From the UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER:
Are humans unique and alone in the vast universe? This question– summed up in the famous Drake equation — has for a half-century been one of the most intractable and uncertain in science.
But a new paper shows that the recent discoveries of exoplanets combined with a broader approach to the question makes it possible to assign a new empirically valid probability to whether any other advanced technological civilizations have ever existed.
And it shows that unless the odds of advanced life evolving on a habitable planet are astonishingly low, then human kind is not the universe’s first technological, or advanced, civilization.
The paper, to be published in Astrobiology, also shows for the first time just what “pessimism” or “optimism” mean when it comes to estimating the likelihood of advanced extraterrestrial life.
“The question of whether advanced civilizations exist elsewhere in the universe has always been vexed with three large uncertainties in the Drake equation,” said Adam Frank, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester and co-author of the paper. “We’ve known for a long time approximately how many stars exist. We didn’t know how many of those stars had planets that could potentially harbor life, how often life might evolve and lead to intelligent beings, and how long any civilizations might last before becoming extinct.”
“Thanks to NASA’s Kepler satellite and other searches, we now know that roughly one-fifth of stars have planets in “habitable zones,” where temperatures could support life as we know it. So one of the three big uncertainties has now been constrained.”
Frank said that the third big question–how long civilizations might survive–is still completely unknown. “The fact that humans have had rudimentary technology for roughly ten thousand years doesn’t really tell us if other societies would last that long or perhaps much longer,” he explained.
But Frank and his coauthor, Woodruff Sullivan of the astronomy department and astrobiology program at the University of Washington, found they could eliminate that term altogether by simply expanding the question.
“Rather than asking how many civilizations may exist now, we ask ‘Are we the only technological species that has ever arisen?” said Sullivan. “This shifted focus eliminates the uncertainty of the civilization lifetime question and allows us to address what we call the ‘cosmic archaeological question’–how often in the history of the universe has life evolved to an advanced state?”
That still leaves huge uncertainties in calculating the probability for advanced life to evolve on habitable planets. It’s here that Frank and Sullivan flip the question around. Rather than guessing at the odds of advanced life developing, they calculate the odds against it occurring in order for humanity to be the only advanced civilization in the entire history of the observable universe. With that, Frank and Sullivan then calculated the line between a Universe where humanity has been the sole experiment in civilization and one where others have come before us.
“Of course, we have no idea how likely it is that an intelligent technological species will evolve on a given habitable planet,” says Frank. But using our method we can tell exactly how low that probability would have to be for us to be the ONLY civilization the Universe has produced. We call that the pessimism line. If the actual probability is greater than the pessimism line, then a technological species and civilization has likely happened before.”
Using this approach, Frank and Sullivan calculate how unlikely advanced life must be if there has never been another example among the universe’s ten billion trillion stars, or even among our own Milky Way galaxy’s hundred billion.
The result? By applying the new exoplanet data to the universe’s 2 x 10 to the 22nd power stars, Frank and Sullivan find that human civilization is likely to be unique in the cosmos only if the odds of a civilization developing on a habitable planet are less than about one in 10 billion trillion, or one part in 10 to the 22th power.
“One in 10 billion trillion is incredibly small,” says Frank. “To me, this implies that other intelligent, technology producing species very likely have evolved before us. Think of it this way. Before our result you’d be considered a pessimist if you imagined the probability of evolving a civilization on a habitable planet were, say, one in a trillion. But even that guess, one chance in a trillion, implies that what has happened here on Earth with humanity has in fact happened about a 10 billion other times over cosmic history!”
For smaller volumes the numbers are less extreme. For example, another technological species likely has evolved on a habitable planet in our own Milky Way galaxy if the odds against it are better than one chance in 60 billion.
But if those numbers seem to give ammunition to the “optimists” about the existence of alien civilizations, Sullivan points out that the full Drake equation–which calculates the odds that other civilizations are around today — may give solace to the pessimists.
