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Post by big_electron on Jan 29, 2011 1:36:45 GMT -5
Consider the fact that you are invoking violations of special relativity to explain drawings in the ground. Now I know for a fact that you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Special relativity pertains to change in mass, length, and time, when velocity is a significant fraction of the speed of light. It also says that if 2 objects are moving away from a central object at 90% of the speed of light, either of them will perceive the other to be moving away from self at 99% the speed of light. Show me how this is relevant to Nazca lines!
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on Jan 29, 2011 5:48:29 GMT -5
Since mass increases as you get within spitting distance oc c, it requires ever increasing quantities of energy to accelerate further. Interstellar travel isn't workable without being able to exceed the speed of light. Pretty damn simple as to how it violates special relativity.
Unless you're proposing wormholes, in which case you need to provide actual evidence of their existence.
Come on, man. This is kiddy shit. You need direct, concrete evidence of alien visitors, not a couple lines in the desert. Have a little faith in human ingenuity. We got where we are today because we can accomplish incredible things when we work together.
(Oh, yes, and I was attempting to point out the absurdity of the idea that a group of aliens figured out how to do shit that physics says cannot happen. It's basically magic, since it requires you to tell relativity, quantum theory, and Newton's Laws to sit down and shut up.)
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Post by big_electron on Jan 29, 2011 9:06:14 GMT -5
I started this thread because I wanted debate. I expected controversy. I just didn't expect a shitstorm. Really only Sig has been annoying. Everyone else has had really good rebuttals.
To imagine all these things without aliens or gods, just humans alone, I tried before I even started the thread. I made the same challenge to myself. To accelerate any mass to near the speed of light would take nearly infinite energy, special relativity crossed my mind.
But given that the aliens are here, by whatever means, for humans to do some of the things they did, without any assistance, always came down to monkeys with typewriters. I know I said not to use it, but suppose you had 1000 monkeys, each with a typewriter, each separated by 1000 miles so they cannot communicate with each other at all. Now imagine each monkey each writing the same thing, or each monkey types a different chapter of the same work! Ancient Astronaut theory is like saying there was a group of humans secretly traveling between them, influencing and guiding the monkeys.
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Post by Mira on Jan 29, 2011 12:12:37 GMT -5
If aliens were to exhaust all that energy travelling thousands (or more) light years away, why would they come here just to draw some lines in the desert and make some tombs for some emperors?
Oh, and please don't call it Ancient Astronaut theory. That's like saying it has equal standing to germ theory, nuclear theory, evolutionary theory, etc.
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Post by SimSim on Jan 29, 2011 13:27:50 GMT -5
That video on Puma Punku was terrible and unconvincing. It ignores facts, it twists facts, and is full of fallacies.
They propose that Puma Punku couldn't have been constructed by humans because it is above the timberline. Therefore people couldn't have used trees to roll the massive stones. That's total bullshit. Puma Punku is a site associated with the Tiwanaku culture. Tiwanaku was an archaic state that stretched 260,000 square kilometers. Do the people making the video really believe that in all that area there were no trees at all? This is a state that had a metropolitan center and had administrative centers that controlled more rural farming areas. It wouldn't be hard for them to collect lumber for rolling stones. Especially if the people in power ordered that lumber be collected from all over the state.
The video also proposes that it would have been impossible for people to have constructed the site since they couldn't write. Yes, the Tiwanaku culture was a prehistoric culture, meaning they didn't have a written language. But writing isn't the only way of expressing complex ideas. These people could speak. Do the video makers and people espousing this "theory" really think that there wouldn't have been foremen, or something similar? Clearly there would have been foremen or overseers of some sort that knew what was planned and could verbally convey said plans.
Not having a written language doesn't rule out planning. There could have been scale models of the structures that were used. The workers building it would only need to know the scale. Hell, the workers could even have gotten blueprints that simply were drawings of what they were supposed to do.
The video also implies that humans today are more intelligent than ancient humans. That is totally false. The average human today is no more or less intelligent than humans thousands of years ago.
