The Community
General Category => Matters of Life and The Universe => Topic started by: Charger on October 24, 2018, 07:25:40 AM
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So what is the take here at the community?
Is there a possibility of Extraterrestrial life?
If so, is it possible that they would be advanced enough to travel the stars?
If so have they visited Earth?
I'm gonna start with simple math. There are Billions of galaxies out there with each having billions and billions of stars. And even if only 10% of those would have planetary systems and if only 10% of those would have the potential for life that would still ammount to several millions of possible life baring planets.
So simply mathematically speaking it would be statistically virtually impossible for there NOT to be life out there. But ofcourse the nature of that life is an issue.
Then about the technology...well...Humans have developed space travel (in its infancy but still) in just 200 years after the early stages of the technologial era...that's not even a blink of an eye in the cosmological time frame...the Universe is almost 14 BILLION years old. Think about that in comparison. All that's really needed is a planet that is cosmically bit older than Earth.
Hell lets just think of a civilization that has had 1000 years of technologial age...or 10000 or a million years. Their level of technology would be so far ahead of ours we couldn't possibly even understand. Our laws of physics most likely wouldn't apply to them anymore.
So it is more than possible that on one of those millions and millions of potentially life baring planets would have a civilization that could be millions of years older than we are...hell considering the time frame it's actually more likely than unlikely.
Then about UFO sightings...
It is clear that a lot of them are hoaxes and a lot of unwilling hoaxes (meaning that people who have seen the phenomena believe what they saw was extraterrestrial eventhough there is a perfectly natural/eartlhy explanation to their sightings) but there are also sightings and reports that cannot be so easily dismissed. Reports made by Astronauts, air force pilots, high ranking military officers and so on who have described crafts that to best of their knowlage cannot be from this Earth. Reports which are more plausable than most others.
Would other advanced civilizations be interested in our primitive asses anyways? Well we are pretty interested in our history so it wouldn't be that hard to imagine an alien civilization being interested in a primitive culture. Also we have been very vocal towards space so it is easy to imagine our signals being captured by someone somewhere out there.
In truth though there still is no conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial activity on Earth...or if there is it has been covered up.
So what are your thoughts about the topic? Hopefully there is something to converse about here...
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So what is the take here at the community?
Is there a possibility of Extraterrestrial life?
If so, is it possible that they would be advanced enough to travel the stars?
If so have they visited Earth?
Some comments to this very interesting topic. :)
I'm gonna start with simple math. There are Billions of galaxies out there with each having billions and billions of stars. And even if only 10% of those would have planetary systems and if only 10% of those would have the potential for life that would still ammount to several millions of possible life baring planets.
So simply mathematically speaking it would be statistically virtually impossible for there NOT to be life out there. But ofcourse the nature of that life is an issue.
All true, though the numbers are even bigger than this.
Then about the technology...well...Humans have developed space travel (in its infancy but still) in just 200 years after the early stages of the technologial era...that's not even a blink of an eye in the cosmological time frame...the Universe is almost 14 BILLION years old. Think about that in comparison. All that's really needed is a planet that is cosmically bit older than Earth.
Hell lets just think of a civilization that has had 1000 years of technologial age...or 10000 or a million years. Their level of technology would be so far ahead of ours we couldn't possibly even understand. Our laws of physics most likely wouldn't apply to them anymore.
So it is more than possible that on one of those millions and millions of potentially life baring planets would have a civilization that could be millions of years older than we are...hell considering the time frame it's actually more likely than unlikely.
One correction here. It is not our laws of physics, it is the laws of physics, and they are true everywhere in the universe.
Then about UFO sightings...
It is clear that a lot of them are hoaxes and a lot of unwilling hoaxes (meaning that people who have seen the phenomena believe what they saw was extraterrestrial eventhough there is a perfectly natural/eartlhy explanation to their sightings) but there are also sightings and reports that cannot be so easily dismissed. Reports made by Astronauts, air force pilots, high ranking military officers and so on who have described crafts that to best of their knowlage cannot be from this Earth. Reports which are more plausable than most others.
Would other advanced civilizations be interested in our primitive asses anyways? Well we are pretty interested in our history so it wouldn't be that hard to imagine an alien civilization being interested in a primitive culture. Also we have been very vocal towards space so it is easy to imagine our signals being captured by someone somewhere out there.
In truth though there still is no conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial activity on Earth...or if there is it has been covered up.
No aliens have ever visited Earth. :(
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One correction here. It is not our laws of physics, it is the laws of physics, and they are true everywhere in the universe.
Well that's not entirely true on all accounts. Sure there are certain things such as weights of atoms and such that are obvious constants, but there are several laws of physics that have already changed in our time and most certainly several that will change in the next 100 or so years as our understanding of the universe grows. One of the most obvious ones being the speed of light ofcourse and how in our understanding at the moment states it cannot be exceeded, but that might not be the case in 100 or 1000 years from now.
Although a more likely way of travelling is through artificially made worm holes.
And yes the ammount of planets in the universe would most likely be in the trillions but I wanted to be conservative with the numbers as they are still quite staggering. :)
I'm glad you are finding this topic interesting...it's one of my biggest interests and I was hoping people here would find it interesting as well..
