Questions To Ask An Alien

If the aliens are tourists, they may know little more about their hyper-star-fold-warp-jump-drive engine than many people know about their gasoline (or in this high tech age hybrid) engines.

You'd be better off asking something about their roadmaps. :cool:
 
How much 1,3 iso proppriodilithium would a Betelgeusian Ethno aardvaarkoid chocullate if a Betelgeusian Ethno aardvaarkoid would chocullate 1,3 propriodilithium?
 
Meffy said:
@aggle-rithm: Yuppers, great stuff. The Polarians (the rolling guys) had a downright [Spock] fascinating [/Spock] mating ritual. The Jets had a similar routine, slightly kinky to terrestrials IIRC...

(Did you know the Polarians secretly visited Earth and invented roll-on deodorant? It's True. *nodnod*)
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Raise your paw if you're Sure.
 
Beady said:
"Do you have anything to declare?"

ETA: Look, I work for Immigration. You say "alien" to me, and...
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Except in this case, it'd be, "No. Do you? No? Please stand over there, you don't have permission to be here."
 
Rasmus said:
That makes it very difficult. The alien that arrives here might not have a clue as to how their spaceship works, 'home' might be where the autopilot will direct the spaceship if you hit the orange pentagonal button and he was never very good at math in school, either.

Maybe the average ailien just carries around some neat techuical gadget that would at least be very convincing evidence.
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I recall a SF short story I read where some scientists pull a guy back from the future to ask him questions. He tells them of all sorts of wonderful things, then they ask him how they work. He has no clue. Some element thing...I think. And this was a university professor.

Like if cavemen pulled back a modern person at random and asked them how a TV or an internal combustion engine worked. 99 out of 100 couldn't answer those questions.
 
Beerina said:
I recall a SF short story I read where some scientists pull a guy back from the future to ask him questions. He tells them of all sorts of wonderful things, then they ask him how they work. He has no clue. Some element thing...I think. And this was a university professor.

Like if cavemen pulled back a modern person at random and asked them how a TV or an internal combustion engine worked. 99 out of 100 couldn't answer those questions.
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It would be interesting to see at what period of world's history do I have enough of a social advantage to rule it just with what's currently between my ears. Or if I had a year (or a decade) to learn everything that might be useful before being sent back to that period, what would I focus on.

As I think about it, even what little knowledge I have, not deliberately obtained for that purpose is incredibly useful for many periods of time.

I know
-the general historical trends of the market 1900 to the present, so I could probably make a fortune off those.
-where much of the world's mineral wealth was discovered at different points in history

I think it would actually get harder the further back I went. For example, I could go back into the early 1980s and load up on Microsoft stock, then certain internet stocks, then put it in NY and CA real estate and be a gazillionaire. But in 980 it would probably be a little trickier for me to become rich and powerful.
 
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