{"id":1164356,"date":"2023-07-24T17:40:08","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T21:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1164356"},"modified":"2023-07-24T17:40:08","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T21:40:08","slug":"astrophysicist-who-claimed-to-find-alien-tech-may-have-done-the-science-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1164356","title":{"rendered":"Astrophysicist who claimed to find alien tech may have done the science wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month, theoretical physicist Avi Loeb made headlines with the sensational claim that tiny spherules recovered from the bottom of the ocean were probably of alien origin. \u201cIt\u2019s most likely a technological gadget with artificial intelligence,\u201d he said to The New York Times<\/em>, which published a story today about the Harvard professor\u2019s contentious claims<\/a>. Although the biggest scientific breakthroughs often start with a bold hypothesis, Loeb\u2019s peers believe the decorated astrophysicist\u2019s assertions can be called many things \u2014 but \u201cgood science\u201d isn\u2019t one of them.<\/p>\n

Loeb\u2019s proclamations stem from an object that US government sensors logged on January 8th, 2014: a fireball from space that blazed into the western Pacific Ocean off the northeastern coast of Papua New Guinea. Highlighting its logged speed and direction as an anomaly, Loeb and undergraduate assistant Amir Siraj targeted the otherwise inconsequential planetary entry as an object worthy of further investigation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Fast-forward to last month, when Loeb led a voyage \u2014 funded by a crypto entrepreneur \u2014 to recover evidence from the fireball\u2019s calculated crash path. Dragging a magnetic sled attached to the expedition boat across the ocean floor, the team recovered a series of tiny spherical objects which Loeb says \u201cappear under a microscope as beautiful metallic marbles.\u201d Preliminary analysis indicated that the sub-millimeter orbs were 84 percent iron, with silicon, magnesium and trace elements comprising the rest. Loeb believes that \u201cas a result of being exposed to the fireball\u2019s heat, the surface of the object likely disintegrated into tiny spherules, similar in number per unit area to those recovered by the expedition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An
\n
Avi Loeb \/ Medium<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Not one to exercise much caution<\/a> with public pronouncements, Loeb wrote<\/a> in a Medium<\/em> post, \u201cTheir discovery opens a new frontier in astronomy, where what lay outside the solar system is studied through a microscope rather than a telescope.\u201d He summarized, in an equally dramatic manner, \u201cThe discovery of spherules felt like a miracle.\u201d Soon after, CBS News<\/em> picked up on his excitement and published an attention-grabbing article<\/a> titled, \u201cHarvard professor Avi Loeb believes he\u2019s found fragments of alien technology.\u201d Loeb has sent the mysterious spheres to Harvard University, the University of California, Berkeley and the Bruker Corporation in Germany for more in-depth analysis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has material strength that is tougher than all space rock that were seen before, and catalogued by NASA,\u201d CBS News<\/em>reported<\/a> Loeb as saying earlier this month. \u201cWe calculated its speed outside the solar system. It was 60 km per second, faster than 95% of all stars in the vicinity of the sun. The fact that it was made of materials tougher than even iron meteorites, and moving faster than 95% of all stars in the vicinity of the sun, suggested potentially it could be a spacecraft from another civilization or some technological gadget.\u201d<\/p>\n

It all sounds fascinating, especially with the resurgent interest in UFOs<\/a> and the quest to discover signs of alien life<\/a>. But there\u2019s one problem: The scientific community, by and large, believes Loeb is, if not entirely full of it, practicing something far outside what they\u2019d call science.<\/p>\n

Peter Brown, a meteor physicist at Western University in Ontario, said that \u201cseveral percent\u201d of detected events appear interstellar at first but almost always end up chalked up to a measurement error. Steve Desch, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University, argued at a recent conference that if the object were traveling as fast as the data suggests \u2014 one of the points Loeb uses to indicate its origin was from outside our solar system \u2014 it would have been wholly incinerated entering the Earth\u2019s atmosphere. Brown and other scientists also highlight Loeb\u2019s lack of engagement with peers who study similar unidentified fireballs.<\/p>\n

Brown recently presented data (accepted for publication<\/a> in The Astrophysical Journal<\/em>) demonstrating that NASA\u2019s recordings in cases like these often end up being proven untrustworthy. He believes the fireball likely impacted at a slower speed than the recorded data suggested. \u201cIf the speed was overestimated, then the object becomes, more or less, within the realm of what we see in terms of other bound solar system objects,\u201d he said. (Loeb retorted by citing an unbendable trust in government data: \u201cThey are responsible for national security. I think they know what they are doing.\u201d) The New York Times<\/em> adds that the government is unlikely to declassify the data that would allow the scientific community to learn how precise (or not) it is.<\/p>\n

\"Harvard
\n
Avi Loeb \/ Medium<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Regardless of the spherules\u2019 origins, researchers are alarmed by Loeb\u2019s penchant for venturing outside science to make bold (and highly publicized) claims \u2014\u00a0with his scientific background boosting their perceived legitimacy. The gist of their alarm is that becoming a Harvard-employed astrophysicist doesn\u2019t grant you the wizard-like ability to know the answers to questions the scientific method hasn\u2019t yet confirmed. On the contrary, it\u2019s supposed to mean your peers respect you for exercising restraint and doing quite the opposite. \u201c[Loeb\u2019s claims are] a real breakdown of the peer review process and the scientific method,\u201d Desch said to The New York Times<\/em>. \u201cAnd it\u2019s so demoralizing and tiring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loeb\u2019s views about his peers\u2019 harsh response can be summarized in his cited quote from philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer from a recent blog post<\/a>. \u201cAll truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident.\u201d Notably, Loeb seemingly refers to his team\u2019s preliminary findings \u2014 with plenty of question marks still intact \u2014 as \u201ctruth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Oxford English Dictionary<\/em> defines confirmation bias<\/em> as \u201cthe tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories.\u201d Loeb\u2019s words and excited tone suggest he knows the answer and that his peers\u2019 criticism stems from their resistance to the new frontier he\u2019s discovered. However, their criticism seems only partially about his specific conclusions; it\u2019s paired with a larger concern about an esteemed cohort jumping to conclusions that fall far outside of the scientific method. \u201cWhat the public is seeing in Loeb is not how science works,\u201d remarked Desch. \u201cAnd they shouldn\u2019t go away thinking that.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/astrophysicist-who-claimed-to-find-alien-tech-may-have-done-the-science-wrong-214008434.html?src=rss
\n
\nSource: Engadget – Astrophysicist who claimed to find alien tech may have done the science wrong<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month, theoretical physicist Avi Loeb made headlines with the sensational claim that tiny spherules recovered from the bottom of the ocean were probably of alien origin. \u201cIt\u2019s most likely a technological gadget with artificial intelligence,\u201d he said to The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,110],"tags":[98],"class_list":["post-1164356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engadget","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-engadget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1164356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1164356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1164356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1164356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}