I see someone is familiar with the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy!
Did God cough hard at the crucial moment?
- Thread starter bathsheba666
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I see someone is familiar with the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy!
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
If I had to pick one person to hitchhike with around the galaxy with, it'd have to be some sort of a cute female who is intelligent and witty. But if she couldn't go, I'd ask you. Just don't forget to bring your own towel.
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
"Trillions of intelligent life" is a very large assumption. The universe is not infinite. It depends on the confluence required to bring about the observed situation. It is plausible that we are alone.
Even assuming intelligent life is common, no one said the attention was exclusive. The Christian Bible talks of other unknown peoples.
J
Bartleby
Remembers laughter
Isobutyronitrile doesn't sound too bad, though.
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
Borachio
Way past lunacy
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Which is a really strange number. Because that's about the number of atoms in the known universe, iirc.
So, at an average of 1 to a m^3, there's practically nothing in the Universe at all. Especially as that one atom is mostly space itself.
(Actually, I'm very surprised by that figure, I thought the known Universe was a lot smaller. I could work it out, though. The size of the Universe is calculated from the speed of light 3 x 10^8 m/s for 1.3 billion years? Which gives you its radius, and then you want 4/3*pi*radius^2 to give you the volume. For an order of magnitude, I'd just square the radius and multiply by 4, I think. But that's not including relativistic effects, so I guess I don't know.)
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
Borachio
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Wow! That was a mistake and a half, and no mistake. Yes. Cube it.
But mightn't multiplying by four sometimes tip you over into the next order of magnitude up? Not that it matters. 10^80 is a really large number anyway. And 10^81 is a mere 10 times bigger.
But mightn't multiplying by four sometimes tip you over into the next order of magnitude up? Not that it matters. 10^80 is a really large number anyway. And 10^81 is a mere 10 times bigger.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
We don't know whether it's infinite or not, actually.
A lot of Christians say that we are God's chosen species and that he even has a special people, the Jews, who he pays special attention to.
Borachio
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The observable universe is certainly finite. But that may not be the same thing as the Universe. In fact, it undoubtedly isn't. But the Universe itself may also be finite, or it may be infinite. We can't know what we can't know, can we? Or can't we?
I would say it is possible that we are alone, but far from likely. With 1023 out there it seems extremely likely that some others would have 'got lucky' like the sun.
Borachio
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But that presumes you know how likely an event the development of life is. I don't think anyone knows this. Or can even make a guess at it.
The discovery of amino acids, or whatever, in a cloud of intergalactic dust might make it more likely, but more likely than how likely? It seems an imponderable question.
The discovery of amino acids, or whatever, in a cloud of intergalactic dust might make it more likely, but more likely than how likely? It seems an imponderable question.
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
I'm excited to hear scientists have discovered the universe is not infinite. I thought that was still up for grabs. Can you link me to the research OneJ?
Domen
Misico dux Vandalorum
The universe is around 13,800,000,000 years old and we are an "intelligent life" for ca. 0,001 percent of this time. We have urbanization for less than 0,0001 percent of this time. What is the chance that we exist in exactly the same tiny fraction of the history of the universe as another intelligent life ???
Domen
Misico dux Vandalorum
Check the Rare Earth equation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis#Rare_Earth_equation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis#Rare_Earth_equation
Check and dismiss. There are a lot of assumptions in there, and if case you haven't noticed, scientists are always revising their models about solar systems based on new discoveries. "We didn't think this was possible. We have to totally rethink what we thought." Heard that more than once as they make new discoveries.
The rare earth equation looks at the number of intelligent species within the Milky Way, with the conservative estimates putting the figure at 1. It does not take into account the billions of other galaxies out there.
The problem here is scale: 1023 (an estimate for the number of stars in the universe) is a mind-bogglingly huge number. The chance of life developing in a given star system is bound to be incredibly low, but given the number of star systems out there it really doesn't matter.
Of course, we'll never meet any of these other species, so the conversation is somewhat moot.
The problem here is scale: 1023 (an estimate for the number of stars in the universe) is a mind-bogglingly huge number. The chance of life developing in a given star system is bound to be incredibly low, but given the number of star systems out there it really doesn't matter.
Of course, we'll never meet any of these other species, so the conversation is somewhat moot.
We actually don't know if it is or is not. Best evidence is that the universe is at least 1,000,000x larger than our observable universe. If it were larger, we'd not be able to tell, since that number is generated from measurements that only have so much accuracy. Best we can do is give a minimum known size
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