Reverse Engineering. The real story.

[plumbbob12]

Lately a lot of discussion has been taking place on the idea of reverse engineering, and the impossibility of humans being able to reverse such advanced technology. At first, I was taken in with the analogy brought forth by such greats as S. F and Hopkins. The metaphor used was the idea of having an F-16 Jet land in 1864 civil war era, and getting Abe Lincoln to ask the scientist of the time to figure out how this thing works, and use the technology. The idea was that this would be impossible for people in the 1800’s to figure out how a jet aircraft works. Upon thinking about this analogy, I discovered some problems with this mind set.
Most of our current science was developed about 400 years ago. Newtonian physics put men on the moon. Most of our technology until just the past 30 years ago was almost exclusive Newtonian physics which the folks of the 1800’s were well aware of. They could have easily seen how the wings of the jet achieved lift and advanced our development of air craft by 40 years. They also could have looked into the turbo jet, and understood the combustion process and the use of jet fuel, i.e. Kerosene to make this motor spin. In conclusion, although this metaphor works to an extent, as they could never completely understand all the technology of the F-16, they would be able to understand enough to advance the technology by decades at least. If our little gray guys were only a couple hundred years advanced of us, we could obtain some real technology by reverse engennering a craft. The idea that we could never understand anything about there technology does not hold up, unless these guys were thousands of years ahead of us, and then the example would hold. pb

 

[JD Thompson]

Nothing here I can disagree with.
Your last sentence is the most important------I would also add that if their very basis of life was different (methane, say, instead of carbon) or, if they based their technology on manipulated organic growth instead of nuts-and-bolts industry, our understanding would be further impeded.

 

[ArchieBedford]

Maybe a silicon-microchip computer thrown back to say 1500 might be a more appropriate analogy. You'd need harnessed 110/230volt mains electricity to run it, and some idea of what the artefact might be designed for, to begin to understand it.

 

[plumbbob12]

.
Thanks for the input on the comparison of Si computer chips and 1500 year time line. And yes, this is the main point of my critique of this metaphor. If we had an alien visit our world that was within 300 or 400 years of us, they would be close enough in technology where we could benefit from reverse engineering. Like I said, we have been using physics that was developed 400 years ago, and for the most part has been working fine. Now in the last 30 or 40 years, our ideas in chemistry have changed where a kid from the 1970's would not recognize the model of an atom as it exists today. In the last 30 years we have developed a quantum model of the atom that makes a more three dimensional "smear" or the electrons as they would actually exist, rather than the old "solar system model" where we had the neutron, and protons in the middle like our sun, and had the electrons orbiting around like planets. Most of our modern chemistry developed the non-locality idea of the electron, as in conjugated manifestation of cyclic delocalization and resonance. Even if one takes the example of transporting a MP3 player back 200 years, the scientist back then would get some benefit from investigating the device. While they would have no idea of how the chips were made, they might be able to derive some information from investigating the capacitors’, and dc batteries and power supply. They would make a great stride by opening up the battery and seeing the Lithium and figure out how to make a lithium battery which would put those ahead a hundred years of more in electronics. They could never reproduce the MP3 player, but they could very well advance there scientific knowledge. I think this might be what we did in the 1940’s that lead to advancements in our technology.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
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[Simone_m]

This thread makes me think of T Townsend Brown. In --1921!-- He began with his advanced exeriments. In 1930 he did electromagnetism stuff for the US Navy. It makes me wonder if there actually could have been more to The Philidelphia Experiment than teller of tales Charles Berlitz. Just look at this Wikipedia bio about Brown. Well, therefore, Brown was waaaaayyyyy ahead of his time, like Nikola Tesla. This stuff MUST have went deep into 'black projects', how could it not have? May Richard Dolan is right, when he talks about "a breakaway civilization". I could easily see that. Easy. Gary McKinnon's and Bob Lazar's accountings as well. Why not? It's really not a stretch when you look into T Townsend Brown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Townsend_Brown

 

[Gene Steinberg]

And Brown was the original founder of NICAP before Keyhoe took over.

 

[Ezechiel]

If our little gray guys were only a couple hundred years advanced of us, we could obtain some real technology by reverse engennering a craft. The idea that we could never understand anything about there technology does not hold up, unless these guys were thousands of years ahead of us, and then the example would hold. pb

Right on !!!

I think once a culture is fired up and profits from applied sciences, it takes only a couple hundred years (a blink of an eye) to get up to speed.

On a global scale it's a mad race to innovate, dominate and assimilate the exponential growth of technological complexity. And to power all this we urgently need stuff like operational fusion reactors... Which lead to fusion propulsion systems... That can push probes to zeta reticuli lol.

I expect interstellar travel within 50 years, controlled fusion is an obvious game changer. Anyone with NIF laser or ITER news ?

