| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/3/2008 10:04:19 PM | I would appreciate anyones knowledge or comments on why we haven't found any form of life as we know it or even a radio signal (referred to as a beacon in amateur radio terminology) in spite of the fact that we have searched and listened for quite a few years already. Not even a sign of life in meteor remnants or in the polar caps. Did anyone ever think of the possibility that we are all alone in space and any life that may me out there is actually from the one spot where there is life. Not a theoretical life but a life as we know it? I am starting a new thread because I cannot be accused of getting off subject if I am the threader(new word for the Y generation dudes) . Let us try to be civil and not do these nasty things to the people that are kind enough to get a little off subject to help me with my research. These are the things that we must not do on my thread:      Is this OK? Daniel | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/3/2008 11:20:06 PM | Well as one very famous writter had stated, that is an awfully big waste of space...
What if they have, and just haven't let the info out of the bag... Seems like they would, but then again who knows...
When you consider how far the nearest galaxy that is like earth, perhaps the distance is just to dang far...Besides why would they want to come visit, this place is nothing but hate, discontent and unhappiness of every type... Geez if your neighbors are like that, do you feel inclined to go visit them? | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/3/2008 11:48:23 PM | You have to try to grasp just how big the Universe is. Most people can't. The fact is we are discovering new planents within our galaxy all the time. Most of them are giants like Jupiter, but some have 'Earth like' qualities based on size and distance from it's sun (the life zone). Locally, the best bet for a type of life form IMO is Jupiters moon Europa. It is an icy place, but it's endothermic. Meaning it's core generates heat, much like the Earth. Scientest believe there are vast oceans beneath Europas frozen surface that could sustain life. Without the sun? Sure. Just look at where we have discovered life right here where the sun is never seen. At the bottom of the ocean near volcanic vents.
Have you heard of the Drake equation?
N = N* fp ne fl fi fc fL
It is a probabilty equation devloped by SETI member Frank Drake that calculates the chances of there being intelligent life in our Universe. The numbers are actually very astounding. Have a look:
http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/SETI/drake_equation.html | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/4/2008 12:48:16 AM | | I'm with nexthyme. Not only would I avoid that planet, but I'd tell any other civilizations I knew of to steer clear of the third rock from the sun. | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/4/2008 3:28:06 AM | to give an idea of the incredible distance between stars, one just has to realize that if we could see every star in existence, then the night sky would be a sheet of starlight. the reason its not, is because the stars we dont see have not been in existence long enough for their light to travel to the earth.
now if one considers the speed of light with the relative slowness of the speed of radio waves, the amount of radio waves that reach eart from distant stars is tiny in comparison to what is out there. | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/4/2008 4:13:41 AM |
It is a probabilty equation devloped by SETI member Frank Drake that calculates the chances of there being intelligent life in our Universe. The numbers are actually very astounding. Have a look:
I'm reading the God Delusion right now by Richard Dawkins and he mentions this Drake formula. The problem with it is that each variable is unknown or estimated with high margins of error. Therefore, that particular equation results in a solution with also a high error margin.
That's not to say that I would use that as proof there is no intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, just that we're not yet in a position to calculate the probabilityof that using a mathematical equation.
Logically speaking, I would say that the chance of there being life elsewhere outweighs the chances of there not being life elsewhere just because of the vastness of the universe.
I think I read recently that the signal sent out to space to indicate that there is intelligent life on Earth dissipates quite quickly and therefore would not have time to reach any other intelligent lifeforms, so we're no further ahead than before we started sending the signal.
Also, given the distances involved in the universe and the difficulties in travelling over such a distance, it's improbable that any being would make it here in their lifetime. It would have to be a multigenerational effort or they'd have to break the space - time barrier, in which case they would probably be so advanced to us that we might not even recognize them as beings such as ourselves. | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/4/2008 5:06:59 AM | 1) There aren't any. The Drake equation is just a made-up formula, so it has no real basis in reality. Even if it was a real equation, it just shows there is a good chance that life could exist on other planets. This universe could break the odds.
2) They don't want to visit Earth. Let's face it: we're still committing attrocities. Would you want to visit a planet where rape and murder are commonplace?
3) They don't want to contact us. Maybe they have a Prime Directive of Non-Interference, like Star Trek?
4) They don't want to contact the general population. Maybe they are slowly introducing us to the concept of aliens, via alien abductions. Maybe the Inquirer is really there to promote alien awareness?