“The universe is more than 13 billion years old,” said Sullivan. “That means that even if there have been a thousand civilizations in our own galaxy, if they live only as long as we have been around — roughly ten thousand years — then all of them are likely already extinct. And others won’t evolve until we are long gone. For us to have much chance of success in finding another “contemporary” active technological civilization, on average they must last much longer than our present lifetime.”
“Given the vast distances between stars and the fixed speed of light we might never really be able to have a conversation with another civilization anyway,” said Frank. “If they were 20,000 light years away then every exchange would take 40,000 years to go back and forth.”
But, as Frank and Sullivan point out, even if there aren’t other civilizations in our galaxy to communicate with now, the new result still has a profound scientific and philosophical importance. “From a fundamental perspective the question is ‘has it ever happened anywhere before?'” said Frank. Our result is the first time anyone has been able to set any empirical answer for that question and it is astonishingly likely that we are not the only time and place that an advance civilization has evolved.”
According to Frank and Sullivan their result has a practical application as well. As humanity faces its crisis in sustainability and climate change we can wonder if other civilization-building species on other planets have gone through a similar bottleneck and made it to the other side. As Frank puts it “We don’t even know if it’s possible to have a high-tech civilization that lasts more than a few centuries.” With Frank and Sullivan’s new result, scientists can begin using everything they know about planets and climate to begin modeling the interactions of an energy-intensive species with their home world knowing that a large sample of such cases has already existed in the cosmos. “Our results imply that our evolution has not been unique and has probably happened many times before. The other cases are likely to include many energy intensive civilizations dealing with their feedbacks onto their planets as their civilizations grow. That means we can begin exploring the problem using simulations to get a sense of what leads to long lived civilizations and what doesn’t.”
Frank and Sullivan’s argument hinges upon the recent discovery of how many planets exist and how many of those lie in what scientists call the “habitable zone” — planets in which liquid water, and therefore life, could exist. This allows Frank and Sullivan to define a number they call Nast. Nast is the product of N*, the total number of stars; fp, the fraction of those stars that form planets; and np, the average number of those planets in the habitable zones of their stars.
They then set out what they call the “Archaelogical-form” of the Drake equation, which defines A as the “number of technological species that have ever formed over the history of the observable Universe.”
Their equation, A=Nast*fbt, describes A as the product of Nast – the number of habitable planets in a given volume of the Universe – multiplied by fbt – the likelihood of a technological species arising on one of these planets. The volume considered could be, for example, the entire Universe, or just our Galaxy.
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> “If they were 20,000 light years away then every exchange would take 40,000 years to go back and forth.”
I prefer to think the first signal in either direction would include instructions for faster communication.
This brings up the conundrum of whether to announce our existence or not. Do we really want to take the chance of extermination at the hands of a more advance life form?
If they’re out there, they can colonize the entire galaxy in ~1,000,000 years with no magic technology. Trying to hide from them would be silly.
To me, the fact that we exist at all is proof enough that we’re alone.
We started announcing our presence when the first telegraph went into operation.
MarkW,
First wireless telegraph, anyway. Any EM radiation from wired telegraphy wouldn’t make it out to space, IMO.
Go ahead ! Broadcast your location.
When they hear us, we will all be long gone. Including why we asked such a dumb question as faster talking.
g
Bye Doom, long line telegraphs would emit a lot of EM.
From whom ??
g
Some Brit once said something to the effect that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose.
It was J.B.S. Haldane, a British geneticist and evolutionary biologist.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane
No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets and yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us.
… intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic …
No worries, we can demand a safe space.
==============
Equation? We don’t need no stinking equation!
It is obvious that life will arise in every place where there is opertunity to do so. There should be life all over the universe. After all, that is what the universe is for. (a little mysticism there) But people object that if life happens so often why has no one ever come to earth to visit? Hell, I would not come here if I did not have to. Look at all the loud mouthed primates ruining the atmosphere!