 

[CapnG]

If our little gray guys were only a couple hundred years advanced of us, we could obtain some real technology by reverse engennering a craft. The idea that we could never understand anything about there technology does not hold up, unless these guys were thousands of years ahead of us, and then the example would hold. pb

That would be the problem, we have no idea. Suppose they're a million years more advanced than us. You think there's any hope of understanding anything they do?

There's another central flaw with the whole question and that's the fact that whatever these things are, they aren't us. Dropping an F-16 in Licoln's lap might not yield "Top Guns of the Civil War" but they would at least be able to grasp the concept of the machine because it was built by humans on earth for other humans to use. Trying to reverse engineer unknown craft built by unknown beings under unknown circumstances using unknown materials... well, you get the picture.

 

[mike]

Im of the mind anything and everything can be reverse engineered given time, its a very human thing to do.

As a five year old i once tried to reverse engineer our goldfish garfunkel........sadly time was not on poor gurfunkels side

 

[Ron Collins]

[/COLOR]When I was stationed out in Las Vegas at Nellis AFB (home of Area 51) I saw, --many times-- , in the night sky, these orange fireballs.. They were a large bright orange orb which appeared, then flew a short way, then vanished. I saw those a lot, there. I just wonder (out loud here) if they weren't meteorological, then if they could have been originating from neighboring site 51. Just speculating.

You saw this from Nellis? Like actually on base an looked up and saw this?

 

[Simone_m]

I saw these orange fireballs near or away from the base. Most of my time at Nellis, I lived off base in North Las Vegas at a couple of different apartments, -near- the base, and every now-&-then when I was outside at night for typical reasons like driving home from a grocery and exiting the car and looking up to take in the awesome sky. I think that years ago there was less light pollution, even in LV. LV was sorta dying at that time too, because certain corporations took it over mostly, and did not know how to keep it as the grownup playground that it is and should be now. Therefore, combined with the very dry air, the night sky was a spectacle and everytime I was outside at night, I looked up. North--LasVegas was quite a ways from downtown. I never lived more than a few short miles convenient from the base. So therefore, much of the orange fireballs appeared---over the base area. They weren't outrageously low, so as to cause official alarm (that I know of!) One night, I drove my little car North and kept going as far as I felt comfortable with. Site 51 is -westward- and I don't know if I was going toward there, can't remember what road I stayed on. Or how far I went. I had this small car that I had purchased (financed) bran new, and I wanted to see how fast it would go, without hopefully running into a cop with his ticket. (I got up to 95 miles per hour and the whole vehicle was shaking like it was gonna fly apart! Like in those star trek movies where they have to time travel and the ship starts almost shaking apart, ......HA!) Well, while I was doing that, an orange fireball went over. Startled me! These things I recall had -no- tail, like a bolide.

 

[mike]

The other thing about reverse engineering that i think is important to factor is this
While its true that to give a laptop to people 300 years ago and expect them to understand and copy it would be a pointless exercise, our technology today is considerably more sophisticated.
ppl from 300 years ago wouldnt be able to copy a laptop, but we can......
ppl from 300 years ago wouldnt be able to copy a crashed saucer, can we ? i dont know, but we are better equiped to have a crack at it than those from 300 years ago.
We have things like electron microscopes, advanced biological knowledge including that of the genome the list of tools available to us goes on.
So the premise that since someone from 300 years ago couldnt copy an iphone, translates to we couldnt copy a craft with technology 300 years in advance of ours isnt quite a perfect translation

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Well at least it's good for our egos to think we could understand the workings of a crashed spaceship built by beings 300 years ahead of us.

 

[mike]

The point im trying to make is we are better equiped to try to reverse engineer a craft from 300 years hence, than ppl 300 years ago are to reverse engineer an ipad.
The two examples are not equal.
Let me put it another way, if we took one example, ppl 300 years ago given a laptop, and ppl today given a craft built 300 years from now, it think that one group has a higher chance of sucess than the other, that would be the modern group.
For the simple reason the modern group has a more sophisticated tool kit at its disposal.
Not saying we could do it, im saying we have a better chance of sucess because we have better tools, the two examples are not really in parity.
Of the two groups, both given technology from beyond their time, ours is the more likely to suceed

For example we have tools like this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_probe

Of the two groups trying to understand an object of technology beyond its time, the group posessing this tool has a head start over the group that doesnt

 

[Ezechiel]

Well at least it's good for our egos to think we could understand the workings of a crashed spaceship built by beings 300 years ahead of us.

Reverse engineering probably only works between warring nations where technologies are close enough to enable a war (or else you wouldn't have a war because of overwhelming technological superiority of one of the parties).

A craft working way beyond our design capabilities only has inspirational value.... shape, lack of seams, choice of metals, maybe plasma containment strategies. Anything beyond, like trying to decode any complex solution (ex: resolving gravity or time/space issues) that is relevant in a framework of applied physics that hasn't even been addressed yet by humans is totally futile.

You've got the solution, but you haven't fully defined the problem yet lol