We May Be Alone In The Milky Way After All (says Brian Cox)

[grumbledoak]

Nimby said:

Cox covered that; it's all down to the very lucky formation of eukaryotic cells with mitochondria. He said it's considerded so unlikely it may only have happened the once, and that some kind of energy-producing symbiosis is essential for multicellular/complex organisms.

That does not rule out the possibility that it happened once, twelve billion years ago, in another star system, spread through space in very simple form and subsequently evolved into many life forms on many planets: i.e. the number remains complete guesswork.

[tight fart]

If there was a billion to one chance of there being another planet like earth, they'd be a billion planets like earth.

Is there life out there? Of course there is,
Will mankind be around long enough to prove it? Unlikely.

[Terminator X]

I'm in the "so small it may as well be zero" camp as far as other intelligent life is concerned. Throw in massive distances and we will never see anyone else ever.

Yours cheerily, TX.

[RobM77]

TF & TX: I've just been discussing this with Mrs RobM77 and yes, I think that was the point Brian Cox was making: that we'll never contact life on other galaxies, so let's just talk about life in ours. He should have made it clearer though that life is almost certainly out there, given the billions upon billions of galaxies that exist in the Universe. Only concentrating on the Milky Way was very odd. Brian was making complete sense up until the last five minutes.

[davepoth]

grumbledoak said:

Nimby said:

Cox covered that; it's all down to the very lucky formation of eukaryotic cells with mitochondria. He said it's considerded so unlikely it may only have happened the once, and that some kind of energy-producing symbiosis is essential for multicellular/complex organisms.

That does not rule out the possibility that it happened once, twelve billion years ago, in another star system, spread through space in very simple form and subsequently evolved into many life forms on many planets: i.e. the number remains complete guesswork.

The numbers are easy enough though. While the calculated probability of finding another planet with life in our galaxy is currently zero (Extrapolate the number of planets we know about with life on them except ours divided by the total number we know about), the probability of finding life in the whole infinite universe is 1, because even a very small probability multiplied by infinity will eventually happen.

[cold thursday]

The thing that I struggle with is the concept of "Nothing"

As in "Nothing existed before the big bang".

So there was Nothing (no time,space, matter...... etc)

Then there was this "Big Bang" and the universe existed and started expanding.

[RobDickinson]

There is almost certainly other inteligent life out there in our galaxy never mind universe.

As said we have been producing radio waves for ~100 years and most of those are so weak they wont really be detectable outside our own solar system. Now we have moved over to digital for most transmissions they are hard to tell apart from noise. So perhaps a window of 20-50 years we would be spotted. An incredibly small area of the MW.

The observable universe may not be the limit of what is there, its just we cant see further because on that scale , light travels very very slowly.

Even at the speed of light the spectacle we see as the galactic core is 27,000 years in the past. Think what humans were doing (or not) 27,000 years ago! Where will we be in another 27,000 years?

The extremely hard thing is discovering and communicating with other life.

Oh one more thing, for life as we understand it to come into being we need a certain abundance of elements that wouldnt have been around for a large chunk of the universes history, thse need baking in supernova etc so its likely inteligent life anywhere is a relativly (last couple billion years) recent thing.

Whatever, I love the idea that somewhere in my images is another being looking up at our patch of sky.

Milford by robjdickinson, on Flickr

[jmorgan]

cold thursday said:

The thing that I struggle with is the concept of "Nothing"

As in "Nothing existed before the big bang".

So there was Nothing (no time,space, matter...... etc)

Then there was this "Big Bang" and the universe existed and started expanding.

Maybe it was always there......

[vescaegg]

This is an absolutely excellent piece on this. Possibly the most interesting thing I've ever read on the Internet.

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

The great filter theory is fantastic

[tuscaneer]

RobDickinson said:

There is almost certainly other inteligent life out there in our galaxy never mind universe.

As said we have been producing radio waves for ~100 years and most of those are so weak they wont really be detectable outside our own solar system. Now we have moved over to digital for most transmissions they are hard to tell apart from noise. So perhaps a window of 20-50 years we would be spotted. An incredibly small area of the MW.

The observable universe may not be the limit of what is there, its just we cant see further because on that scale , light travels very very slowly.

