.

It's not in the spirit of this site to use someone else's name for your account. Since this account isn't that old and doesn't have much of a history, it's probably best if you just make a new one. In the meantime I'm going to ban this one. If that's a problem, let us know at hn@ycombinator.com.

The best solution would be to rename the account, but we don't have that implemented yet.

Re: 'Alien Alloys' in The New York Times' UFO Story

#158

Post by iconvoid » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 10:07 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #107

jonstokes wrote: post #15

I totally buy it that there is no such thing as an "unidentifiable alloy." I also buy it that journalists, not being materials scientists or indeed scientists of any sort, do not know the difference between an "alloy" and "a hunk of some hard material," so at some point they wrote down "alloy" because the word sounds exotic, like something you'd find at Area 51. This happens in the press /all the time/. Journos get s…

Yes, agreed. I hate to say it, but this is a crap article. The point of the original NYT article was that they had something they could not identify, not that there was some new form of matter. All this consists of is a journalist (and hopefully editor) using the wrong phraseology and SA jumping on it like an eager five-year-old on the mechnical fire engine at WalMart. SA used to have a series, I think it was called…

What is the distinction between "material that you can't identify" and a "whole new type of matter?"

Unless something is interfering with the efforts to identify a given substance, there aren't a whole lot of options left besides it being something "new" (which is to say hitherto unknown).