C remains the universal speed limit... that is still physically true. But to go from "horribly slow" to "visitation is impossible" is a wildly speculative leap with very little hard evidence or simulation evidence to back it up.
That's my problem with this whole theorizing of Bjork too.
Do you want to increase the speed from 0.1c up to 1.c ?
Do you think it is a smart idea ?
Regardless of the total duration the search process would STILL take, you are aware that it's possible to cut the total duration in
half just by
doubling the speed? Combine this with a rather huge amount of self-replicating probes and it's suddenly not so impossible anymore, as each doubling could speed up the search process considerably.
Seems to me it's actually a pretty clever to increase the speed a lot if you want to be able to search faster.
If some one claims
" it is impossible to go on foot, from New York to los Angeles , in one day "
and some one else argue
" On foot maybe not, but cycling it could be possible, it is ten time faster, why dont you give it a try ? "
What would you think of him ?
I would think he has a better chance of winning his little bet there when he would suggest 2 hours and then take a flight with a Concorde instead....
Suggesting a method of transportation that is ten times faster is still a good suggestion in a relative sense, but it won't achieve their ultimate set goal. Does it therefore mean it's a stupid idea?? Heck no, you just need to increase the speed even more, ten times faster just isn't enough.
Everybody can tell the guy starting on foot going from New York to LA will be last, regardless of whether he walks it in under one hour (impossible, I know) or 10 months or 10 years.
You must match the exploration time and the maximum amount of time at disposal for the exploration
Actually, considering the size of our universe all we really need is to get lucky in our search.
As numbers and math show, it's probably not entirely impossible to search the whole universe, but it would simply take too long with the methods suggested here making it 'practically impossible' I guess.
Also, Mr Bjork can't claim that it's literally impossible as he himself made the assumption starting with something like;
unless we invent a much much faster method of propulsion, it's "impossible". So I don't think he meant theoretically impossible, but rather practically impossible? I don't know if he even makes this distinction though.
It is a simple simulation that gives insight IF we go at .1 c and IF we limit ourselves to 200 probes...
Also, the 200 probes seems like an incredibly small amount anyways, just imagine what would happen if you take 1 million probes to start with instead. I mean, we can mass produce billions of cellphones, so there's no reason to assume we couldn't mass produce something like those probes. I mean, assuming the technology for self-replication has been invented, it's not such a big step anymore anyways. (Off course speed will then be the bottleneck, but I figure it would still help, right?)