5) The government doesn't want us to know. After all, if the aliens had an energy source other than oil, what would that do to OPEC, the USA and the dollar? | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/4/2008 6:05:22 AM | | The theory that alien life wouldn't want to visit us because we're too violent is, in an obscure way, egotistical. That presupposes that an alien race would take the time to evaluate our society and values, which is doubtful. To an advanced race, we probably wouldn't be important enough to give that level of thought to. It would be like our trying to understand the emotional maturity of the amoeba. If the differences are vast enough between two species, which would be likely if an alien lifeform made it to Earth, a common understanding probably wouldn't exist and therefore there would be no value judgements. | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/4/2008 7:11:32 AM | | we dont know what to listen for. Just because we use radio waves doesnt mean they would. Also the distance involved would take millions of years possibly to reach us. We could rise and fall as a race but if our search time doesnt match the rise of the other race and the time needed for radio waves to get here we wouldnt detect them either. | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/4/2008 8:19:06 PM | | OK, now I started this thread and I see that we are getting some very good input and there is nothing to argue about because no one has any mathematical formula. The real brains and genius people have all just made comments and any one of their thoughts may be right. I was just informed that someone(didn't catch the name) attempted to describe infinity as in how long God has or will exist. He devoted his life to trying to write a formula and eventually went nuts. Our intelligence will never understand the distance of space because there is probably not a brick wall that it all ends at. Infinity can best be described as going around in a circle. There is never an end. Carl Sagan who I loved to watch on his Cosmos series I think on discovery channel who kept saying "billions and billions of galaxies" said the probability of life as we know it on another planet were a big ZERO. I am not quoting him exactly, but I do remember him saying it. Another way to look at it is that our whole cosmos as we know it is only a tiny atom of another planet in another cosmos. Picture looking into a mirror with another mirror behind you. You are looking at infinity. It just gets smaller and smaller and smaller in your view. This is as good of a non mathematical formula as you will get anywhere. And the circle is , and also the figure 8 sideways . Try the mirror thing. You will see infinity with your own eyes. My thoughts are that possibly there was a Big Bang, just as you make a diamond by smashing a big stone and all the pieces go flying with the perfect stone left. And I believe that is Mother Earth. We are busy looking for another planet to screw up when we can't take care of the gem we already have. To the gal that stated that there is nothing but hate and all here. It may appear that way, but there is also an opposing force called love. Hate makes the news as in wars, killings, rape, child molestation etc. Love is out there. It is everywhere but we must learn to recognize it and emulate it. Did you ever see a little child hating anyone? Whether we like it or not we are the caretaker of the oppressed and all the rules just got a little more formal after a non military place of employment with women, children, office workers, water cooler delivery guys, ups guys, bankers, brokers, clerks, secretaries, policemen, firemen, people walking within a couple hundred feet from the Trade Center bldgs. were murdered by thugs. As Vladimir Putin said(Man of the year in Time Magazine for 2007) to the rebels in Russia, we will find you wherever you are even if you are in your outhouse. Look where we found Sapfaced Hussein the father of all thugs. This is not hate. It is love for your country and love for your women and children and elderly who cannot protect themselves. Now I am getting off the subject slightly but as I have stated, this may be all we have and if we do find another planet with life, it may be worse than ours. Do you think a soldier likes to get shot at or a policeman shot at or a fireman burned saving someone? No. I know because I served 3 years in the Marine Corps and quite a few years as a Captain in the busiest Fire Station between New York and Chicago. (Cleveland Ohio) Sure we got paid, but if you ever saw what we dealt with on a day to day basis you would see what love is when a grown man breaks down in tears when 7 children perish is a house fire and you have to ask your men to get the body bags and shovels. This is reality. You cannot pick up what is left. If this makes you ill, how do you thing the ones that perished felt? What do you think it was when hundreds of police and firemen rushed up hundreds and hundreds of stairs to try to save people knowing that they probably wouldn't make it out. This is love. Trust me. Daniel | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/4/2008 11:24:33 PM | Hmmmmm interesting about Carl Sagan saying zero, but then again you say that he said "like us"....
It was his book, and in the movie Contact where Jody Foster's character says that it would be a big was of space if there wasn't life out there.
As for the rest of the direction you are going with your thread...Ummmmm huh???
Sorry but that seems like a whole new thread...
What you described is not pretty... Was an X ray tech for many years, we work all over the hospital including x raying SID babies, murdered, dead for who knows how long...
I get your point on it could be worse than ours... Sad thing is, man kind is a lot like a cancer, we take over land, and just keep on invading... There isn't much thought when the rain forest were being mowed down. City upon city sprawling out in all directions...
