|
|
|
|
lpetrich
Skeptic Friend
USA
74 Posts |
 Posted - 08/11/2001 : 09:17:07
|
At first thought, it might seem rather difficult, since engineering necessity is likely to force convergence on similar solutions. But I've thought of an interestring criterion for doing that. It relies on a common feature of industrial-era manufactured objects: standardized sizes and shapes. This enables parts made on different production lines to successfully fit together. Size standards are usually some simple multiple or fraction of one's favorite measuring unit, which is why there exist separate sets of English and metric nuts and bolts and the like.
Applying this reasoning to some putative extraterrestrial artifact, one would ask if it has parts that must fit other parts, like nuts and bolts, and how their sizes and shapes compare with Earthling-made counterparts. Thus, if such an artifact turned out to have nuts and bolts that did not match any standard size of Earthling nuts and bolts, and that were left-handed instead of right-handed, that would be strong evidence of its extraterrestrial manufacture. And the same is true of electrical and computer-cable plugs and sockets and the like.
One interestring question is how difficult it would be to create a fake artifact with nonstandard-dimension parts, such as one with dozens of nonstandard-dimension nuts and bolts that nevertheless have size variations at least as small as Earthling-made nuts and bolts. I expect that doing so will be very difficult for someone without access to factories for making these parts.
|
|
|
Piltdown
Skeptic Friend
USA
312 Posts |
|
|
bestonnet_00
Skeptic Friend
Australia
358 Posts |
 Posted - 08/12/2001 : 13:27:07 [Permalink]
|
I think I could fool most ufologists with a motherboard power cable.
Easy to get.
Radioactive GM Crops.
Slightly above background.
Safe to eat.
But no activist would dare rip it out.
As they think it gives them cancer. |
 |
|
|
ljbrs
SFN Regular
USA
842 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2001 : 09:02:45 [Permalink]
|
Besides not having the prevailing English or metric units in their makeup, the parts of the UFOs would need to be made of materials which contained isotopes not naturally found on Earth. Just any old material would not do. Of course, nobody really would need to go to any such trouble, because the world is filled with *true believers* and there would be many kinds of excuses for the lack of differing isotopes.
Perhaps the FOX network could create programs blasting the skeptics' insistence upon extraterrestrial isotopes in the materials. Public opinion polls could be taken to show that the true believers were right and that the skeptics were wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! After all, science does not count. The public's opinion of science is all that matters.
Scientists can be shown as losers in public opinion polls.
ljbrs
Perfection Is a State of Growth... |
|
|
|
ktesibios
SFN Regular
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2001 : 16:28:17 [Permalink]
|
Umm...
Can we expect that isotope ratios of elements obtained away from the Earth would necessarily be different than those found on Earth?
(This is an actual please-relieve-my-ignorance question, not a rhetorical one- if you know, I'd sure like to hear about it.)
Anyway, since we mere Earthlings have had methods of separating isotopes for a while now, couldn't somebody with the right knowledge and equipment have some fun faking E.T. materials?
About engineering necessity forcing convergence on similar solutions- it doesn't seem to work that way on Earth. By way of example, look at the variety of solutions to the problem of transducing electricity to sound: dynamic speakers, piezoelectrics, electrostatic speakers, modulated RF arcs (the Ionovac), magnetostrictive transducers and probably others I don't know about. These all achieve essentially the same end, but work on completely different principles. Form isn't rigidly dictated by function.
After twenty years in electronics I'm still encountering components and circuits which make me wonder "why on Earth did they do it THAT way?", so considering degree of weirdness as a criterion of possible E.T. origin seems kind of shaky to me.
Boris Karloff died for your sins.
Edited by - ktesibios on 08/19/2001 16:29:27 |
|
|
|
ljbrs
SFN Regular
USA
842 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2001 : 17:16:08 [Permalink]
|
The difference in isotopes of various elements is used to differentiate the characteristics of meteorites to determine the site of origin. This is one of the ways they could determine (from spectra) Mars meteorites from other meteorites. Discovering isotope differences is an important tool for astrophysicists to determine origin of meteorites. Spectra of distant planets and stars also show such compositional differences. Astrophysics is a fascinating science.
ljbrs
Perfection Is a State of Growth... |
|
|
|
lpetrich
Skeptic Friend
USA
74 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2001 : 17:34:16 [Permalink]
|
It's expected that isotope composition may be different in materials from outside the Solar System because the materials may have had a different history of stellar nucleosynthesis behind them.
One counterargument is that the relative formation rates of different masses of stars has remained roughly constant over time. This would imply that the concentrations of the various isotopes have increased in roughly exact proprtion, meaning that one would not see significant relative abundance differences.
