Intoscience

The first and foremost is to try and establish the alien's intention and agenda (assuming we are not wiped out first). If they have made the effort to visit our planet then they clearly have intent or interest. Unless they happen to be driving past and the alien kid in the back seat says - "look mummy that's one of those planets which I always wanted to visit" Mum reply's "I've told you before, its just one of those planets full of dumb apes wrecking the environment, nothing interesting to see there". Kid "But mummy I really wanna see". Mum "oh go on then, just this once, but be careful not to scare them, they can be very aggressive and we wouldn't want to hurt them". Lets hope that their intent, no matter what they actually want, is not to harm us.

We live in a throw away society and this is normal for the younger generations who know no different. Changing attitudes of the end user is just one part of a more complex problem. Companies, corporations and governments will not make any changes if its going to cost them money, unless they can disguise the cost of the change and offset it elsewhere (usually the end user). I remember, and I'm sure most will, back when everything that was possible to re-use / utilise would have been - Jam jars for screws, nails, buttons etc... Torn clothes, socks and underwear sewed up and continued to be used, then reused for rags once unfit to wear... All just to name a few. My parents still live this way and produce very little waste. My children throw out everything unwanted, the very thought of wearing a sewn up item of clothing makes them cringe with embarrassment, they produce 4 x times as much waste as my parents, yet advocate changes must be made towards climate change...

Or the aliens may observe us and decide we are no use to the galactic federation and should be eradicated before our technological capability becomes potentially threatening to the galactic federation of planets. 😜

That's easy if the result is fair 🙂

That's why we have rules, limits and categories, to level the playing field as fairly as possible. Rules are then amended over time (hopefully) to improve the fairness further and or accommodate more categories etc... There's not always a "perfect" fair solution, just one that the majority accepts as the best it can be. Someone somewhere is always at an advantage/disadvantage, the trick is to determine if the advantage/disadvantage is deemed fair or not. If the vast majority are fairly treated then this is surely the best system?

Absolutely, I agree with you on this. I don't have an issue with any person competing so long as "fair" play is maintained for everyone

Who lives forever...anyway...? (Queen - who wants to live forever). We can't talk in terms of forever, only moments. The problem being that each moment can't be undone! So lets make sure each moment are the best they can possibly be, else there is no point to it all anyway. The universe doesn't care, that doesn't mean we shouldn't either.

I suspect they would, this is not uncommon throughout history. It just gets a little less convincing when an advanced alien turns up on the door step of the "being" that was made in the image of the creator of the universe. Assuming, obviously that the alien resembles nothing like a human. 😜

The winning team will mostly be biased in their own favour, this is natural. Though in some sports, like golf for instance, where competitors are expected to self regulate, you do often get the true "sporting" persons who admit there rule breach and take the consequences accordingly.

The OP has already assumed this isn't a problem since it was stated in the question "if we were visited" As to what would the effects be, we can speculate in many ways. The intention of the alien/s just to begin with will have a profound effect. First off, It would at least answer a big question we all want the answer to - are we alone? Secondly, as to regards religion, it may undermine many of the beliefs held by many of the religions across the world. Either way it would certainly put a new perspective on things!

Yeah, you see this sort of thing often. Especially when they use decorative metal switches with no cpc present.

I'm UK based like your good self. My wife is from Bath originally, I'm from Stoke on Trent. I'm only familiar with English regs, BS7671, so no, I didn't realise this was the case in the US. It can be a rewarding job but also boring at times, to be honest. The most rewarding part was when doing an inspection a dangerous fault was identified, before somebody got injured or worse. I've seen some terribly shocking (excuse the pun) installs over the years. One I can recall was at a horse stables, where the owner had nailed some exposed conductors (stripped back T&E) to a stable door and connected it to a 230v plug top, plugged into an old outdoor socket with no rcd protection. This was his attempt to stop the horse from chewing the door by shocking it! Unbelievably stupid, people can be sometimes, let alone cruel in this case! Another one was a call out job I attended where a single mother and her new born baby had "no electric". It was an old Wyle rewireable fuse board with no other protection, on a TT earth system. The cables were VIR and though obviously old, looked ok going into the CCU the socket and lighting circuit fuses had blown. Anyhow, to cut a long story short, the house had no carpets and on the landing area I could see through the floorboard cracks some cables that looked trapped over some pipes. As I lifted a board that was partially nailed there was a smell of gas and a quite hiss. The lead gas pipe run the length of the landing, and some idiot had nailed through it! even more alarming was that the old VIR cables that had perished exposing the bare conductors were routed in many place over the lead gas pipe! Scary situation to say the least! To be honest I've just recently taken a new job which is more project management than anything. So my inspection and testing days will now be limited to favours for friends etc rather than my job. Thanks

Yes, I'm well aware of all this, I'm an electrical inspector and tester by trade. I was assuming from his post that he wanted a layman's explanation on how a fire could result from a short circuit. So was focusing on how conductors might heat up due to current flow which is what causes the fires. The examples I'd given were (though not technically short circuits per say) aimed at this rather than going into great technical detail.

