Greetings Earthlings

[harpoonflyby]

[zetec]

[Bluetears]

[KajaMarik]

[Self-Fullfilling Vessel]

[HarryStottle]

Whenever I read truly amazing stories like that, I smell a potential rat, so I make a point of checking out the rest of the web to see if the story holds water. This one, I'm pleased to say, does. Physics Today have published (warning, the site seems to be under too much demand at the moment so you might have to wait. The others are no problem though) and the American Anti Gravity Association or whatever they call themselves, had him as a making some of the relevant comments in public in February last year. And my personal trusted source of Physics news, Physorg.com is also . (Second story on the page) So if its a hoax, it's doing pretty well.

It'll bugger up the plot for , of course. In that, I envisage that we'll only achieve C+ speeds using Quantum Transceivers prepositioned in an expanding shell of much slower spaceships (travelling away from us at only one tenth of the speed of light). On which basis, it would be 1.8million years or something like that before we reach even the Large Magellanic Cloud (a small galaxy orbiting our own Milky Way).

If this variation on quantum theory is validated and the resulting technology delivers, we will actually achieve something closer to Star Trek with Warp 1-10 technology which could get us there perhaps as little as 1-10,000 years.

But the article suggests that we might see the first meaningful tests within about 5 years. That looks a trifle optimistic even to an arch optimist like myself. I suspect it will be 20 years before they even agree on the theory. But I suppose there's nothing to stop them rotating their magnets to see if they do actually begin to achieve real thrust even before the theory's sewn up.

Interesting indeed.

[Asymptote]

HarryStottle - Wed Sep 21, 2005 8:42 am
“I've recently installed a statcounter on the site and I was amazed to learn that "Conversation" is the single most popular item on the site. I'd be fascinated to know what people think of it.”

---- Here we are ‘X’ years later. The hit-count is impressive. I was introduced to [this realm] through that exact article!
I perceive this piece to be iconic as it describes a situation which people can identify with and perhaps to an extent actually yearn for a similar type of encounter. The popularity may be perceived as a type of ‘agreement’ more than an example of intrigue.

To quickly diverge here, it’s always quite noteworthy that when a need/demand is recognized the conceptual opposite is created, ie - a supply. I suppose our actions of acknowledgment are acting as this supply, or could there be more of a stronger manifestation to come..?

With regards to the article, the interesting part for me lays in its category, (Fiction). I find this quite comforting – the reason why I say this is explained from:

squeakthedragon - Fri May 07, 2010 8:11 pm : From the article : ‘Since the beginning of the universe’
“Supernatural, in a sense, is an event horizon. It is always just out of reach, and from our subjective perspective, we never actually reach it - as our understanding increases, the mystery of the next thing we do not yet know stays a step ahead of us. Like many things, this can be taken in multiple ways. Some people use this to support things such as a "god of the gaps" rational - saying that because there are always things we cannot understand, this proves the existence of entities like God.”

---- It’s my impression that humans have been able to move the concept of ‘God’ from a religious perspective to ‘fictional; or science fictional concept’ – ie. Our next goal. No longer ‘Our Master’.

Humans now process the information, ability and confidence to begin the process of actualizing and manipulating a once highly feared psychological dimension/concept. To give a concrete and comparative example I will compare efforts by simple peasants, a long time ago … who, over time, began to resent their own powerful castle lords who ‘provided’ protection in return for the peasants productivity.

The peasants started to see through the illusion of them working for someone else who didn’t really care much for them… this revolutionary thinking was fiction to them for quite some time, but as history can show, this ( R ) Evolution occurred. The peasants empowered themselves which granted them the ability to attract a higher quality of existence.

I am trying to point out the thinking that must have occurred to lessen the power of the ‘Master’ to something challengeable, something with less power.. They must have broken a mental limit to allow such cognitive behavior…

The peasants thinking may have processed along something similar to the following: ‘To challenge that which we ‘must’ respect is an attack of our personal and fundamental belief/value system!” But somehow we know we must… we must break these restrictive boundaries until we feel content, equal and free. (Sounds quite similar to what current military media proclaim to represent)