I’ve heard that bacteria have been detected on asteroids floating around our solar system, or was it fossil evidence in rocks that fell to earth. We also know that bacteria will live for months in space on the surface of space ships, shuttles and satellites. There is life in the deep ocean, in the ice of the poles, and deep underground where there is no light or air.
I also think it should be taken as “obvious” that life will form and live wherever there is the slightest possibility. I would expect to find life in the clouds of Jupiter and any water moon in the solar system.
Life yes, complex life no.
Marvelous! We have here the modern astroscientists’ equivalence to the old discussion of the number of angels that could dance on the point of a pin. Pure speculation based on unfounded faith. I am prepared to suggest that zero species could advance beyond the most simple, single-cell, multiply-by-dividing, stage (if indeed that far) under the limiting conditions accepted by the modern Darwinist (random, undirected mutation; environmental stress; and “survival of the fittest”).
You took my response. My ignorance of the number of advanced civilizations is only matched by my apathy – I don’t know, and I don’t care.
You may be prepared, but you would be wrong. The fossil record proves otherwise, with ever more granularity and precision as we dig up more fossils.
And, your comment does not address the core post. Which is not evolution per se, but rather how many intelligent life forms evolved. On life forms, likely many via the clay hypothesis. On the latter, dunno. But evolution suggests many via the survival of the fittest arms race that clearly started here on Earth during the Cambrian. Evolution of multicellar marine organisms with exoskeletons (armor), true eyes (intel), claws (defense/offense) … Read S.J.Gould’s account of the famous accidental Burgitt shale discovery in the Canadian Rockies.
Chances are civilisations and life goes pop all of the time.
Sterilisations from cosmic events and if we received some signal from afar, the civilisation might have been wiped out before said signal reaches us by either themselves, the planet or some cosmic event.
While the odds there are some seem ok, the odds we’ll find one are not good.
All we can do is guess.
Schrodinger’s Cat.
Does anyone really believe that we have reached any understanding of the universe and where we fit in it?
Does anyone think that we have reached our full potential and could be considered an advanced civilization? There would appear to be a few obstacles in the way currently. Nuclear threshold, warlike nature, religion to name a few.
Given the existence of these traits wouldn’t it be highly unlikely that a civilization advanced enough to conquer space travel ( if any or many exist) would bother calling in for a chat.
This whole Planet Earth scenario is about how WE see things and applying OUR knowledge to what is tangible, measurable or observable to US.
Much remains to be found out, the surface is not even scratched and the overlying possibility is that we may very well be completely wrong on all counts.
Belief in ET is just another new religion, like AGW — substitutes for the old religion. The Drake Equation is a description, not a scientific equation, because all the parameters multiply together and if any one is unknown then it’s all unknown — since the parameter of life arising in one place is unknown, the rest is GIGO. 10^22 times zero is still zero. Our own presence here is meaningless because it’s a requirement to ask the question, thus confers no input into the answer.
clarification: our own presence here is useless as an input to the Drake Equation — I was confining my point to that issue, not wider philosophy.
The Drake Equation may be nothing more than the first, or an early example of Algebraical Origami.
Simply farting around with algebraic symbols, and then giving it a cute name; akin to “Swan” of “Crane” or “jumping Frog”.
Who’s going to call you out on it ??
G
Somebody once wrote an Algebraical Origami equation that achieved some measure of fame.
As near as I can remember it said:
……… alpha = 1 / (pi^a. b^c. d^e. f^g. h^i)^0.25 ……
That’s it.
So we know what (pi) is. a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i (maybe I got one too many powered terms) are ALL small INTEGERS, and are not necessarily all unique. i.e. a, d, h could all be the same integer.
Small meant positive integers no bigger than 19.
So what the hey; wazzat all about.
