The Physics That Makes Interstellar Travel IMPOSSIBLE ...

[Tempest1]

No one who does science or understands the process uses the term fact. It's simply the best ideas we have based on the data we have but it always provisional. The provisionality of it is what trips many people up because in their minds if it is not fact, then they somehow conclude it's just a guess. No, it is logical conclusions based on what is currently known and it works so well, you can have a super computer in your pocket that uses quantum mechanics to communicate with geosynchronous satellites that correct time for their velocity and the difference in the earth's gravitational field at their location and perfectly pin point your location. It is quite amazing what we know.

You just undermined every post you have made in this thread.

 

[Arc]

There’s still people who claim the Earth is flat.

But the world is full of people who believe strange things, and claim that those things are facts.

That does not in any way reduce the validity of current scientific understanding.

Understanding evolves.

There is not always consensus.

Einstein himself rejected the notion of quantum mechanics, initially- but the very device on which you are typing your response requires that quantum mechanical principles be true for the semiconductors to work.

Einstein’s initial work on relativity was rejected by many. It was very controversial.

In fact, Einstein won the Nobel prize for the photoelectric effect, not for relativity, because of that controversy.

Decades later, Einstein was proved right. There are many great moments in astrophysics that proved relativity was true.

But proving Einstein was right did not make Sir Isaac Newton‘s work wrong or invalid. Newton‘s laws of motion are still absolutely accurate at the velocities humans normally experience.

The evolution of thought in science sometimes requires tearing down old ideas, and sometimes simply expands on the foundation.

I've met a few flat earth people and it all comes from internet and YouTube science not their own studies. People are gullible and tend to believe whatever they are told. I was always taught to study, learn but also verify. Today it's google AI search and done.

 

[Snagglefoot]

I came across another interesting episode from BBC Earth talking about when Earth was a seriously frozen snowball 800 million years ago. This not about the Ice Age from 20,000 years ago. That period seriously slowed down the development of life its thought. During the frozen period they hypothesized that volcanoes were still erupting and eventually enough gases, including CO2 filled the atmosphere enough that the sun warmed the planet and life was free to develop.

 

[PWMDMD]

You just undermined every post you have made in this thread.

No, I haven’t. The nuance here is at what point can you for all practical purposes live your life assuming what we know is “fact” or “truth”? Just because general relativity might “break” inside a black hole and there may be more to know about gravity at that quantum level because we don’t fully understand what happens inside the black hole doesn’t mean I can’t 100% accept general relativity as is in my everyday life. It will predict measurable outcomes perfectly in my everyday life.

What people try to do is say because we don’t understand gravity in a blackhole perfectly then we don’t know anything about gravity. This is the wrong conclusion.

 

[PWMDMD]

What will you do years down the road and we find out that something can travel faster than light? At one time it was a "fact" that the earth was flat was it not? Maybe fact means something different to some people. For me it is never changing. What you said could indeed be true considering what we know but saying it is a fact is a stretch. I'm a retired Electrical Contractor and back when I was young and half way intelligent we discussed how electrons flow in a conductor. No matter how much theory we discussed it always came down to the fact that they travel only on the outside surface of the wire. People laughed at me and pointed to the facts constantly yet here we are today and now it's a fact that electrons flow through the conductor not just on the outer surface. Fact is an overused word. Just my opinion though, not a fact.

I will accept that change in what we know but right now, as of my writing this, all data and experiments and theories very convincingly show it’s not possible. Just because it “could be possible” doesn’t mean you can give that idea the same weight as it’s most likely not possible.

99.9999999999% not possible based on all current data and theory >>>>> 0.00000000001% could be possible based on something we don’t know doesn’t logically lead to it’s likely possible. At least, not rationally.

 

[y_p_w]

What will you do years down the road and we find out that something can travel faster than light? At one time it was a "fact" that the earth was flat was it not? Maybe fact means something different to some people. For me it is never changing. What you said could indeed be true considering what we know but saying it is a fact is a stretch. I'm a retired Electrical Contractor and back when I was young and half way intelligent we discussed how electrons flow in a conductor. No matter how much theory we discussed it always came down to the fact that they travel only on the outside surface of the wire. People laughed at me and pointed to the facts constantly yet here we are today and now it's a fact that electrons flow through the conductor not just on the outer surface. Fact is an overused word. Just my opinion though, not a fact.

The skin effect has been well understood for over a century. But it’s never been about traveling only on the surface, but the distribution/concentration relative to the distance from the surface.