So you don't believe we have been visited? Then out of curiosity what do you make of all the sightings? All hoax or natural phenomenon being mistaken for something else?
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You are dealing with the Fermi Paradox: if there is so much potential for life in the universe, why haven't we seen any of it besides our own?
The answers go as follows:
1. It's too far away (either in terms of space... or time)
2. It doesn't want to be noticed (It's hiding from threats or just doesn't want to be bothered)
3. We're looking for the wrong signs of intelligence (radio communications)
4. There is a Great Filter that keeps intelligent life from going into the stars.
That last one is the most troubling one. It basically says, sure, there's lots of life in the universe but, no, it can't survive either the violence of the universe (comet strikes, supernovae, gamma ray bursts, small black holes zipping around) or itself to last long enough to reach out to other stars. Given our own troubles with wars and nuclear weapons and climate issues, we have to look at ourselves and ask if our technological development also sealed our fate.
If we can hold on long enough for our moral and ethical development to catch up to our technology, maybe we survive that chapter of our existence as a species... but what if that development also makes us more inward-looking? What if passing through the Great Filter is something that makes other intelligent species become inward-looking to the point where they'd rather not push out to other worlds, but to be content with the one they have?
But let us say we consider a 5th possible answer to the paradox:
5. We haven't seen signs of other life because we haven't met it *yet*.
The day of our First Contact is yet to come. Now, the question is if we are ready for it when it happens.
This is where I turn to the East and look at Solaris by Stanislav Lem and Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky Brothers.
In Solaris, humans encounter *something*. It could be an intelligent planet. It could be random stuff that's the product of our imaginations interacting with some kind of field around Solaris. We don't know, and, frankly, it's annoying humanity that we can't figure it out. The intelligence is completely incomprehensible to us and we have to question if we are truly communicating with it, in the sense that both parties to the communication understand each others' messages.
In Roadside Picnic, the alien visit to the Earth is as disastrous as a group of tourists pulling off the road to have a bit of fun in a field, hence the title. If you look at what could happen to an ant hill as we eat stuff next to it, it has no comprehension of how we got there, what we are, or what stuff we left behind. It can be beneficial to them, or potentially toxic or disastrous. So what if a species that is to us what we are to ants stopped by to have a meal and take in the sights, completely oblivious to us and our environment?
I like these scenarios because they don't assume, as much of US and Western sci-fi does, that hard work, technological brilliance, and human good nature wins the day and we can have pleasant chats with our alien visitors - or blow the crap out of them, should they cause any trouble. In these works, there's no way to communicate and no way to retaliate for any damage done to us. The damage done, at any rate, is limited enough so as not to justify a massive response, when you think about it.
Personally, I think we're the only game in town that we'll ever know about. If there's other life, it's too distant or that Great Filter happens. And that, given all the massive odds of life out there, I can't accept that when the lottery of the universe comes up with a sentient race, somehow it's not random anymore and it's a species that can chat with us, let alone one that shares our anthropomorphism, or even any sort of similarity with life on earth.
To drive that last point of mine home, look at early life forms on earth and how they don't look anything like what we have now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ice47loNmsc
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Are you guys^^^ PHD’s? You sound like intellectuals, really smart sounding stuff, I can’t grasp my head around that stuff.
Just thinking about the infinitesimal universe boggles my mind, I’m sorry I’m not in your league guys.
Much respect to all of you.
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One correction here. It is not our laws of physics, it is the laws of physics, and they are true everywhere in the universe.
Well that's not entirely true on all accounts. Sure there are certain things such as weights of atoms and such that are obvious constants, but there are several laws of physics that have already changed in our time and most certainly several that will change in the next 100 or so years as our understanding of the universe grows. One of the most obvious ones being the speed of light ofcourse and how in our understanding at the moment states it cannot be exceeded, but that might not be the case in 100 or 1000 years from now.
If we are misunderstanding a law of physics, then what changed was our understanding of that law. The true law was always there and will always be there and did not change.
Mathematical equations indicate that at the speed of light, time would stop. Therefore, exceeding the speed of light would cause time to go backwards. I can not prove to you that this is impossible, but there is zero evidence that it is possible.
So you don't believe we have been visited? Then out of curiosity what do you make of all the sightings? All hoax or natural phenomenon being mistaken for something else?
All of the above and more.
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I agree with Typhon - reported visits are natural things or mistakes or something similar.
One very interesting consideration about alien visits comes by way of my having read about N,N-dimethyltriptamine. It's a compound that occurs in nature and which can also be synthesized by the body - concentrations of DMT are high as we dream. Permanently high concentrations of DMT in spinal fluid is associated with schizophrenia.
A particular researcher was intrigued by how different cultures had identical experiences with DMT, in spite of cultural factors that would seem to keep them from being able to have those experiences. For example, cultures completely unfamiliar with cats and/or mantids would nevertheless describe creatures similar to those in their DMT trips. Cats, in particular, were seen as being huge and made of stars, walking over the DMT-influenced person.
So the researcher got DEA approval to use DMT in a clinical study. He administered a dose to volunteers and a placebo to a control group. The subjects were then asked to lie down on a couch and rest. Placebo users had a nap or just lay there, bored. DMT subjects pretty much all hit the jackpot in the "dreams so real, they were treated as real" category.
