Life As We Don't Know It (Part 3)
travel at near the speed of light, it will take 15 years to get here. That's a lot of time. The Bills could potentially lose 15 Super Bowls in that amount of time. It just doesn't seem worth the trouble; and we're talking about a really close civilization. In reality, the closest one is probably hundreds of light years away. They know from watching our TV that we're not going to be leaving this planet anytime soon. And if they don't like the programming, they can always change the channel.
So it seems to me that a visitation by such a death armada as was seen on the big screen in the summer of '96 is unlikely.
Or perhaps it isn't so unlikely after all. I have said before, in previous articles, that I personally do not believe that the speed of light is the galactic speed limit. I firmly accept Einstein's interpretation of it, and I do not believe that it is possible to simply accelerate to the speed of light and then go past it. But there must be some way around the problem, some slight of hand that allows things to travel at "warp speed," to use the jargon of Star Trek. And if the aliens could travel faster than light then Jack might have more to worry about that just Susan's father.
Nevertheless, the amount of energy necessary to pull off such a slight of hand seems to be more than that available even if we tapped all the stars in the galaxy. An advanced civilization might be able to find some incredible energy source that solves this problem, but it still doesn't seem worth all the trouble just to come out here to the provinces and wipe us out. We are of no threat to anyone but ourselves. In the end the invasion seems unlikely after all.
On that note, it's time for another break. Part 3 has been a bit long-winded, I know. Join us again next Wednesday for Part 4 of "Life As We Don't Know It," when we'll continue our discussion of Independence Day and Hollywood's concept of first contact.
See you then!
Jump to the other installments of this article:
"Life
As We Don't Know It" (Part 1)
"Life As
We Don't Know It" (Part 2)
And also read the related reviews:
Contact
(Book Review)
Contact
(Movie Review)
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