As studiot said ^^^ There are applications where a controlled "short circuit" to create heat or light is useful. For example electric fires, light bulbs, oven grills... These items tend to use high melting point and low resistance materials so that enough current flows to heat the elements without them melting, tungsten filament light bulbs are an example of this. This is why, as mathematic says, circuit breakers are designed into electrical systems to prevent unintended over current which could result in cables heating up beyond their design threshold. In most modern domestic premises you will generally find 2 types of circuit breaker (fuse), or a combination of both. There are MCB's which stands for - miniature circuit breaker, these are the "over current" protection devices. You will also find RCD's which stands for - residual current device, these are shock protection devices. Both devices are designed with rated operating times to cut off the current flow in the event of a fault, Other types of fuses that are actually designed to "over heat" and melt to cut off current flow are common in things like plug tops, old electrical systems, large industrial applications... It's very important, and on point to your OP, that fuses and circuit breakers are carefully selected so that the correct current rating is used!! For example it would not be a good idea to use a 32 amp rated fuse on a circuit that was designed to operate at 6 amps. A fault in this scenario could possibly result in cable conductors over heating to such a degree that they are hot enough to set on fire any combustible material near to them, before the circuit breaker or fuse operated.

Right, ok that helps. Thanks

But if there is no space-time curvature then there is no gravity. In GR gravity is a condition/behaviour/state (dependent on your definition) that arises from the curvature of space-time. So in my mind gravity is emergent from space-time curvature. Space-time curvature occurs when either energy or mass is present and the amount of curvature is dependent on the density/concentration of the mass or energy relative to the space it occupies. I'm not arguing, I'm asking if my basic understanding of gravity in the model of GR is correct?

Well, I guess in the context of this topic, then space and maybe time are emergent (come into existence) under certain quantum conditions, that originate from something even more fundamental. These are not my ideas, I'm trying to gain an understanding of how these physicists are suggest this. My understanding is that its based on reduction at the quantum level, and what might lay beyond our current observation capabilities. I guess we could argue similar, where in GR gravity is an emergent condition that arises due to space-time curvature?

This seems to be the major problem, the very fact that we cannot observe such extremely small distances. Much like we cannot observe what is inside a black hole, where at the centre such an extremely small region may exist.

Ok thanks, So what is the main objective of science? Is it to gain an understanding of the behaviour of how things operate? Rather than the fundamental "reality" that may under pin this? It's a very interesting subject!

So it basically boils down to the old age debate on the definition of reality? Would you say that there are categories for the definition of reality - objective, perceptive, constructive...? In my mind reality is, all that exists at a fundamental level that governs the universe independent of observation, perception and measurement. Is this even possible?

I'm not qualified to judge on whether your thoughts are in error, I think what you say makes sense. Would science or philosophy consider that one of the defining aspects of reality would be absolute truth? Science operates by taking measurements, from observations and collating that data into a mathematical model that predicts outcomes and verifiable by further independent tests. Or you may form a mathematical model and then make observations and carry out independent tests to verify those models. So in my mind science aims to build a frame work of understanding that describes the universe we are part of. We have discovered what we believe to be underlining laws that govern how the universe operates and from these laws and our observations and theories, we can build models and thus attempt to gain an understanding of the "reality" of the universe. Could it be though that measurements used are only ever very accurate approximations? In quantum mechanics where probability is king, seems to highlight this some what? I'm not a scientist or mathematician so could be completely talking out of my backside. I attend these forums to not only discuss ideas but also to be educated. So my questions are not rhetorical. I'm following this thread to discuss ideas and learn. Thanks

Hi Beecee, thanks for your reply. Yes, I've seen this interview and listened to and watched many more on this subject from other physicists. I don't argue that time is not real. I'm more interested in the defining fundamental idea of what space-time is. Why do they consider that spacetime is not fundamental? It appears that the argument stems from the reductionist perspective?

There is popular theoretical "belief" among some leading physicists that space & time may not be fundamental property's of the universe & the governing laws of nature. Theoretical physicists like Nima Arkani-Hamed & Sean Carrol seriously consider that space and maybe time are rather emergent properties, coming from something more fundamental. This line of thought is driven by gravity and quantum mechanics at the most extreme small limits (Planck scales). It's a very interesting idea and if it gains any ground may open up physics to the possibility of better theories and a more fundamental understanding of how the universe works. What is your take on this idea?

How does reality fit into the model of what science is about? Or does it? Are there different kinds of reality, perception being one? Is science an attempt to explain, quantify and verify what might be regarded as fundamental reality? I'm very interested in the philosophical and scientific stance on reality and perception. Thanks

This is pretty much my take on this subject. Though, maybe I have pre misconceptions regarding how much of an issue it would be if the gender category was abolished. I'm just struggling with conceptualising how it would work using a different system.