The researcher videotaped his subjects so that they could play the tapes back and verify that nothing happened to them as they rested/tripped out.
About one in ten subjects reported that they had been abducted by aliens and were subjected to probing and testing. The aliens they described were very similar across all such experiences. They were also very similar to the way other people described "alien abduction" scenarios, independent of the DMT trials.
When the researcher showed the subjects who thought they had been abducted that, in fact, they were in the test room all along and unmolested, every one of them became paranoid, insisted that the tapes were faked and that the researcher was somehow in league with the aliens or just left. All broke off contact with the researcher.
The point here being that if there's a chemical the human body synthesizes that can lead to extremely realistic dreams that have common factors, independent of cultural background or other life experiences, and if one of those types of dreams is an alien abduction or alien visitation, with the aliens looking pretty much as they're depicted in a large number of drawings/renditions, then I have to ask if those were really abductions, or a part of psychology?
And how many other reported experiences with no other witnesses but the person that experienced it were of a similar, highly vivid hallucinatory nature?
I don't say that there's no funky stuff going on that is hard to explain - I've heard stories from people I trust about some really wild experiences, but such experiences could also be connected to manmade or natural phenomena.
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I agree that with the trillions of planets out there extraterrestrial life is almost a given. I don't remember what show it was but someone was way out in space and picked up one of Hitler's speeches. Probably damn near impossible to calculate, but since we started transmitting radio and TV signals, how far could they have traveled and does the signal strength degrade over time?
As far as alien abduction and UFOs I think I would need to see to believe. There is usually an explanation for these phenomena UNLESS it's true that governments shield us from this information to avoid a panic. OK now I'm sounding like a conspiracy theorist.
The one thing that still intrigues me is Roswell. The final word on that event was a crashed weather balloon, pretty cliché if you ask me. I believe there were pictures and I know there was a newspaper article about a crashed UFO which was retracted the next day. I've also seen interviews with retired military personnel saying it in fact was a UFO. So what's the real story?
The Truth is Out There
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Man loved reading all this stuff even if I don't share all of your views.
I have always wondered why SETI concentrates on radio signals...first of all radio signals travel rather slowly and as a technology it is what one might say "old"...it is highly unlikely that a society that's 100s or 1000s of years ahead of us would use them anyways. Especially if we are talking about sending messages light years away. It would simply take radio signals too long. There needs to be another way of communicating instantly over such long distances...a way we have no way of detecting yet.
As far as what the sentient life on other planets would look like?
They might not look anything like us. The humanoid evolution might be an Earth thing...BUT then again it might not. Who knows it might also be something of a standard evolutionary model.
But it can also be that life out there might not even be carbon based...or it is possible that a civilization that is millions of years older than we are don't even need physical bodies anymore, it's possible that they live in energy form or use synthetic bodies (like "Roswell greys") with downloaded consciousness.
But the one thing that would suggest a technologially advanced society might be primate is the thumb which proved to be rahter vital in human evolution.
That DMT study thing was interesting. Also sounds very plausable cause for some of the abduction stories indeed.
I personally left out all these abduction stories as they quite often sound bit too far fetched...but ofcourse not impossible. Also gotta think that there must have been a first incident at some point and I find it really hard to believe that someone all of a sudden would have just come up with the idea that "Hey I'm gonna make up a story about alien abduction!"...it's one of those things that is bit too far out there for someone to just invent out of the blue.
And Bog yes the Roswell incident is still of some mystery.
The first newspaper report very clearly described it as a disc shaped craft and the presense of bodies...the next day the story was retracted and the "official" story came out. Bit too fast rewrite if you ask me. That cover up story was dictated by the government.
Weather balloon it was not that's for certain. Weather balloons first of all don't have crew and there were bodies at the scene, there were many witnesses to that and later on even the military crew who were sent to the scene have said so.
Naturally it is possible that it was some sort of an experimental US military craft that happened to crash there and the crew died and were so badly burned that they looked extraterrestrial...BUT there were no reports of massive fires though. Also there hasn't been a disc shaped military craft that has come to production since then.
Something crashed in Roswell on July 1947 that is a fact...what was it really? That we might never actually find out as that was covered up.
Are you guys^^^ PHD’s? You sound like intellectuals, really smart sounding stuff, I can’t grasp my head around that stuff.
Just thinking about the infinitesimal universe boggles my mind, I’m sorry I’m not in your league guys.
Much respect to all of you.
:D
No I don't think we're PHDs...and all of this is just light hearted ponderings with some science thrown in.
Intellectuals? Us? Well I can only speak for myself when I say:
:rofl:
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I have always wondered why SETI concentrates on radio signals...first of all radio signals travel rather slowly and as a technology it is what one might say "old"...it is highly unlikely that a society that's 100s or 1000s of years ahead of us would use them anyways. Especially if we are talking about sending messages light years away. It would simply take radio signals too long. There needs to be another way of communicating instantly over such long distances...a way we have no way of detecting yet.
This is incorrect. Radio waves travel at about the speed of light. But even at this speed, it takes a few thousand years for these signals to reach the nearest galaxy. Which means that since man first started broadcasting radio signals, none of them are even remotely close to our nearest galaxy yet.
