http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3416045/posts
The BBC News version was already posted, but:
(1) You can never have enough laser-cloaking-device-as-protection-against-aliens articles, and
(2) The content in this article is different.
As scientific gibberish goes, this nonsense is particularly fun.
Suppose the cloak makes the aliens think that Earth is composed of a crucial element needed for their dying civilization? Then what, eh?
/s
< no, I didn't read any of the article >
Cool!! Now, can we please use it to cloak Colorado from invading liberals fleeing California?
Great-so after we have polluted the solar system airways with radio broadcasts for almost a hundred years—now our “brilliant” scientists want to hide the planet.
Too late—if the bad aliens want to find us they know where to find us.
And—we can’t seem to find any radio signals of our own out there.
There can be no doubt that in the intergalactic world advanced aliens are playing chess while we are playing checkers.
Simply no and no
These stupid thought experiments by those in academe get ridiculous
I’d rather they found a way to destroy space rocks headed our way. Don’t think aliens could get here from another solar system, but rocks have hit Earth in the past, and someday one will again.
Fine, but how are you going to mask all of those reruns of I Love Lucy that are travelling out into deep space?
Cool. How do we know that aliens detect planets the same way we do?
Where are you going to find enough dilithium crystals to power the thing?
Assuming it works as claimed, it would still only disguise the Earth to one specific star system per laser. So do they plan to have one for every star they think might have a civilization?
...
Concealing Earth's existence from extraterrestrials, or announcing its presence with an artificial light curve, would work only if humanity knew or suspected where those aliens were living.
Why did it take so long for that following paragraph to show up? You don't know which side of the sun is the "front", and you don't know if any alien civilizations exist, let alone where they are. Assuming the existence of such civilizations, by the time we find them, it is too late to think about hiding from them. On the other hand, by the time we find them, they are likely already hidden in the distant past, since the starlight that reaches Earth is a view into the past. We have no way of knowing what the universe looks like at this moment.
Silly idea, better suited for a science fiction novel than a scientific thought experiment.
Earth looking and searching (for extraterrestrial life) while trying to hide.? Sounds like Hillary, her campaign and where and how she appears. With the young and informationally challenged, rope a dope tricks, cackles, parking in the rear...
Wouldn’t the sudden disappearance of a planet arouse more curiosity than its continued existence?
What a total waste of time and money.
These supposed “evil aliens” have mastered inter-galactic travel at warp speeds, yet somehow are going to be fooled by a laser that “cloaks” our planet from their prying eyes? Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Please tell me this isn’t tax money being wasted on this bull-squeeze.
What a total waste of time and money.
These supposed “evil aliens” have mastered inter-galactic travel at warp speeds, yet somehow are going to be fooled by a laser that “cloaks” our planet from their prying eyes? Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Please tell me this isn’t tax money being wasted on this bull-squeeze.
April Fools.
Alien 1 to alien 2: “Hey, now there’s a laser beam coming from that strange planet #3 around star 17A4GH whenever, it goes in front of the star. That’s the planet that has those crude radio waves coming from it. Let’s zip over there to see if we can find some more food.”