Dr. Keating’s recent video

[MJoseph315]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSYAdCZcTEQ

what’re everyone’s thoughts on Dr. Keating’s most recent video about Eric Lerner? Specifically, referring to the scientific arguments he makes in this video? (Please refrain from ad hominems.)

[Francois-Zinserling]

hmmm ... whom are we not supposed to ad hominem. This video is appalling!

Let me point out an early error by the presenter. He claims that Eric Lerner's hypothesis that all helium is produced in stars, is wrong, since it was deposed in 1960. (was it? I didn't check and somehow doubt because I actually think Eric is right, and not only because I think BB is wrong).
Here's the fallacy: The BB model proposes a helium concentration that is not observed. (so the model is already wrong or at best incomplete - don't dance around this)
But then he goes on to say that if all helium were produced in stars, the MODEL says there should be more heavy elements.

*drops mic
*picks up mic ... *groan

This is what is wrong with (mainstream) physics. It doesn't retrace steps to see where it went off the rails; no, it just paints new rails on the ground as it goes along.

[HanDeBruijn]

It's a story of more that half an hour. But Dr. Brian Keating is repeating himself every five minutes. Despite of the fact there is nothing wrong with the memory of common people. So, after a while, his gospel about the Big Bang Faith becomes quite predictable. And his enduring criticism on Eric Lerner bboorriinngg.
Scientific arguments? Seriously, I haven't heard any. Unless I'm supposed to be impressed by authority, which I never am.

[HanDeBruijn]

Somewhat to my surprise, I see that Eric Lerner has returned to his core business , instead of "wasting" his time on Cosmology.

[luisenrique-arch]

I took a quick look at his channel, and I’m glad to see that he takes the UFO phenomenon seriously and is willing to consider the extraterrestrial hypothesis in some of his videos. I share that view myself, so naturally I appreciate that.

However, he also seems to defend the Big Bang theory and many aspects of mainstream physics, which seems somewhat contradictory to me. If you take the extraterrestrial hypothesis seriously as a possible explanation for at least some UFO sightings, then it seems to me that you also have to be willing to question the fundamental assumptions of conventional cosmology and physics.

According to the standard model of physics (and according to Lambda-CDM, which is based on Einstein’s field equations and assumes that Special and General Relativity are entirely correct), faster-than-light travel is essentially impossible, no matter how you try to achieve it. Under standard physics, traveling faster than light through space-time is physically impossible, and attempting to bend space-time in order to travel faster than light relative to distant observers without moving faster than light locally is physically impossible too. In other words, if we take standard physics and cosmology for granted, alien visitation to Earth is out of the question.

So I genuinely don’t understand how someone can take the ETH seriously while embracing a framework that excludes it. If we are seriously considering the idea that some UFOs could actually be extraterrestrial spacecraft, shouldn’t we be open to the possibility that our current understanding of physics and cosmology is seriously flawed?

I know this comment doesn’t really address his criticisms of Lerner's theories, but I wanted to point this out because, in my opinion, there is a contradiction here. I personally think he's contradicting himself on this particular issue.

[HanDeBruijn]

@luisenrique-arch .

if we take standard physics and cosmology for granted, alien visitation to Earth is out of the question.

It is not out of the question.

Think of a spacecraft that is accelerating with the earth's gravitational acceleration g = 9.81 m/s², just for comfort of the crew.
Calculate how long it takes to travel from the earth to halfway (s) Proxima Centauri, simply with s = g.t²/2.
At that point, decelerate with -g for the other half of the trip.
Don't bother about going faster than light (v > c) because that won't happen due to Special Relativity (increasing mass).
And there is more.
Near lightspeed distances become shorter due to length contraction and you get more time due to time dilation,
Does the above crude approximation make sense?

There is a problem though: it's better not to go back home, because of the twin paradox :-(

[luisenrique-arch]

@HanDeBruijn

As I have already told you in another thread, traveling across the galaxy at subluminal speeds is out of the question. It would take hundreds of years to reach the nearest star systems, and I don't think any intelligent race would be willing to spend centuries traveling through space with no realistic possibility of returning home. Even if you take relativistic time dilation into account, the crews would still have to spend enormous amounts of time aboard their spacecraft. And if they did decide to return home, they could very well find that their planet has been destroyed or rendered uninhabitable by war or an environmental catastrophe.

So, again, traveling through normal space at subluminal speeds doesn't work as a practical means of exploring the galaxy. It isn't a viable method for repeated interstellar travel. And that's even before we get to the energy problem. Accelerating a spacecraft to just 50% of the speed of light would require an astronomical amount of energy, far superior to the amount of energy our civilization currently produces. If aliens decided to explore the galaxy this way, they would need to harvest the energy of entire stars.

Therefore, I repeat: if we take conventional physics and cosmology for granted, repeated alien visitation to Earth would be outright impossible. And since I believe there's enough evidence to reasonably consider the possibility that something is repeatedly coming and going here, then there must be something fundamentally incomplete in our current understanding of physics. There must be some way of circumventing the FTL barrier, because that's the only way alien visitation would be possible and practical.

[HanDeBruijn]

@luisenrique-arch .
What do you think of making a quick and dirty calculation instead of that cheap faire blah blah ?

In case you wonder, I did it.

[Elf2211]

Unless -- Aliens have developed the spacecraft technology to travel faster with some sort of energy foreign to us and our scientific studies.