But it can also be that life out there might not even be carbon based...or it is possible that a civilization that is millions of years older than we are don't even need physical bodies anymore, it's possible that they live in energy form or use synthetic bodies (like "Roswell greys") with downloaded consciousness.
I think you are letting the things you have seen in science fiction shows get the best of you here. All mass in the universe is made up of the same elements found on Earth. Every star, every planet, every creature. These elements are the building blocks. The top 4 elements found in the universe are Hydrogen, Helium, Oxygen and Carbon. Therefore, it is likely that any living thing out there would contain these 4 to a certain degree.
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I have always wondered why SETI concentrates on radio signals...first of all radio signals travel rather slowly and as a technology it is what one might say "old"...it is highly unlikely that a society that's 100s or 1000s of years ahead of us would use them anyways. Especially if we are talking about sending messages light years away. It would simply take radio signals too long. There needs to be another way of communicating instantly over such long distances...a way we have no way of detecting yet.
This is incorrect. Radio waves travel at about the speed of light. But even at this speed, it takes a few thousand years for these signals to reach the nearest galaxy. Which means that since man first started broadcasting radio signals, none of them are even remotely close to our nearest galaxy yet.
What's incorrect? The thing is with the speed of light that is is slow when talking about distances of this scale. It is not an efficient way of communicating. For a species that travels stars there HAS TO BE a more faster way of communicating. Subspace transmissions or ofcourse a possibility of using worm holes.
But it can also be that life out there might not even be carbon based...or it is possible that a civilization that is millions of years older than we are don't even need physical bodies anymore, it's possible that they live in energy form or use synthetic bodies (like "Roswell greys") with downloaded consciousness.
I think you are letting the things you have seen in science fiction shows get the best of you here. All mass in the universe is made up of the same elements found on Earth. Every star, every planet, every creature. These elements are the building blocks. The top 4 elements found in the universe are Hydrogen, Helium, Oxygen and Carbon. Therefore, it is likely that any living thing out there would contain these 4 to a certain degree.
You forgot Silicon which has nearly the same potential as Carbon which is why it is widely considered as a possible life building block.
Yes it is likely that most life would be based on Carbon but nothing is certain on a universal scale. When options rank in the billions nearly anything is possible. Also it is completely possible that there is life that is based on an element we don't even know yet! Unlikely perhaps, but possible.
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I have always wondered why SETI concentrates on radio signals...first of all radio signals travel rather slowly and as a technology it is what one might say "old"...it is highly unlikely that a society that's 100s or 1000s of years ahead of us would use them anyways. Especially if we are talking about sending messages light years away. It would simply take radio signals too long. There needs to be another way of communicating instantly over such long distances...a way we have no way of detecting yet.
This is incorrect. Radio waves travel at about the speed of light. But even at this speed, it takes a few thousand years for these signals to reach the nearest galaxy. Which means that since man first started broadcasting radio signals, none of them are even remotely close to our nearest galaxy yet.
What's incorrect? The thing is with the speed of light that is is slow when talking about distances of this scale. It is not an efficient way of communicating. For a species that travels stars there HAS TO BE a more faster way of communicating. Subspace transmissions or ofcourse a possibility of using worm holes.
Radio waves are not slow. They travel about as fast as it can get. Sound waves are an example of slow.
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As for communication, that's only a prerequisite for control or coordination. If a species sends out generation ships with the intent merely to preserve a strain of the species somewhere else as part of a dispersal strategy, then there is no need for any interstellar communication. The only need to communicate would be local, should a generation ship happen upon a planet already occupied by an earlier expedition.
As such, radio is a jolly good way for us to communicate, but who's to say that other civilizations wouldn't use gamma ray bursts or induce semaphores from the local star? How fast would such communications be? What if they communicate by means of three beeps, with the message determined by the ratio of the second beep to the third, relative to the first? That ratio can produce a very long and complicated decimal, which itself could be decoded to deliver messages of encyclopaedic length.
This doesn't even get into the resources and energy necessary to support a voyage across an interstellar void. Absent a mode of FTL travel, we're either looking at an expedition that has to grow its own food (and hope and pray it never has a malfunction or crop failure) or a method of reliably suspending animation and reviving animation at the appropriate time. Then there's the matter of cosmic radiation sources. Want to fly past Jupiter like Voyager did? Think again, because there's a substantial amount of hard radiation that will cook any terran life form good and hard. How do we balance shielding necessary to protect our life forms against requirements for food, power, fuel, sustenance, oxygen, waste storage/reclamation, and so forth?
Now let us consider the problems of space psychology. The Russians discovered that crews on long-term missions can develop paranoia, typically manifested in hostility towards the ground crews or refusal to communicate with them. There are other issues of long-term space missions, and video games / movies / porn will not solve them. Depression very easily takes over during long periods of inactivity or when activity is perceived to be of little or no value.
These are just the problems with travel to Mars - how would we be able to scale our solutions to an interstellar degree? And if we do not have the answers, who does? What if, for all intents and purposes, non-robotic interstellar travel is impractical to the point of impossibility?
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Radio waves are not slow. They travel about as fast as it can get. Sound waves are an example of slow.
