What is out there ?
Discussion
Tango13 said:
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
Arthur C. Clarke
The problem is that when it comes to finding other life forms E=MC2 has got us beat before we even start, the nearest star apart from the sun is something like 4.24 light years away.
Think about that for a minute...
Four and a quarter years travelling at the speed of light to get to the nearest star and probes that were sent into space 40+yrs ago have yet to leave the solar system.
I've no doubt there's intelligent life out there but I very much doubt we, the human race will ever encounter it.
The only change to that is that we are considering it from our level of sophistication/development.Arthur C. Clarke
The problem is that when it comes to finding other life forms E=MC2 has got us beat before we even start, the nearest star apart from the sun is something like 4.24 light years away.
Think about that for a minute...
Four and a quarter years travelling at the speed of light to get to the nearest star and probes that were sent into space 40+yrs ago have yet to leave the solar system.
I've no doubt there's intelligent life out there but I very much doubt we, the human race will ever encounter it.
Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - Arthur C. Clarke (same guy - got about!)
So given enough time and enough locations it could happen (i.e. in what may be an infinite universe) anything that is possible WILL happen. Worm holes etc will get developed somewhere.
Us humans have only really had what we'd call proper technology in the last 200 years. 200 years at the rising rate like we have:
Now just think if we accelerate that just 100 years in to the future. Now think 200. 300. 500. 2000! Unless there is some cosmic filter that stops a civilisation getting too advanced (before it extincts itself maybe, like the possible explanation of the Drake Equation paradox) there should be many many civilisations out there that can zip around their galaxy and probably populate the whole thing.
That itself sounds incredibly impressive and sci-fi and very Star Trek, but that's just one galaxy. Each spot in this image is a galaxy.
So how does an alien species find us? We have been eminating detectable emissions for a 150 years. That means:
Everything we've ever emitted, broadcast or sent out that would make us worth looking in to is a spec on one not particularly exciting galaxy in a corner of the universe that might eventually get looked in to.
Even from inside our own solar system, this is how we look...
A pale blue dot.
Tango13 said:
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
Arthur C. Clarke
The problem is that when it comes to finding other life forms E=MC2 has got us beat before we even start, the nearest star apart from the sun is something like 4.24 light years away.
Think about that for a minute...
Four and a quarter years travelling at the speed of light to get to the nearest star and probes that were sent into space 40+yrs ago have yet to leave the solar system.
I've no doubt there's intelligent life out there but I very much doubt we, the human race will ever encounter it.
That’s using our fairly primitive and slow space travel technology.Arthur C. Clarke
The problem is that when it comes to finding other life forms E=MC2 has got us beat before we even start, the nearest star apart from the sun is something like 4.24 light years away.
Think about that for a minute...
Four and a quarter years travelling at the speed of light to get to the nearest star and probes that were sent into space 40+yrs ago have yet to leave the solar system.
I've no doubt there's intelligent life out there but I very much doubt we, the human race will ever encounter it.
Maybe advances in technology will make travelling these vast distances possible in future?
Maybe how the universe was made and what is out there and what it’s all about is actually all (and will always be) completely beyond our understanding.
Both possibilities about being alone or not are terrifying but both are also wonderful.
Your twilight-zone type people coming to earth and probing your butthole? (insert peurile joke here)
But surely with the numbers, it HAS to be there somewhere. Maybe bacteria, or fish, or plants. Or maybe even intelligent creatures with cities that lived and died millions of years ago (OK, unlikely)
But surely with the numbers, it HAS to be there somewhere. Maybe bacteria, or fish, or plants. Or maybe even intelligent creatures with cities that lived and died millions of years ago (OK, unlikely)
It is a real brain-flexing topic. The idea that there must be life (as we know it) is attractive all the time you think about the vastness of space but not quite so compelling when you consider how much of that space is dead as evidenced by our own solar system.
Playing the numbers game, I think there's no chance of us discovering intelligent life before we are wiped out by some extinction level event. As much as technology has increased our abilities, it has also highlighted how much we don't know, let alone understand. We could of course be discovered ourselves and the sophistication of any form of life capable of that would probably be too great for us to comprehend. Our spaceships are essentially still big fireworks - would something able to reach us still come via firework? Would we be regarded as much more significant than the way we regard ants?
I'd like to be around to see the end of the world or the arrival of some sophisticated life form. Selfish I know, but that doesn't influence whether it'll happen. It just makes me a bad and superficial person who likes disaster movies and I knew that already.
Playing the numbers game, I think there's no chance of us discovering intelligent life before we are wiped out by some extinction level event. As much as technology has increased our abilities, it has also highlighted how much we don't know, let alone understand. We could of course be discovered ourselves and the sophistication of any form of life capable of that would probably be too great for us to comprehend. Our spaceships are essentially still big fireworks - would something able to reach us still come via firework? Would we be regarded as much more significant than the way we regard ants?
I'd like to be around to see the end of the world or the arrival of some sophisticated life form. Selfish I know, but that doesn't influence whether it'll happen. It just makes me a bad and superficial person who likes disaster movies and I knew that already.
