Outside the box

 

If, like me, you're a bit of a science buff -- maybe leaning toward science fiction -- you may recall something unusual that happened four years ago this month.  Something odd entered our solar system, shot past us, and departed.  Not unusual, of course, for a comet.

But this differed -- apparently -- from ordinary comets.  It made strange accelerations.  It left no tail.  It was shaped flat like a pancake.  It was -- as this month's Smithsonian magazine puts it -- "unlike anything astronomy had ever seen."

Everyone was interested, of course, and various scientists suggested various theories.  One of those conventional theories may be shown in the future to fully explain the observations..  At present, however, they all seem unsatisfying.

One prominent scientist -- Braham Loeb, a Harvard professor who has made major contributions in the study of black holes and in other areas -- says out loud what we laymen have all been thinking.  Maybe the object was an alien visitor? Maybe, he suggests, its unusual shape was attributable to a light-powered sail.  The scientific community was, for the most part, aghast.

The thrust of the Smithsonian article -- aside from presenting interesting biographical background and a personal profile of Dr. Loeb and his co-workers -- is to show how conservative scientists can be when presented by observations that don't fit within accepted constructs.  Dr. Loeb takes care to say that he is not advocating for a conclusion that Oumuamua (the name given the object) is of alien origin.  He just feels that it's a viable theory, and that any theory that isn't contradicted by the factual observations needs to be considered.

Loeb notes the outraged refusal by some fellow scientists to even consider the possibility of Oumuamua's being an alien craft.  "The level of vitriol can be like a middle-school playground," he observes.  I myself am reminded of the early refusal by physicians to consider Joseph Lister's theory that infections are spread by physical contact.  I recall a "You Are There" mock-documentary from the early days of television in which physicians were portrayed as highly insulted by the suggestion that they should wash their hands before surgery. 

In 1869, at the meetings of the British Association at Leeds, Lister's ideas were mocked; and again, in 1873, the medical journal The Lancet warned the entire medical profession against his progressive ideas.

--Wikipedia.

This past summer, Loeb initiated a project to coordinate a large number of telescopes worldwide to seek out other Oumuamua-type objects.  He doesn't know what he'll find.  He calls the project a "fishing expedition."

Fishing expeditions have prompted many advances in scientific knowledge.  If he finds nothing, he finds nothing.  The alien theory still won't be disproved, but continuing to pursue it -- at least with our present level of knowledge and technology -- will seem less urgent.

Of course, we all hope he does find something, that some contact with a superior civilization will not only be a scientific coup, but will have a dramatic effect on how we all view the meaning of life, and of the universe,  and of our place in it.

It would be wonderful.  Or would it?