Okay okay! Poor choice of words on my part I suppose! :D
What I meant to say ofcourse (and did or so I thought) was that in a universal scale the speed of light is too slow for instant communication. There needs to be a faster way for such distances that is why I find it extremely hard to believe that an advanced civilization would still be using radio waves to communicate that's why searching for those seems rather futile.
And zzz! Some great ponderings again from the view of a not so advanced race.
There would be huuuuge obstacles to overcome for space travel that is for certain. From a human perspective (at this time) the idea seems rather far fetched even. But for a civilization 1000s of years older..who knows. They might have already overcome all those. It is after all a matter of perspective.
But we most certainly still have a long way to go. 100 years won't be enough...nor will 200...maybe 500...maybe...unless ofcourse by some miracle (or accident as many great discoveries have come from accidents) we discover a worm hole or a way to create worm holes.
But I suppose we are getting bit off track here now...or are we? This is all some super interesting stuff here though.
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Radio waves are not slow. They travel about as fast as it can get. Sound waves are an example of slow.
Okay okay! Poor choice of words on my part I suppose! :D
What I meant to say ofcourse (and did or so I thought) was that in a universal scale the speed of light is too slow for instant communication. There needs to be a faster way for such distances that is why I find it extremely hard to believe that an advanced civilization would still be using radio waves to communicate that's why searching for those seems rahter futile.
Okay, I guess what you stated earlier could have been taken that way as well. I just didn't want anyone to think that radio waves were slow. But we keep looking for radio waves here on Earth because, like you said, if some other civilization has been around a few thousand years before us, then those radio signals could be arriving here any day now. :)
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@Zzz: At this point in time I believe the only way would be to have a population of humans live permanently aboard a space station similar to the one we have orbiting the Earth right now. But it would have to be the size of a small city with enough room to provide all the things you listed. Put together over time, piece by piece, while it temporarily orbits the Earth.
Or, the animated state idea. Put the ship on automatic pilot, go to sleep for 2000 years, wake up and you are there. Remember the beginning of Planet Of The Apes? ;D
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Another take on why we don't see aliens amongst us: they already learned that this is something that doesn't end well.
We've got a number of fictional works that involve an alien visitor who slips up in his disguise and then gets handed over to the local vivisectionist team or something equally horrible. All it takes is one visit that goes horribly, horribly wrong for a civilization to decide, "Right. Never again. All that expense and effort, just to be killed by the hostile locals? No thank you."
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FTL travel: this would have to involve finding ways in which space is connected via shortcuts that traverse higher spatial dimensions. The shortcuts themselves would need to be large enough and safe enough for a spacecraft entering them to not suffer a sudden, tragic discontinuity between the part in the shortcut and the part not in the shortcut. Travel to such shortcuts is another consideration. Assuming we could get to .9c or .99c to reduce personal time spent in a space journey, we're still dealing with massive time dilation effects relative to live on earth or elsewhere. We age months, back on earth they go through centuries.
So to have that FTL travel without time dilation issues, the shortcut would have to itself exist on a planetary surface or very close to it and not itself be impacted by the planetary or stellar gravity well. If the shortcuts are able to be created locally, then the question becomes one of determining where the exit point is. This involves mathematics that are anything but trivial.
Even moving from where I sit to a location 3 feet to my left may, of necessity, require calculation of where that location *will be* in the instant I make my move, as moving to where it is right now might result in an unwanted placement of my body relative to the location three feet to the left. Too high and I fall, too low and my feet merge with the floor. Too far forward, I'm part of the dresser, too far back, I'm part of the bed. Now move me to a planet around a nearby star... that planet doesn't even share my frame of reference, so there are massive calculations needed to get the placement accurate enough to be safe.
And then what of this other planet? How do I find another planet that's a goldilocks "just right" match for a life form like me? And am I sure that any trace things that I need in this environment are also present in that one? I don't want to discover a day, week, or month into my interstellar visit that I need a supplement I didn't think to pack. ("Selenium? Who knew I needed that much selenium in my daily diet?")
Maybe I want to make sure that wherever I go, there are NO locals, because I don't want to get into arguments about property rights and why I need to come up with 6000 kwibblars to cover the cost of the oxygen that I converted to CO2.
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@Zzz: At this point in time I believe the only way would be to have a population of humans live permanently aboard a space station similar to the one we have orbiting the Earth right now. But it would have to be the size of a small city with enough room to provide all the things you listed. Put together over time, piece by piece, while it temporarily orbits the Earth.
Or, the animated state idea. Put the ship on automatic pilot, go to sleep for 2000 years, wake up and you are there. Remember the beginning of Planet Of The Apes? ;D
Yeah, that was cool. And also an argument to not venture too far from home... :)
We haven't even started into the discussion of the problems of zero gravity and microgravity on human health and development. We could get that space city spinning around a central axis, that's always been a workaround. But how would we be sure that the spinning city doesn't get taken out by collisions with particles or small bodies as it moves at .9c?
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We just need to develop the technological and production capability to create a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld). A good read, if you haven't read it.
Regarding ET, meh. My mother claims that she and my aunt saw a UFO once. And it's true, they can't identify what they saw and it was flying. I subscribe to the philosophy that we won't know if there is technologically advanced, intelligent life elsewhere in the universe until we meet it. And since proving a negative is fraught with peril, all of the mental noodling regarding such life is simply that: noodling.
