They aren't "undetectable", they are "expensive to detect".
What the F-117A and B-2A steath aircraft did in the 80's is make the entire "very expensive" Russian air defense system obsolete, forcing a replacement.
A replacement that the USSR couldn't afford. It was just one part of the plan to push the USSR in the right direction, a stick in one hand and a carrot in the other.
Does it?
If we have 100 billion neurons and they switch at
I highly doubt our brains would function at that speed for very long, we're organic machines after all.
The video card can do 10 trillion per second, 24/7, for a very long time.
The brain may have 100 billion neurons, my GPU may only have 7 billion transistors, but it can flip them a billion times a second...
My GPU should have more raw power than my brain does, but it isn't programmed nearly as well...
I think future advancements are likely to come from smarter programming, we've "gotten away" with sloppy programming because we keep making computers faster using brute force. As that slows down, maybe we'll become smarter?
20k floating point ops per second? a few million?
The video card in my computer does 10 trillion of them per second, or so says AMD's marketing material on the R9 295x5.
While you're correct of course, prior "barriers" were broken, just like the sound "barrier" was...
The new one is much harder, like the light speed "barrier" is.
Atoms are only so small.
I make no claims as to what will be possible, this is really way outside of my expert knowledge area, as I suspect is it *most* people's.
Intel has every incentive to hire the best in the world to figure it out, so if anyone can, I would think they would.
We have super computers that already can do that, but other than being fast, they are still stupid.
Perhaps we suck at programming?
We don't? I don't know about you, but I sure can't do a billion math problems in a minute... but my Intel CPU sure can...
I couldn't do a billion math problems in my whole life!
Depends on how you measure processing power of course...
There is some debate among people if 5nm will make sense or even be reasonable to do...
Can a 5nm transistor be made? Sure.... Can 5 billion of them be packed onto a chip and sold for $200? That is a different question...
Going to 5nm only helps if it is a functional product that is better than what we have.
Anything further beyond that and it becomes really interesting... it might happen, but we're running out of room in the known universe.
The planets in the galaxy aren't that old however... the conditions which would allow civilization that we would understand have only been around for perhaps half a billion years, give or take.
Anything powerful enough to travel interstellar distances will put out an incredible amount of EM radiation.
Why do you say that? Do you know how FTL drive works?
Perhaps it won't.
While that's cute... aliens smart enough to fly here wouldn't likely be that dumb...
And even if they were, they would learn from the example...
Even if we somehow survived the first assault, we wouldn't survive the second or third.
Remember, unlike wars on Earth, we can't march on their lands, because they are in space.
I'm always amazed at how people discussing alien life forms always seem to think or suggest that these life forms should adhere to our vision or knowledge of life.
The answer is simple. Despite all our knowledge and technology, the fact is, most humans still see us as the center of the universe created by a "god" and that we are his children created in his image.
Such a viewpoint doesn't allow for such outside the box thinking.
You're thinking too much like a primitive human being.
A lot of people in this thread are having this problem.
Frankly, the whole thing might not happen for exactly that reason. 500 years from now, we might not even keep our human bodies, once we figure out how to upload ourselves into computers.
Such an idea is horrifying to my mother and wife, both of whom think that sounds terrible. But that doesn't mean it won't happen. Doesn't mean it will either of course.
FTL travel, or even FTL communication, is forbidden by the laws of physics.
You say that with a degree of certainty that I don't believe is due.
What makes you think it is so limited? Perhaps they have matter replicators on-board that only require power and they can refuel at any star.
The ship itself becomes a self-sustaining factory that runs forever, making anything you need, including spare parts for the ship.
The external power source is any nearby star for fuel. With enough fuel, there is no supply chain, just the ship.
It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.