MYOB said:
Earth culminated from the Big Bang. Apparently a very very very rare and almost fortunate explosion that is probably almost impossible to replicate again. So it's possible we are indeed the only life in existence due to the way the Big Bang occurred.
However, it would be arrogant to believe that we ARE the only form of life.
We will never really know if the galaxies are infinite either. Earth will explode by the time humans figure out a way to explore such distance!
Was the big bang really a rare event? There could be big bangs happening all the time in whatever exists outside our universe. I find it unlikely that in an eternity of infinite space and time that there was just one big bang, and once this universe dies nothing will ever exist againHowever, it would be arrogant to believe that we ARE the only form of life.
We will never really know if the galaxies are infinite either. Earth will explode by the time humans figure out a way to explore such distance!
There is also the statistic that we are much more likely to all be simulants in a galactic AI game than existing just in the vanishingly tiny slice of time where biology actually creates AI. It would be indistinguishable from the real thing apparently.
Regards the weak anthropic principle, seems a pity if we are the only ones rattling around in all this stuff.
Regards the weak anthropic principle, seems a pity if we are the only ones rattling around in all this stuff.
Maybe Mars looked like earth once, but a catastrophic event obliterated what was on it? There are some huge craters!
I remember seeing a clip a couple of years ago that kept spanning away from earth....we are a very small pixel in a bloody enormous TV!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Eh5BpSnBBw
I remember seeing a clip a couple of years ago that kept spanning away from earth....we are a very small pixel in a bloody enormous TV!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Eh5BpSnBBw
Edited by bonerp on Friday 19th February 13:59
bonerp said:
Maybe Mars looked like earth once, but a catastrophic event obliterated what was on it? There are some huge craters!
I remember seeing a clip a couple of years ago that kept spanning away from earth....we are a very small pixel in a bloody enormous TV!
Humans cannot comprehend just how big the universe is. We don't even know how big it is because light is only so fast, light from the most distant objects literally cannot keep up with the rate of expansion of the universeI remember seeing a clip a couple of years ago that kept spanning away from earth....we are a very small pixel in a bloody enormous TV!
Even our friendly neighbour:
Every planet could fit in the gap.
bonerp said:
Maybe Mars looked like earth once, but a catastrophic event obliterated what was on it?
No core of molten iron means no magnetic field, thus no deflection of the solar winds to the poles and around the planet, hence its atmosphere was stripped away. It has big craters because there's no tectonic plate movement, subduction or volcanic eruptions to hide them. And no oceans to erode them.
Edited by TwigtheWonderkid on Friday 19th February 15:22
Edited by TwigtheWonderkid on Friday 19th February 15:27
Gecko1978 said:
I have always assumed if the universe is as big as we think then odds are there are other life forms. Though they could have litetally evolved and died out millions of years before us.
To me it's almost unbelievable that Earth is a one off.Earth is proof that it can happen, so in a universe of billions of suns and other planets there must be millions that can or do sustain other life. There are also probably millions of planets where life has existed but has become extinct, and millions where it will happen in the future.
hucumber said:
Gary C said:
hucumber said:
bigandclever said:
That’s debatable. Not by someone with my tiny brain, mind.
It isn't debatable, its an untrue statement Have you never read Hitchhikers ?
Mind you, it is 43 years since it was first broadcast so you are forgiven
DoctorX said:
This is the link I send to anyone who will listen! 98elise said:
Gecko1978 said:
I have always assumed if the universe is as big as we think then odds are there are other life forms. Though they could have litetally evolved and died out millions of years before us.
To me it's almost unbelievable that Earth is a one off.Earth is proof that it can happen, so in a universe of billions of suns and other planets there must be millions that can or do sustain other life. There are also probably millions of planets where life has existed but has become extinct, and millions where it will happen in the future.
But yes, the chances that we are unique in the universe are unquantifiable but also likely to be infinitesimally small. However, the chances of intelligent life being within reach of our planet in the timescales where we are able to detect it are, also, very very small indeed. So although it's a nice thought that we aren't alone, we absolutely are in every sense that matters.
98elise said:
Gecko1978 said:
I have always assumed if the universe is as big as we think then odds are there are other life forms. Though they could have litetally evolved and died out millions of years before us.
To me it's almost unbelievable that Earth is a one off.Earth is proof that it can happen, so in a universe of billions of suns and other planets there must be millions that can or do sustain other life. There are also probably millions of planets where life has existed but has become extinct, and millions where it will happen in the future.
Gary C said:
population of the universe: none.
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.
Ah, the bit in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy about The Universe: Some information to help you live in it. I quite liked these ones as well:It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.
Imports: None. It’s impossible to import things into an infinite area, there being no outside to import things in from.
Exports: None. See ’Imports’
Rainfall: None
Rain cannot fall because in an infinite space there is no “up” for it to fall down from.
(I got where you lifted your comment from, even if some others didn’t.)
Edited by Teppic on Saturday 20th February 15:08
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