That isn't meant to be disrespectful. I recognize that there are many people, who are a lot smarter than I am, really trying to work ET out. But that can't ever be anything more than an entertaining pastime until we either meet aliens or have searched every corner of the universe and determined there isn't anything else out there.
Similar to all of the discussion throughout the ages about what happens after we die. There are many thoughts, some feel they know, but one person's truth may be another person's joke. I suspect we will all know the answer to that question long before the question of ET is answered...
In the meantime: :death:
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Despite Vyn putting a bleak outlook on the subject, I will say this:
100 years ago traveling and landing on the moon seemed impossible. Today it's like, been there, done that. Mars will be conquered next. Perhaps even a human colony. Beyond that, who can say? But I am sure it will require 2 things. A lot of time and an awful lot of money.
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To Vyn:
Yeah this might just be noodling but man it's very entertaining noodling! :D
To ZZZ:
FTL travel is essential for space exploration there is no doubt about that. How that is achieved is pretty much anyone's guess as human knowlage isn't quite there yet. Our science (at it's current point) doesn't even seem to know if it's possible.
I'm thinking the most logical and effective way to travel long distances would be through worm holes. But then again who knows...maybe sci-fi has been onto something with the whole hyperdrive thing....the thing is our science isn't there yet.
Despite Vyn putting a bleak outlook on the subject, I will say this:
100 years ago traveling and landing on the moon seemed impossible. Today it's like, been there, done that. Mars will be conquered next. Perhaps even a human colony. Beyond that, who can say? But I am sure it will require 2 things. A lot of time and an awful lot of money.
Yes that's the thing. Science goes forward pretty fast at times. Who knows what we have in the next 100 years. Ion drive engines for sure so the trip to Mars would just be a short few day flight. There will also be a permanent colonies on Mars and on the Moon...and mining operations on asteroids and we have visited the moons of Saturn.
This ofcourse if money isn't spent on futile wars here on earth.
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I wouldn't get my hopes up on FTL travel. It probably is unachievable. :(
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I wouldn't get my hopes up on FTL travel. It probably is unachievable. :(
Well the thing is IF we have already been visited by an alien race then it is not unachievable but very much possible... ;)
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I wouldn't get my hopes up on FTL travel. It probably is unachievable. :(
Well the thing is IF we have already been visited by an alien race then it is not unachievable but very much possible... ;)
Let me fix that statement for you:
Well the thing is IF we have already been visited by an alien race then it is not unachievable but very much possible. :smug:
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Another way to look at FTL travel is to consider that perhaps we're looking at the wrong thing. The numbers and theorems are what they are, but maybe we are missing something?
I'm not saying that real analysis points the way, but here is an example of what I mean:
Take an object that has a position. The first derivative with respect to time is velocity. Second derivative is acceleration. The third is jerk. The fourth is jounce.
Jounce is also known as snap, because the fifth and sixth derivatives of position with respect to time are known as crackle and pop.
It wasn't so long ago that we didn't know what jerk represented in the "real" world. It was just the result of a calculation, but we didn't have the perspective to apply it to anything. We didn't know what it meant.
Now we do. Jounce is kind of a known thing. Crackle and pop aren't.
That doesn't mean they are superfluous...perhaps something along those lines will unlock our space travelling potential.
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^^^^^^
Maybe you shouldn't comment during breakfast time. :P
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Physicists have a milky sense of humor :banana:
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I wouldn't get my hopes up on FTL travel. It probably is unachievable. :(
Well the thing is IF we have already been visited by an alien race then it is not unachievable but very much possible... ;)
Let me fix that statement for you:
Well the thing is IF we have already been visited by an alien race then it is not unachievable but very much possible. :smug:
Oh I see what you did there....It's a biiiiiig if....This cracked me up actually! :D
Vyn seems to have had too many bowls of Rice Krispies... ;D
There's a brand new study about a potential way of seeing whether a planet can have life or not:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1810/1810.05150.pdf (https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1810/1810.05150.pdf)
Basically it states that Earth once was more purple than green and that the color purple might indicate early forms of life on a planet. Very interesting.
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I wouldn't get my hopes up on FTL travel. It probably is unachievable. :(
Well the thing is IF we have already been visited by an alien race then it is not unachievable but very much possible... ;)
Let me fix that statement for you:
Well the thing is IF we have already been visited by an alien race then it is not unachievable but very much possible. :smug:
Oh I see what you did there....It's a biiiiiig if....This cracked me up actually! :D
Only took you 4 days to get it. :doh:
There's a brand new study about a potential way of seeing whether a planet can have life or not:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1810/1810.05150.pdf (https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1810/1810.05150.pdf)
Basically it states that Earth once was more purple than green and that the color purple might indicate early forms of life on a planet. Very interesting.
:think: Yes, that is interesting.
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Only took you 4 days to get it. :doh:
:rofl:
I did saw it earlier but wasn't able answer and then I completely forgot. :D
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Vyn seems to have had too many bowls of Rice Krispies... ;D
LOL
In my defense, all of that snap, crackle, and pop stuff is true - although snap tends to get referred to more nowadays as joust since engineers are finding more about what the number actually represents :)
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I did saw it earlier but wasn't able answer and then I completely forgot. :D
Charger speak like ape man.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/af/ApeMan.jpg)
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Me ape man? You Jane?
