From: Christian Weisgerber (naddy@mips.inka.de)
Date: Tue Dec 24 2002 - 13:05:47 MST
Mark Waser <mwaser@booksintl.com> wrote:
> > Does anyone know of any good rebuttals to the "where are the Von Neumann
> > Probes?" quandary?
>
> My take on it is that they are here but they are sufficiently advanced that
> they remain successfully hidden from us.
Unless they are sessile, this implies that they also know some
physics that we don't know.
There have been various discussions on rec.arts.sf.science about
the unfeasibility of "stealth" in space (e.g. submarines are not a
good model for space combat), with people pointing out that you can
fairly easily spot out to Mars something with the energy output of
the Space Shuttle's attitude thrusters, that anything moving by
reaction drive through interplanetary space is easily detected over
interplanetary distances, and that covering interstellar distances
by reaction drive requires quite literally astronomical energies
and will also be visible over instellar distances. Within the
framework of known physics, that interstellar probe is not going
to sneak up on us.
(And note that unlike technological progress you can not just
postulate scientific progress.)
-- Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de
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