Any science journalist would appreciate the extraterrestrial exposure on Earth. It would be the story of a lifetime. It is therefore not surprising that a former Israeli space official’s claim that the US government is known to be a Galactic Federation made some headlines and set trends on Twitter.
Of course, most science journalists have already been made aware of the presence of extraterrestrials by any number of readers, who via their personal E.T. Encounters.
Despite the desperate desire of some science journalists to visit aliens, few of us ever believe such reports. The correct policy is to refuse to interview potential informants about their extraterrestrial experiences and instead insist on interviewing the extraterrestrial individuals themselves.
And so I would be ready to come out of retirement and do such an interview if an alien surveillance of the Galactic Federation were to take place Science news would be willing to ask yourself some tough questions. The only condition would be that the alien wear a good quality mask that covers his damn nose if he has one.
Now it’s a pretty safe bet that such an interview won’t take place. The Washington Football Team is more likely to win the next Super Bowl. Or even the New York Jets. However, just in case, it’s a good idea to start preparing the questions. Here are my top 10, followed by my best guesses about the alien’s answers.
The questions:
Q1. How do you write your name?
Q2. Where did you come from with Earth’s astronomical terminology?
Q3. Haven’t you seen The war of the worlds?
Q4. What’s your favorite take on quantum mechanics?
Q5. Are you in any way responsible for COVID-19 or any other serious pathogen and are you sorry?
Q6. When you looked at this dress, did it look black and blue or white and gold?
Q7. What scientific, theoretical and scientific breakthrough was made possible by the technology you used for interstellar travel?
Q8. Can you correctly define the P-value and explain its limits for drawing scientific conclusions?
Q9. What is the flight speed of an unloaded swallow?
Q10. Why on earth have you not given us enough sophisticated algorithmic artificial intelligence to neutralize the damage social media has caused to our civilization?
And the possible answers:
Q1. How do you write your name?
A1. “Spelling? There is no magic. There is a name or no name.”
Hard to argue with.
Q2. Where did you come from with Earth’s astronomical terminology?
A2. “Teegarden b.”
Q3. Haven’t you seen The war of the worlds?
A3. “I’ve seen both versions. Tom Cruise is not Gene Barry. Galaxy Quest was a more realistic film, however. “
Q4. What’s your favorite take on quantum mechanics?
A4. “Quantum mechanics does not require any special interpretation if it is formulated without the pre-existing prejudice that nature should exhibit cause-effect determinism. The point is to understand the nature of time as a source of novelty and not as a continuous parameter that determines the development of a function. What you call randomness or indeterminism, we call information creation. Some of your Earthling scientists have begun exploring this idea a little. Take a look at arxiv.org/abs/2002.01653. “
Q5. Are you in any way responsible for COVID-19 or any other serious pathogen and are you sorry?
A5. “We may have brought in a disease or two, but then again, you tied us to tobacco.”
Q6. When you looked at this dress, did it look black and blue or white and gold?
A6. “Hah! We invented this dress to distract you from other things that we had. “
Q7. What scientific, theoretical and scientific breakthrough was made possible by the technology you used for interstellar travel?
A7. “Well, that has to do with the quantum question. The main lessons came from the Vulcans, who realized that continuum mathematics as the basis of calculus wasn’t the only logical mathematical system possible. You need what you call intuitionist mathematics – read As already mentioned, arxiv.org/abs/2002.01653. And this paper too. Once you get rid of this unwieldy infinity of real numbers, many things are easier to solve, like quantum gravity. This is where technology takes off. “
Vulcans? Well, right, this is the Galactic Federation.
Q8. Can you correctly define the P-value and explain its limits for drawing scientific conclusions?
A8. “Oh, we’ve been trying for years to give you clues as to how worthless P-values are. We don’t let new worlds into the association until their scientists stop using P-values. A P-value is the probability of an observed Result or a more extreme result when the hypothesis of obtaining a null result is true, given the mathematical model of the data and all of the other assumptions built into your experiment. Does not tell you whether the null hypothesis is true or not. Gives only one An indication of whether or not your result is surprising. It could be surprising and therefore wrong, or could be surprising and right. Go read this paper. “
I did.
Q9. What is the flight speed of an unloaded swallow?
A9. “What do you think?”
Only half the loan – that’s not the whole answer.
Q10. Why on earth have you not given us enough sophisticated algorithmic artificial intelligence to neutralize the damage social media has caused to our civilization?
Alien runs away.
OMG, I just discovered that the answer to that is that Zuckerberg is one of the aliens.
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