If our main sensory organs were sound-based or feel-based, we’d probably have discovered a lot of things before planets and stars.
The things that took a while to discover on earth, or that aren’t yet fully explored, are largely because it’s hard to see them without getting very close, which can be hard.
Building a good telescope might have been hard, but with a telescope you can see things that are millions of km away. But, because of the earth’s curvature, you can’t see Antarctica until you’re practically next to Antarctica. You can’t see the bottom of the ocean until you travel to the bottom of the ocean, or at least until you scan it with sound waves which are then converted into something you can see.
Imagine an alien that developed in the water on a planet with sub-surface oceans with ice on top. No real value for eyes, so they’re sound / touch based. Picture what it would be like to try to explore the solar system. There’s a boundary layer at the top of their “atmosphere” (the top of the ocean) that’s solid (ice), beyond that there’s some non-liquid extremely sparse stuff, until some point where no sound travels at all and there’s nothing to touch.
His initial reaction was hilariously understandable - a huge WTF? But then being a rational being with super human computational ability he started to realize that it fits all the observations.
If our main sensory organs were sound-based or feel-based, we’d probably have discovered a lot of things before planets and stars.
The things that took a while to discover on earth, or that aren’t yet fully explored, are largely because it’s hard to see them without getting very close, which can be hard.
Building a good telescope might have been hard, but with a telescope you can see things that are millions of km away. But, because of the earth’s curvature, you can’t see Antarctica until you’re practically next to Antarctica. You can’t see the bottom of the ocean until you travel to the bottom of the ocean, or at least until you scan it with sound waves which are then converted into something you can see.
Imagine an alien that developed in the water on a planet with sub-surface oceans with ice on top. No real value for eyes, so they’re sound / touch based. Picture what it would be like to try to explore the solar system. There’s a boundary layer at the top of their “atmosphere” (the top of the ocean) that’s solid (ice), beyond that there’s some non-liquid extremely sparse stuff, until some point where no sound travels at all and there’s nothing to touch.
Reminds me of Rocky from Project Hail Mary (sort of, they didn’t live under ocean but under an extremely hostile-to-us atmosphere).
That moment where he learns about relativity is so cute. I should read the book again soon.
His initial reaction was hilariously understandable - a huge WTF? But then being a rational being with super human computational ability he started to realize that it fits all the observations.
…and then he got hit by quantum mechanics off-screen.