Even at the speed of light the spectacle we see as the galactic core is 27,000 years in the past. Think what humans were doing (or not) 27,000 years ago! Where will we be in another 27,000 years?

The extremely hard thing is discovering and communicating with other life.

Oh one more thing, for life as we understand it to come into being we need a certain abundance of elements that wouldnt have been around for a large chunk of the universes history, thse need baking in supernova etc so its likely inteligent life anywhere is a relativly (last couple billion years) recent thing.

Whatever, I love the idea that somewhere in my images is another being looking up at our patch of sky.

Milford by robjdickinson, on Flickr

VERY nice photo that chap!

[tight fart]

cold thursday said:

The thing that I struggle with is the concept of "Nothing"

As in "Nothing existed before the big bang".

So there was Nothing (no time,space, matter...... etc)

Then there was this "Big Bang" and the universe existed and started expanding.

I've always thought that the universe has probably done it all before, expanding to it runs out of steam then contracting
to a singularity, then bang it starts all over again.

[scorp]

vescaegg said:

This is an absolutely excellent piece on this. Possibly the most interesting thing I've ever read on the Internet.

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

The great filter theory is fantastic

Very interesting article! Thanks for that.

[conkerman]

THX said:

cymtriks said:

The universe is full of life but its nearly all stuff on a par with ants.

You'll regret that one day, clever clogs.

I, however, welcome our new insect Overlords.

Human Slaves, in an insect nation Ahhhahhh ah ah ahhh

[RobM77]

tight fart said:

cold thursday said:

The thing that I struggle with is the concept of "Nothing"

As in "Nothing existed before the big bang".

So there was Nothing (no time,space, matter...... etc)

Then there was this "Big Bang" and the universe existed and started expanding.

I've always thought that the universe has probably done it all before, expanding to it runs out of steam then contracting
to a singularity, then bang it starts all over again.

Whether it does that or not depends on observable parameters:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc...

We've pretty much ruled out the cyclical 'expand then collapse' version.

[ecs]

tight fart said:

If there was a billion to one chance of there being another planet like earth, they'd be a billion planets like earth.

Is there life out there? Of course there is,
Will mankind be around long enough to prove it? Unlikely.

I think that's the crux of it - they covered it in the show nicely with the orchid metaphor. We've been here for 6-7 million years and we've had the tech to communicate with other planets for a hundred or so years; that's not even a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. So we'd have to be extremely lucky to be able to communicate with another planet who'd evolved to the right stage, developed the right tech and curiosity at exactly the right time.

[Nimby]

davepoth said:

grumbledoak said:

Nimby said:

Cox covered that; it's all down to the very lucky formation of eukaryotic cells with mitochondria. He said it's considerded so unlikely it may only have happened the once, and that some kind of energy-producing symbiosis is essential for multicellular/complex organisms.

That does not rule out the possibility that it happened once, twelve billion years ago, in another star system, spread through space in very simple form and subsequently evolved into many life forms on many planets: i.e. the number remains complete guesswork.

The numbers are easy enough though. While the calculated probability of finding another planet with life in our galaxy is currently zero (Extrapolate the number of planets we know about with life on them except ours divided by the total number we know about), the probability of finding life in the whole infinite universe is 1, because even a very small probability multiplied by infinity will eventually happen.

I don't know of anyone has a figure for the likelihood of Panspermia or how that would affect the value of f(i) in the Drake equation, but I suspect it would still be pretty small.

And SETI is (by definition) only concerned with the observable universe, which is certainly not infinite.

[KareemK]

If you apply Occam's Razor to the Fermi Paradox you get your answer which is roughly in line with Brian Cox's.

[jbudgie]

KareemK said:

If you apply Occam's Razor to the Fermi Paradox you get your answer which is roughly in line with Brian Cox's.

Yes, but Cox was only talking about the Milky Way, not the universe.

[jbudgie]

RobDickinson said:

Milford by robjdickinson, on Flickr

Why does the Milky Way appear as a curve in the photo ?

Is it because of the lens used ?

[KareemK]

jbudgie said:

KareemK said:

If you apply Occam's Razor to the Fermi Paradox you get your answer which is roughly in line with Brian Cox's.

Yes, but Cox was only talking about the Milky Way, not the universe.

So am I.