On the hunt for aliens...*UPDATED* Amazing news!!!

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** SUSPENDED ** Joined: 26 Mar 2005 Posts: 1267

I refuse to believe in Aliens, The only aliens I saw were new born babies.

Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 2:17 am

You was a newborn at one time.

About a hundred years ago. Razz

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

Hekate wrote:

Sorry

Don't be. I sit corrected, it appears I am hopelessly out of date. Time to do some reading.

Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 8:49 am

I think that's => C, not => c.

Big C is the Hubble constant - I think it has something to do with the mass of the universe at which it changes from ever expanding to it's expansion slowing and then the universe contracting to a singularity then the next big bang.

Little c is of course the speed of light.

Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 9:29 am

/\

Hubble's constant is written as H0. Capacitance is designated by (capital) C

Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 2:15 pm

What strikes me most about life on earth is how durable and inevitable it seems to be. No matter how many times meteors, climate change, atmospheric change, massive eruptions, etc. have brought life to the brink of annihilation, it innovates and sparks back to abundance.

In one way of thinking, life may just be a peculiar quality of matter. After all, there is no difference between the atoms that make up living organisms, and the atoms that make up inanimate objects. In fact, the very same atoms are continuously recycled to make both.

But if you consider the chain of events that must have occurred to effect the transition from little bags of chemicals to self-replicating cells acting in cooperation to produce complex organisms, it is mind bogglingly unlikely.

There is life elsewhere in the universe, but I�m not holding my breath that it will be found in my lifetime. Luckily, the stuff I�m made of will be here long after I�m gone, so I can take comfort in knowing some part of me will be around to see it all.

Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 6:13 pm

I think that when they're talking about C, they mean the speed of light.

** SUSPENDED ** Joined: 26 Mar 2005 Posts: 1267

coronalight wrote:

You was a newborn at one time.

About a hundred years ago. Razz

I was never a newborn, I've been living on earth for 200,000 years.

Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 6:38 pm

I started this thread coz we're looking for little green men in silver suits and it's gone all ejucshonal on me Sad

** SUSPENDED ** Joined: 26 Mar 2005 Posts: 1267

Just look at the moderators, they're all aliens.

Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 6:53 pm

Quote:

I started this thread coz we're looking for little green men in silver suits and it's gone all ejucshonal on me

The problem is it's taking too long to find them. Had they been found since you started the thread, we'd be talking about the best way to make protective tinfoil hats. Or did we cover that anyway?

Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 6:56 pm

^^Actually, we have found them. They're very nice and drink Earls grey tea.
They don't like praline chocolate though.

(Or was that the new neighbours...?)

Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 7:00 pm

But how do you know they qualify as intelligent life? Do they have a radio?

Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 7:45 pm

Radden,
You were born an adult.
It's in the joke of the day thread titled "Birth." Those that saw it will have to agree that it is you. Laughing

I did not save it and now the link won't do. Confused

Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 9:19 pm

coronalight, please don't take offense at this, but did you read this thread or are you just following Radden around? Wink

Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 10:24 pm

Both, he was following me on another thread.

Don't remember what it was. Confused

Looking for a reason to beat his butt. Laughing

Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 12:54 am

(like you need a reason) Wink

Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 4:17 am

ufffffffff ....... no chatting

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

I've just had my car broken into and the stereo nicked, so I need something to occupy my mind.

Here is my pesimistic take on the probabilities. Put your own values in, and see what you come up with.

Chance of a star being capable of supporting life: 25%
Chance of there being a planetary system around that star: 50%
Chance of there being a planet at the right distance from the sun: 25%
Chance of that planet developing a life supporting environment: 100%
(If it's there, I believe it will have the right elements etc.)
Chance of life evolving on that planet: 1%
Chance of life evolving to sentience: 1%
Chance of sentience evolving to intelligence: 10%
Chance of intelligent life having developed communication ability: 50%
Chance of intelligent life not developed beyond meaningful communication ability: 100ppm

Number of stars in our galaxy: 100 x 10^9
Number of galaxies in the Universe: 100 x 10^9

Multiply them all together (1.56 x 10^-12) and you get the chances of there being a race of ETs that we can talk to.

So in our galaxy there might be:
31,250,000 planets supporting life
312,500 planets supporting sentient life
31,250 planets supporting intelligent life
15,625 planets supporting life capable of communicating
0.15625 planets supporting life not developed beyond communicating

So in this galaxy there probably isn't anyone to talk to, but in the universe there are 16 billion races of about our capability.

My optimistic take would be:
Chance of life evolving on that planet: 10%
Chance of life evolving to sentience: 10%
Chance of sentience evolving to intelligence: 25%

Which puts the number of communicating races in our galaxy at 39; still too few for any to be close enough for SETI to discover - the galaxy is 100,000 lightyears across. There would be 312,500,000 planets supporting life in the galaxy, but only one in the 300 stars closest to us.

Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 12:23 pm

/\

Damn sorry about the car thud.

I just got a new Peugoet 307 - fully loaded .... re-dicsovering the saying about the new car/new wife

Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 12:33 pm

^^

Isaac Asimov worte a great book about this. I used it in a thesis at high school. Can't remember what it's called though. Anyway, he also ended up with something close to those numbers.

Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 1:42 pm

Zorro wrote:

ufffffffff ....... no chatting

Sorry, the post whores are running naked through the halls. Someone should shut that door. Wink

@thud419 I think you're being generous, but those are impressively small numbers, given the size of our galaxy. I recall reading something about the odds against amino acids self-assembling into useful (life enabling) proteins. I'll see if I can dig it up.

Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 11:21 am

... yeah, and we haven't even touched on dark matter and its effect on post whoring

Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 12:03 pm

Dark Matter? Pah...
Everyone knows that the unaccounted mass of the universe is made up of SP's posts...
Laughing

Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 6:12 pm

Ah, amino acids! finally something I can understand...
I started off my college career as a human molecular genetics major, hoping to go into medical research. One of my intro genetics classes was discussing how life came about. Of course you had your religious fanatics on one side and your scientific cynics on the other, blah blah blah. My prof had a great research paper copied off for all of us, I'll have to see if I can dig it up somewhere. It was written by a group of scientists who set up an experiment to see if they could create life; they tried to replicate everything as best as they possible could, regulating the temperature, maintaining moisture, etc. etc. After a while they found that they had indeed created amino acids! But no matter what else they did after that, they simply could not get the amino acids to create proteins. That was the magical step that they simply couldn't get past without outside help. Gave both groups of students something to brag about Smile

er, what was the question again?

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