How do you teach a cancer to be good to its host? | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/5/2008 12:43:18 AM | | Sending a radio signal was more for 'show' than anything else. It would take ~100,000 years for a radio signal response to reach us from halfway across the galaxy. I don't think we'll be waiting around with our radio antennas in 100,000 years. We'll be able to show up on their doorstep long before that signal ever gets there anyways. | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/5/2008 2:17:54 AM | Assuming a communication via light speed transmission it would take nearly 100,000 years for one of our signals to reach to opposite side of the galaxy, to the nearest galaxy (Andromeda) 2 million years.
To say there isn't /wasn't any intelligent life in any of the universe except here is an ignorant assumption in my point of view. The Earth has been here for an estimated 4.5 billion years, the last estimate of the age of the universe is 13.73 billion years old, and the last estimated 93 billion light years in size. If we sent a signal out in all 360 degrees when the Earth was first created, it's only have touched 4% of the known universe and have taken 32% of the time the universe has existed to do that. That's assuming that big cloud of asteroids, meteors, and comets at the edge of our solar system (Oort Cloud) doesn't trap or reflect any of the signals.
That's one thing I don't think a lot of people take into consideration when wondering why we have contacted aliens or been contacted by them. The Oort Cloud is this monstrous cloud surrounding the solar system in a spherical shape, inside the cloud is billions of asteroids, comets, and meteors. If I had a spaceship and I was faced with going through that or moving on to another solar system, I think I'd move on due to self preservation instincts. It'd be like driving down a road while someone was launching hundreds of rocks the size of your vehicle at you, you'd need a lot of luck and some very high powered computer assistance to get through it alive. I've always been surprised we get any star light from other systems with the amount of debris floating around our solar system.
Who knows, there could be some aliens out in that cloud mining the precious ore and rocks that those asteroids are comprised of. | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/5/2008 7:01:41 AM | Since what we know and understand about space, and science in general changes every single day, I propose that the alternate universe or parallel universe theory is just as valid as any other. In that case there may be thousands, or even millions of universes, slightly out of phase, alternate realities paralleling our own. As there is no proof that they do or cannot exist, it is a possibility that cannot be ruled out. It is also a concept I find exceptionally intriguing. A world or more than one, just like our earth with the same populations that have developed on completely divergent ways from our own. That there is another Tricia on these different worlds that has experienced a life so alien to my own  that it is unimaginable is only pseudo science at best, but what a galaxy of ideas that allows! What we know and have gotten right can probably be balanced on the point of a pin. Exciting times ahead if we continue in space travel and exploration. What a rush! 
It has been only a short time since the world was flat, look how accurate that turned out to be, falling off the edge of the known world.... Sun revolved around the earth was accepted for centuried.... Common knowledge and accepted doctrine have gone the way of those other proven knowledge, cannot wait to say  to all the other misconceptions!
As a SciFi fan, I am always amused at how our scientific development validates much of what was fantastic and unbelievable only a few short years ago. How bizarre and exciting.
Tricia  | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/5/2008 7:15:50 AM | I believe their is life out there, but we could be alone and as far as I am aware with the evidence we have we are alone.
But, if life is out there who is to say that we are not the most technologically advanced species in the entire universe? maybe every other form of life are like the other species on this planet. Maybe we are unique in our use of technology. | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/5/2008 7:24:31 AM | I want to believe!
In space, but not time. In fact, if you stood in one place long enough, outside of space looking in, you'd see yourself coming over the horizon. Yup. Another universe overlapping this one (according to the laws of probability). Knowing there are countless universes where each one is slightly different than the others, it's a little unnerving to think that some would experience ultimate joy, while another would experience ultimate pain.
The drake equation is interesting, but if you get serious and be a little less optimistic, you might find 1.5 intelligent societies in each galaxy. Hey' that's us!! The numbers are just too arbitrary for me.
Even if there are millions of civilisations, the distances make them as redundant as the fourth dimension. Sure it exists, but so what? I can't make my toast there.
If anything, receiving a radio signal from a long dead civilization would tell us that we're not *as much an aberration of nature as we thought. If it did happen, I suspect the Urantia Foundation would probably become a bit more popular. (http://www.urantia.org/detail.html)
Sure it's possible we can discover how to fold space, but I think we're much more likely to shrink the planet to the size of a pea with the Large Hadron Collider first.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/science/29collider.html?_r=1&oref=slogin | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/5/2008 8:39:03 AM | Sending a radio signal was more for 'show' than anything else. It would take ~100,000 years for a radio signal response to reach us from halfway across the galaxy. I don't think we'll be waiting around with our radio antennas in 100,000 years. We'll be able to show up on their doorstep long before that signal ever gets there anyways.
