Earth receiving mysterious radio signals • Hacker News Board

Re: Earth receiving mysterious radio signals

#21

Post by dchichkov » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 5:22 AM UTC

dfryer wrote: post #16

The paper is much more conservative than the article about it. They're saying that the close relationship between the signal and the human-made second, plus the fact that most of these signals were observed at one particular telescope, suggests strongly that it's a local, human source. "Paper doesn't rule out aliens" isn't a particularly strong statement. I've read many papers that don't rule out aliens, dragons OR u…

The paper starts with: "Eleven FRBs have been detected so far, nine with the Parkes and one at the Arecibo telescope." That arithmetic is wrong. Tongue-in-the-cheek - April's fool?

edit: it actually seems more like a genuine typo in a pre-print. The list further in the article contains 10 FRBs from Parkes. edit 2: linked to the abstract.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.05245

Re: Earth receiving mysterious radio signals

#22

Post by KamiCrit » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 5:25 AM UTC

Wow!

Re: Earth receiving mysterious radio signals

#23

Post by houseofshards » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 5:27 AM UTC

What does the article mean by "fast" radio signals ? Don't radio waves always travel at the speed of light ?

Re: Earth receiving mysterious radio signals

#24

Post by danhon » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 5:28 AM UTC

uoou wrote: post #17

From the linked paper: >the suggestive correlation with terrestrial time standards seems to nearly clinch the case for human association of these peculiar phenomena More from this author: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/earth-sized-ufo-spotted-nasa-images... http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ufo-hunter-believes-nasa-cut-off-li... http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nasa-secretly-contact-aliens-allege...

"Arjun Varma is the Senior Correspondent, Entertainment at International Business Times. He comes from a diverse media background having worked across film, TV, print and digital."

So, not science reporting, then.

Re: Earth receiving mysterious radio signals

#25

Post by JonathonW » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 5:34 AM UTC

houseofshards wrote: post #23

What does the article mean by "fast" radio signals ? Don't radio waves always travel at the speed of light ?

They're "fast" in that they only last a short period of time-- these signals only last a few milliseconds, and they're rarely detected in real-time.

Re: Earth receiving mysterious radio signals

#26

Post by cpeterso » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 5:35 AM UTC

dchichkov wrote: post #21

dfryer wrote: post #16

The paper is much more conservative than the article about it. They're saying that the close relationship between the signal and the human-made second, plus the fact that most of these signals were observed at one particular telescope, suggests strongly that it's a local, human source. "Paper doesn't rule out aliens" isn't a particularly strong statement. I've read many papers that don't rule out aliens, dragons OR u…

The paper starts with: "Eleven FRBs have been detected so far, nine with the Parkes and one at the Arecibo telescope." That arithmetic is wrong. Tongue-in-the-cheek - April's fool? edit : it actually seems more like a genuine typo in a pre-print. The list further in the article contains 10 FRBs from Parkes. edit 2 : linked to the abstract. http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.05245

The eleventh could have been detected somewhere else.

Re: Earth receiving mysterious radio signals

#27

Post by gre » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 5:36 AM UTC

houseofshards wrote: post #23

What does the article mean by "fast" radio signals ? Don't radio waves always travel at the speed of light ?

They mean the signals last about a millisecond.

Re: Earth receiving mysterious radio signals

#28

Post by IndianAstronaut » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 5:52 AM UTC

This has me curious as to how much radio data from space remains unanalyzed? There is probably more data being received than the select group of scientists working on this can analyze. How much machine learning power has been directed at this?

Re: Earth receiving mysterious radio signals

#29

Post by Sniffnoy » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 6:06 AM UTC

dchichkov wrote: post #21

dfryer wrote: post #16

The paper is much more conservative than the article about it. They're saying that the close relationship between the signal and the human-made second, plus the fact that most of these signals were observed at one particular telescope, suggests strongly that it's a local, human source. "Paper doesn't rule out aliens" isn't a particularly strong statement. I've read many papers that don't rule out aliens, dragons OR u…

The paper starts with: "Eleven FRBs have been detected so far, nine with the Parkes and one at the Arecibo telescope." That arithmetic is wrong. Tongue-in-the-cheek - April's fool? edit : it actually seems more like a genuine typo in a pre-print. The list further in the article contains 10 FRBs from Parkes. edit 2 : linked to the abstract. http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.05245

A note -- if you're linking to arXiv, it's better to link to the abstract (http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.05245) rather than directly to the PDF. From the abstract, one can easily click through to the PDF; not so the reverse. And the abstract allows one to do things like see different versions of the paper, search for other things by the same authors, etc.

Re: Earth receiving mysterious radio signals

#30

Post by justinpombrio » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 6:13 AM UTC

JonathonW wrote: post #25

houseofshards wrote: post #23

What does the article mean by "fast" radio signals ? Don't radio waves always travel at the speed of light ?

They're "fast" in that they only last a short period of time-- these signals only last a few milliseconds, and they're rarely detected in real-time.

So... brief.