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Me ape man? You Jane?
Well you have got to admit, that grammar was pretty horrible.
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Well you have got to admit, that grammar was pretty horrible.
I've seen worse...I guess I've given too good of an impression of my grammar skills here then...
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Back to ET stuff...
There's also a question of FTL travel being a matter of transcending our space-time existence. What we transcend into, we don't know. Whoever transcended knows, and they're in a place we can't experience in any way until we stumble on the answer ourselves.
Put another way, what if we're not aware of ET life because all the life that we *could* be aware of is in a completely incomprehensible plane of existence. Once we can comprehend that plane of existence, then we get to meet the neighbors. And, in such a situation, we don't move around in spaceships necessarily. It could be that we just move in a way we can't possibly move now, and we're wherever we need to be in an instant.
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Put another way, what if we're not aware of ET life because all the life that we *could* be aware of is in a completely incomprehensible plane of existence. Once we can comprehend that plane of existence, then we get to meet the neighbors. And, in such a situation, we don't move around in spaceships necessarily. It could be that we just move in a way we can't possibly move now, and we're wherever we need to be in an instant.
I must fix another statement here:
Put another way, what if we're not aware of ET life because all the life that we *could* be aware of is in a completely incomprehensible plane of existence. Once we can comprehend that plane of existence, then we get to meet the neighbors. And, in such a situation, we don't move around in spaceships necessarily. It could be that we just move in a way we can't possibly move now, and we're wherever we need to be in an instant.
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Proof of E.T. life...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1pMMIe4hb4
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Had another thought... we may already be receiving transmissions from other advanced civilizations, but are too stupid to realize what we've got.
Or the advanced civilizations are, themselves, not all that advanced in their thinking. Humans may not have a monopoly on stupidity...
I can imagine the other-world civilization's scientists discussing how they want to reach out to us...
"We could send them a radio signal of perfectly crafted random noise. Only a truly advanced civilization such as we have is capable of algorithms that create true random numbers. Once they get the random noise, they'll respond in kind and we will have a mutually beneficial relationship."
Or...
"We only need to fly by a few people with our advanced vehicles. Once they get a glimpse, it'll be obvious how to copy them and what they need to do to come visit us."
Or...
"We'll send our representative, David Bowie. He'll drop hints about being a "star man" and they'll all get their act together and have a golden age of technological development. We just need to make sure that David Bowie never gets any cocaine, or the mission will go off the rails..."
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Alien Probe!
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/06/health/oumuamua-alien-probe-harvard-intl/index.html (https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/06/health/oumuamua-alien-probe-harvard-intl/index.html)
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Alien Probe!
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/06/health/oumuamua-alien-probe-harvard-intl/index.html (https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/06/health/oumuamua-alien-probe-harvard-intl/index.html)
At first, it was a comet-like object, even though it had no tail...
... and then, it accelerated.
:whatudo:
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Alien Probe!
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/06/health/oumuamua-alien-probe-harvard-intl/index.html (https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/06/health/oumuamua-alien-probe-harvard-intl/index.html)
We gotta catch it!!!
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The NASA "Curiosity Rover" has been working on Mars for a few years now. Here is a beautifully animated video of its trip to Mars, and the method NASA used to land there successfully. Truly a marvel of engineering.
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Indeed! That little bugger has been quite the marvel....It's been great looking at all the pics it has sent over the years!
And InSight's landing was perfect too just a while ago...and 2 new rovers are being planned.
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The latest picture transmitted from the Curiosity Rover:
(https://www.coolinterestingnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/aliens-on-mars.jpg)
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^^^^^^
Now cut that out! :squint:
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:rofl:
You guys crack me up!
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Meanwhile, the debate over the proper value for Hubble's Constant is starting to heat up, with three different values to deal with.
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Mercury Transits The Sun Today
On the morning of Monday, November 11, 2019, the planet Mercury will transit the Sun for the first time since 2016. The transit of a planet across the face of the Sun is a relatively rare occurrence since, as seen from Earth, only transits of Mercury and Venus are possible—those being the only two planets within the inner solar system and closer to the sun than our own. There are only about 13 transits of Mercury each century, and while it’s only been three years since the last transit, the next one isn’t for another 20!
Why is there such an irregularity and scarcity to being able to see these transits? The answer has two parts. First is that Mercury’s orbit is very fast—just 88 (Earth) days compared to our 365. As it whips around the sun, we lumber along, which makes it hard to align our orbits. Second is a larger part in the answer, and that is because the planets in our solar system don’t follow the same orbital plane, meaning the solar system isn’t flat like a plate, as many illustrations suggest. Relative to our orbital plane, Mercury’s is pitched at an angle. When you combine these two factors, you have a fast-moving planet that comes in at an oblique angle to ours, so it’s very rare that our position lines up with the sun both in our orbits and in our orbital planes.
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I was gonna take my telescope out to watch that BUT the cloud coverage was 100% here so no luck.
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Check this out, a new robot being worked on that will some day replace soldiers and police. C:-)
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Check this out, a new robot being worked on that will some day replace soldiers and police. C:-)
Since I do security, my thoughts immediately go to asking questions about what would cause this robot soldier to wind up in a friendly fire situation. Both code errors and external compromise of communications come to mind, but what about these would be different from current soldiering?