Well the quantity …… (pi^a. b^c. d^e. f^g. h^i)^0.25 ….. comes to about 136. xxxxxx
And alpha ?? Hoodat !
Well alpha is the fine structure constant; one of the fundamental constants of physics, that in the past has actually been used to calculate a value for (c) the vacuum velocity of EM radiation.
And this Algebraic Origami equation calculates the value of alpha to better than half of the standard deviation of the very best (at the time) experimental value for the fine structure constant, which is known to about eight significant digits.
Some computer whizzes eventually derived a list of about a dozen solutions to that expression, that match the fine structure constant to better than the standard deviation of the best experimental value; some of which were much closer than the original published solution the scoundrel who dreamed it up got for his solution.
As I recall, this all came to light in the mid 1960s possibly in the journal Applied Optics.
Everybody jumped on it as a major discovery, because you clearly can’t get that close just by doodling with numbers. Trouble is, there were no observations from the real physical universe involved in the computation; none whatsoever. Pure Origami.
So you actually can get almost anything at all just by flubbering around with numbers.
Correlation is no defence for fabrication.
G
PS the fine structure constant already had a checkered history, because it was close to 1/136, and Arthur Eddington derived a proof that it was exactly 1/136.
But then as experimental results got more accurate, it clearly was closer to 1/137 than it was to 1/136.
So Eddington discovered the “typo” in his original derivation and proved it was exactly 1/137 and it clearly isn’t.
So they started calling the good old chap ” Professor Adding-one”
Many people I know who work in areas related to this have gone from optimism to certainty to pessimism. The overarching paradigm is that physics, chemistry and the optimization of life are universal. A common set of beliefs is that given enough opportunities and the right environment, life must spontaneously generate and then it must evolve into more and more successful forms. Since ultimate success = control of your own environment, intelligence is inevitable.
If life is completely wiped out due to a world wide catastrophe, it simply goes back to step 1. Once life reaches a state of total environment control (including space around its planet), it will become essentially permanent.
The problem is that if life and evolution are inevitable and goldilocks planets are as common as we are beginning to discover, we should be detecting evidence of advanced life. The guys I know monitoring space sensors are absolutely certain that the signals are there, they are just frustrated that they cannot detect them.
A friend once told me that a botanist calculated every square foot of clover should have a 4 leaf variation. After taking his kids to the park and spending a couple of hours looking, he went back and told the botanist he was full of cr@p.
It appears very unlikely that life exists in abundance in other solar systems, because we haven’t yet found even one extraterrestrial microbe in this solar system, and this solar system is the only we know of that has been proven to have life in it.
Elon Musk says we’ll find intelligent beings on another world in 10 or 20 years.
Where will we find them?
“The Martians were there-in the canal-reflected in the water…. The Martians stared back up at them for a long, long silent time from the rippling water….”
– Ray Bradbury, “The Martian Chronicles”
There is a huge amount of synchronicity – things coming together – things being just right – that has produced life on this world. On top of that is our unique nature. We have significant differences to our animal cousins. A kitten will hit the ground running – fully programmed (via instincts) to be able to survive. Not humans. We need to go through an extensive learning exercise and for that we need to be able store information and to communicate it. A huge amount of our existence is based around the determining, advancing and dissemination of knowledge. The question is, of course, what produced that fundamental difference in us and how unique is it?
Is the universe large enough for two ‘kims’? Yup.
============
And a whole country of Kim’s (Korea), yep.
Lil’ and Litt’ler…
Kittens have to be taught how to hunt. They have the instinct for it, but lack the skills to do it successfully.
This is why most animals that were raised in captivity can’t be released back into the wild.
All mammals go through a period of time where they have to be taught by their parents how to survive.
Humans are unique in how long this training process takes, and just how helpless our infants are at birth.
’empirically valid probability’
Whatever that means.