A counter-counterargument is that increasing amounts of heavy elements, even if in relatively small quantities, can still make a difference in stellar formation and evolution, by affecting the stars' surface opacities (greater opacity due to heavy elements -> heat flows outward less easily -> the star is hotter inside).And this may cause sets of isotopes to be produced in different proportions over time.
However, galactic chemical evolution is an active area of study, and we may eventually get some answer to this knotty question.
|
|
|
|
lpetrich
Skeptic Friend
USA
74 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2001 : 17:45:55 [Permalink]
|
And about isotope fractionation; that is completely feasible, but it requires either a LOT of patience (repeated distillation, for example) or else some fancy equipment whose distribution might be controlled to keep Third-Worlders from acquiring it and using it to help make nuclear bombs.
Also, it seems to me that engineering weirdness usually applies to details; the overall features often show a lot of convergence.
But what I was pointing out was not weirdness in general but size and shape conventions for parts that must fit other parts. There would likely be a set of standard sizes for such parts, but those sizes would differ from typical Earthling favorite sizes, and thus would indicate different-sized measurement units. |
|
|
|
ljbrs
SFN Regular
USA
842 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2001 : 19:42:13 [Permalink]
|
Oh, I would never begin to disagree with anything you have stated. You obviously know a lot more about a lot of things than I do. (I am knowledgeable enough to know who knows....) The idea of isotopes caught my fancy when scientists were determining the origins of certain Antarctic meteorites, the composition of which purportedly had specific isotopes (in that instance, from Mars) which would not have been native to earth.
ljbrs
Perfection Is a State of Growth... |
|
|
|
lpetrich
Skeptic Friend
USA
74 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2001 : 09:38:08 [Permalink]
|
Isotope abundances in atmospheres can differ because of fractionation; if part of an atmosphere boils off into outer space, then what's left will become enriched in the heavier isotopes. And that seems to have happened to a greater degree with Mars's atmospher than the Earth's, as is evident from its enrichment in heavier isotopes of various elements, like hydrogen and nitrogen.
However, attempts to measure isotope abundances in Comet Hale-Bopp have revealed Earthlike abundances of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur; this is possible because molecular vibration and rotation spectral lines have a significant dependence on the masses of the nuclei.
http://www.eso.org/outreach/info-events/hale-bopp/comet-hale-bopp-summary-feb26-97-rw.html
Also, formation in different places can cause different isotope abundances; some grains in meteorites are older than the Solar System, and they reveal their separate origins with their isotope abundances.
However, mining and manufacturing processes are likely to average out those variations, producing average sorts of isotope abundances.
This means that it may be possible to detect whether some plastic objects were made using Martian materials (enrichment of heavier isotopes), but not cometary ones (no changes). This is because plastics have biological-like composition (carbon, hydrogen, often oxygen and nitrogen), and these elements can be obtained from Mars's atmosphere. Earth manufacturing processes often use atmospheric sources of hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, though carbon and some hydrogen are often obtained from petroleum, and carbon is known to experience some isotope fractionation as a result of the carbon-capture processes of the organisms whose remains had become that petroleum (photosynthesis, analogous processes).
Extrasolar plastics are a more difficult problem; one would have to understand galactic chemical evolution better in order to get a good understanding of how relative abundances may change over time; as I'd mentioned earlier, one's first guess is that their relative abundances would stay approximately the same.
There are some clear exceptions, however. Deuterium is hydrogen-2, and was produced in the Big Bang. However, it tends to get consumed rather than produced in the interiors of stars, and it can be produced by spallation caused by cosmic rays in the interstellar medium. This spallation appears to account for beryllium and boron, which are relatively rare elements; however, deuterium is still much more abundant than them.
Therefore, material from earlier-formed planetary systems may contain more deuterium than that from later-formed ones.
|
|
|
|
@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2001 : 17:41:01 [Permalink]
|
I think you are all missing the obvious when it comes to identifying objects of extraterrestrial origin. Turn the object in question upside down and look for a sticker that begins with "Made in..."
The next question would be whether or not it came from a union shop 
 @tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
|
|
|
ljbrs
SFN Regular
USA
842 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2001 : 17:52:33 [Permalink]
|
lpetrich:
Wow! Thank you for the detailed information and the URL (which I have saved). Hopefully, I will remember most of it (the parts I understand).
You have a wide and deep field of knowledge. Amazing!
ljbrs
Perfection Is a State of Growth... |
|
|
|
 |
|
Topic Locked