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Robots will one day replace soldiers and police officers too I have no doubt about that. Atleast in the most dangerous areas. The problem with them ofcourse is that what if they would turn on their masters? When AI becomes fully sentient it might decide one day that man is the root of all evil and just eradicate us all. Especially if any kind of environmentalist codes are written into it.
Fascinating stuff this all in all but has NOTHING to do with this topic though... ;D
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Robots will one day replace soldiers and police officers too I have no doubt about that. Atleast in the most dangerous areas. The problem with them ofcourse is that what if they would turn on their masters? When AI becomes fully sentient it might decide one day that man is the root of all evil and just eradicate us all. Especially if any kind of environmentalist codes are written into it.
Fascinating stuff this all in all but has NOTHING to do with this topic though... ;D
You just described a possibility of robots turning on their masters, so how far is that from other forms of life?
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Robots will one day replace soldiers and police officers too I have no doubt about that. Atleast in the most dangerous areas. The problem with them ofcourse is that what if they would turn on their masters? When AI becomes fully sentient it might decide one day that man is the root of all evil and just eradicate us all. Especially if any kind of environmentalist codes are written into it.
Fascinating stuff this all in all but has NOTHING to do with this topic though... ;D
You just described a possibility of robots turning on their masters, so how far is that from other forms of life?
They'd still be TERRESTRIAL though... ;)
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Robots will one day replace soldiers and police officers too I have no doubt about that. Atleast in the most dangerous areas. The problem with them ofcourse is that what if they would turn on their masters? When AI becomes fully sentient it might decide one day that man is the root of all evil and just eradicate us all. Especially if any kind of environmentalist codes are written into it.
Fascinating stuff this all in all but has NOTHING to do with this topic though... ;D
You just described a possibility of robots turning on their masters, so how far is that from other forms of life?
They'd still be TERRESTRIAL though... ;)
So are UFOs. :smug:
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Robots will one day replace soldiers and police officers too I have no doubt about that. Atleast in the most dangerous areas. The problem with them ofcourse is that what if they would turn on their masters? When AI becomes fully sentient it might decide one day that man is the root of all evil and just eradicate us all. Especially if any kind of environmentalist codes are written into it.
Fascinating stuff this all in all but has NOTHING to do with this topic though... ;D
You just described a possibility of robots turning on their masters, so how far is that from other forms of life?
They'd still be TERRESTRIAL though... ;)
So are UFOs. :smug:
Some are most certainly...some might not be. We simply do not know....and that is the fact of it.
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Robots will one day replace soldiers and police officers too I have no doubt about that. Atleast in the most dangerous areas. The problem with them ofcourse is that what if they would turn on their masters? When AI becomes fully sentient it might decide one day that man is the root of all evil and just eradicate us all. Especially if any kind of environmentalist codes are written into it.
Fascinating stuff this all in all but has NOTHING to do with this topic though... ;D
You just described a possibility of robots turning on their masters, so how far is that from other forms of life?
They'd still be TERRESTRIAL though... ;)
So are UFOs. :smug:
Some are most certainly...some might not be. We simply do not know....and that is the fact of it.
:)) When you find one that isn't, you let me know.
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Robots will one day replace soldiers and police officers too I have no doubt about that. Atleast in the most dangerous areas. The problem with them ofcourse is that what if they would turn on their masters? When AI becomes fully sentient it might decide one day that man is the root of all evil and just eradicate us all. Especially if any kind of environmentalist codes are written into it.
Fascinating stuff this all in all but has NOTHING to do with this topic though... ;D
You just described a possibility of robots turning on their masters, so how far is that from other forms of life?
They'd still be TERRESTRIAL though... ;)
So are UFOs. :smug:
Some are most certainly...some might not be. We simply do not know....and that is the fact of it.
:)) When you find one that isn't, you let me know.
That's a deal..
This is actually a pretty good candiate for one....so says the US military too.
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^^^^^^
It's China! :)
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Didn't know China had gotten that much ahead of everyone else technology wise... :think:
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Well, there can be a number of explanations... my favorite one comes from Brian Blessed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuG9RqEfNl4
Go to 3:20, it goes for about a minute and ends with, "You must understand, a lot of very brave men are defending this country."
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Wow...that guy sounds like he's running on something else than just "wee cup of tea"! :D
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Brian Blessed is one amazing guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP11L9jRW94
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Back to the main topic... while we may not have proof of life outside of Earth, we have proof of the building blocks of life outside of Earth:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ribose-sugar-needed-life-has-been-detected-meteorites
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Gonna gravedig, because there is some really interesting news:
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/alien-life-stars-solar-system-proxima-centauri-b1768663.html
Looks like ionizing radiation would wipe out life in the (otherwise) habitable zone around red dwarf systems. That would cut way back on the number of stars that could support life, since red dwarves make up a fairly large chunk of the stars out there.
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Unless, I say UNLESS, ionizing radiation is actually the lifeblood of our future alien overlords! :banana: :banana:
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Unless, I say UNLESS, ionizing radiation is actually the lifeblood of our future alien overlords! :banana: :banana:
OH SHI-
(static)