Blah, I've run out of steam. So I'll leave with this. Intricate stone carvings can be achieved by chiseling. Which can easily be done with lithic technology
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jan 29, 2011 14:03:15 GMT -5
Umm...no. Firstly, you didn't refute the points of Sigma or myself. Secondly, even though we don't know what purpose they served, there's no evidence of alien involvement, so something more plausible would be a thing that doesn't leave much evidence behind, like it being a decoration or, hey, used to shock people in ceremonies.
Now, I don't know off the top of my head if there's any evidence of electroplating in ancient baghdad, so I can't say that those theories are correct, just more plausible. And I can safely rule out alien involvement because, as I said, there is no evidence that the battery was used to power machinery. We know about the pipes in ancient Rome, I'm pretty sure we'd be able to recognize electrical systems.
The Nazca lines are often grouped together with Crop Circles, so I doubt they're any more special.
Some debates just aren't worth having. Even if I tried Devil's Advocate, I know I'd be slaughtered, because the "Ancient Astronaut Theory" is just that wrong.
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Post by Sigmaleph on Jan 29, 2011 14:06:32 GMT -5
Consider the fact that you are invoking violations of special relativity to explain drawings in the ground. Now I know for a fact that you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Special relativity pertains to change in mass, length, and time, when velocity is a significant fraction of the speed of light. It also says that if 2 objects are moving away from a central object at 90% of the speed of light, either of them will perceive the other to be moving away from self at 99% the speed of light. Show me how this is relevant to Nazca lines! Special relativity says that the closer you get to c, the harder it is to accelerate, and it's impossible to accelerate past c. You said, paraphrased, that aliens might have superior technology so space travel wouldn't be a huge bitch to them. That's invoking a violation of special relativity to argue that aliens drew the lines at Nazca.
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jan 29, 2011 14:07:46 GMT -5
Now I know for a fact that you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Special relativity pertains to change in mass, length, and time, when velocity is a significant fraction of the speed of light. It also says that if 2 objects are moving away from a central object at 90% of the speed of light, either of them will perceive the other to be moving away from self at 99% the speed of light. Show me how this is relevant to Nazca lines! Special relativity says that the closer you get to c, the harder it is to accelerate, and it's impossible to accelerate past c. You said, paraphrased, that aliens might have superior technology so space travel wouldn't be a huge bitch to them. That's invoking a violation of special relativity to argue that aliens drew the lines at Nazca. You were ninja'd.
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on Jan 29, 2011 16:20:53 GMT -5
To put it another way: You believe there is an alien culture that possesses the technology needed to release more energy than a fucking gamma-ray burst? And it's 100% efficient, otherwise astronomers the world over would wonder what the fuck that burst of gamma-rays (or x-rays, or microwaves...) was?
GRBs are the most luminous events in the universe, by the way. They also eject matter at 99.995% the speed of light. If the burst were directed off the entire surface of the star the energy release would exceed the rest energy of the sun. And even that much would be insufficient for propelling an object with mass to the speed of light, much less to exceed it.
Attributing aliens is about like saying the dinosaurs built a huge fucking nuke 65 million years ago, only a billion times worse.
We're talking Rapture Ready levels or retarded.
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jan 29, 2011 16:25:47 GMT -5
The way I heard it, were a gamma ray burst a spherical explosion, it would contain more energy than the universe, which is how they deduced that it must be linear.
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on Jan 29, 2011 17:47:43 GMT -5
Nah, just the rest energy of the sun.
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jan 29, 2011 18:38:10 GMT -5
Well, this isn't something I can really do a search on.
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Post by Sigmaleph on Jan 29, 2011 23:15:02 GMT -5
Special relativity says that the closer you get to c, the harder it is to accelerate, and it's impossible to accelerate past c. You said, paraphrased, that aliens might have superior technology so space travel wouldn't be a huge bitch to them. That's invoking a violation of special relativity to argue that aliens drew the lines at Nazca. You were ninja'd. I knew it had been covered before, but since it was addressed at me...
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on Jan 30, 2011 2:51:07 GMT -5
"What he said." would have been quicker, though.
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Post by Admiral Lithp on Jan 31, 2011 22:58:46 GMT -5
Ignoring me would have settled this matter faster, too.
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