I was referring to listening for an intelligible radio signal rather then sending one. In West Va. (not sure of city but I can find out from my sister in law) there is a huge listening dish type antenna up in the mountains. If you live anywhere within a certain distance you aren't allowed to use a lot of different electrical devices that we take for granted. If you do they find you with directional signal locator's and you are stopped. Also to the nurse gal I forgot to include the nurses and many others with jobs that are very difficult but appreciated by those that need the help, also teachers and all. All under paid but I wanted to make a point about my thoughts that we may be the only planet with (INTELLIGENT ) life specifically. I had no intentions of turning this into an Al Gore platform driving around in a hybrid car preaching about what we already should know. | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/5/2008 8:45:53 AM | The Oort Cloud is this monstrous cloud surrounding the solar system in a spherical shape, inside the cloud is billions of asteroids, comets, and meteors.
Thank you for your collaboration on my theory of a sphere. With the vastness of space the particles of dust in the form of galaxies could actually be considered a solid sheet of glass or a prism, thereby giving us the curvature that all the experts can't deal with. Now we may have something going. And what better place to start it than on a cupid type dating site. ask Trish | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/5/2008 4:27:43 PM |
Well as one very famous writter had stated, that is an awfully big waste of space
agree is just too dam big !!!!!!!!!!! | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/5/2008 6:27:32 PM | See, now that I set the rules of no   This thread needs no moderator. The intelligent responses are way to cool for the one liner dudes to rebuke. I would like to explain relativity as simply as I did infinity with the 2 mirrors. Go in front of your big bathroom mirror. Take a hand held type mirror and hold it behind you so you can see yourself in the mirror in front of you. You will not only see infinity but also relativity. Why does the image keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller until you cannot see it any more? They mirrors are staying the same distance apart, so why would the image appear as though it is further and further away. This my friends is an explanation of the Theory of Relativity for the New Millennium in a way that Einstein himself said should be able to be understood by a barmaid. No math involved. It can't be proved with math and they know it. They just want to have us think that they are way too brilliant to speak in our everyday language. And do you know what. I am just beginning. I have much more to show how all these strange named things like quasars, pulsars, halos, black holes, dwarf stars, dark matter, red shift, blue shift, curvature of space time, quantum mechanics, solar flares, gravitational forces or the lack thereof, atoms, neutrons, electrons and on and on. All such fancy names and mathematical formulas that take up the whole blackboard. Einstein himself stated that if you have to explain it like this, you really don't understand it well enough. Daniel -----Can I do this now | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/5/2008 11:14:39 PM |
now if one considers the speed of light with the relative slowness of the speed of radio waves, the amount of radio waves that reach eart from distant stars is tiny in comparison to what is out there. [\quote]
Surely you must be aware that light and radio waves are the same phenomena and therefore travel at the same speed? Light is just what we call the visible portion of the electro-magnetic spectrum, the wavelengths that stimulate our retinas to produce signals that are sent to the brain. | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/6/2008 8:19:13 PM | | I am also well versed in radio band widths, having held a technicians class radio liscense for a little over 11 years. I had to read the book on it one time to get a perfect score on all the specifications on bandwidths, radio frequencies, diodes, rectifiers, Yagi antennas and all the other goodies, therefore I cannot be confused with the facts. Your fellow student, Daniel | |
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| We are all alone in space and time.
Posted: 5/6/2008 8:20:26 PM | Hi there dan. Well, you praised my knowledge in astronomy in another thread so I think I'll pipe in here. A lot of what you write in your follow-up post I can't add to since I can only agree that, as a species, we're flawed. As concious living beings, we are capable of great feats and terrible atrocities. The rest is details and opinion.
On the issue of life in the universe, I think it's fair to estimate that "life" in the sense of energy consuming, replicating and growing creatures, be it sloths or bacteria or who knows what, is likely abundant in the universe and in some surprising and unimagined forms and environments. In fact, turn radio and visual telescopes toward anywhere in the cosmos and you are going to find all the building blocks from the basics of carbon, oxygen and water to more complex molecules that are the building blocks of protein.
As for a "new Theory of Relativity," don't worry. The current one works quite well. Yes, it is expressed mathematically - something you don't seem to hold in much esteem, if I read your posts right - but it is quantifiable and confirmable and has been observed from an early 20th Century in which a star's position in the sky was "displaced" by the curvature of spacetime around the sun to modern GPS that have to take time dilation into consideration. Mirror effects and looking at the universe askance and through unfocused won't do.
As for making Relativity understandable to the masses, Einstein was actually quite good at that through the use of "thought experiments." In fact, one of his most famous quotes is "Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it will feel like 10 minutes. Sit on a hot oven, and 10 seconds will feel like an hour. That's Relativity."
I get it. | |
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