Having read this article more closely, the “Frank & Sullivan” approach is complete nonsense, because they are using our own presence here as an input. Such an approach uses a universe with no intelligent life at all, as a baseline for calculations. But you can’t do that, because we have to be here in the first place, to make these calculations. Therefore the baseline must be a universe with *one* intelligent civilization. Using that as a baseline, their calculation denominator becomes zero, so it’s all rubbish. “Astrobiology” is publishing a bogus paper.
Astrobiology, astrology, climatology – pure imaginology.
Hard to imagine that given all the stars in our universe + all the stars in all the other universes – that is billions and billions of stars – and even if a minute number of these stars have habitable planets, that earth is the ONLY place in all the universes that has intelligent life.
Further, there is no requirement that what we know as DNA/RNA be the basis of all intelligent life in all the universes.
And if there is intelligent life and if they are far, far more advanced than humans, why is there any requirement at all that they should have contacted humans? Who says they should or they would like to?
Lastly, many commercial and military pilots have witnessed rather bizarre objects while flying. Of course, all these sightings are poo-pooed as…….., well, take your pick. Yet, if some physicists concoct some mathematical expression to calculate the probability of life somewhere else, well then, the odds of life somewhere else must be considered a very probable event.
Let’s face it; if a normal,rational person did in fact see and hear and interact with some alien beings here on earth and also obtained “24 trinkets” of alien items plus photos and selfies with these aliens, really now, what the hell can she/he do with it to “prove” such an alien encounter?
NOTHING AT ALL ! ZERO !!
NO ONE will pay attention to anything, any object , any picture, ANYTHING AT ALL he/she will say or show or demonstrate , because that individual will be considered nuts/crazy/a publicity hound AND no news outlet/scientist/DOD/NSA/politician – you name it – will risk their reputation even considering that such an event could have taken place.
If the universe is infinite in time and space, which some cosmologists believe, then everything that can happen will happen. Since we happened, how many times we will happen depends upon if the universe is open, closed or flat. And of course one must take into account different versions of how we, or something like us happens.
“…why is there any requirement at all that they should have contacted humans?”
That is not the question. It is not a matter of intention, it is a matter of being able to avoid it. Any time you start accelerating electrons in coherent, harmonic oscillations, you will broadcast your presence, whether you want to or not. The question is, how and why would they cloak their electromagnetic emanations?
So waring bastards like humans don’t discover them.
Then, they are very fortunate, all of them, that their Marconis, Edisons, Teslas, etc…, stopped and thought, “you know, this is very useful, but I probably ought to be shielding all this from potential aliens”.
There is one universe “uni” = 1 See how easy that is !
G
yeah, well statistically, any particular outcome is infinitely improbable.
yet there is an outcome
‘statistics’ didn’t make it so – the numerology fallacy merely claims to show how bloody unlikely to happen was what actually did happen.
I’ll simplify the math:
One planet with life per galaxy…
How many galaxies have humans calculated, exist in the Universe?
100 billion….
Plus many. Really simplifies the marvelous clay hypothesis, which only ups your odds.
If there is only one planet with life per galaxy, it would seem to be an awful waste of space.
Excellent. 10+
There are too many uncertainties.
Carbon based life to start de novo requires the equivalent of Van Allen belts, water and iron as well as all the minerals discussed above.
The nearest laboratory testing for exoplanetary life, Mars, shows no evidence of life, despite Bill Clinton’s announcement.
Just because it may take many human life times to obtain a signal from another civilisation does not mean such a signal will die when that civilisation stops transmission and reaches extinction.
If technological life were common we would be bathed in signals from other civilisations and self replicating van neumann machines would be entering the solar system daily.
This analysis is ‘models all the way down’.
Exobiology studies something for which there is no empirical evidence of existence.
Sound familiar?
Mars shows no signs of life now. Whether it had life in the past, prior to losing it’s atmosphere, we won’t know until we explore it a lot more than we have so far.
Actually, Mars does show signs of life, but none is conclusive. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say the odds are more against than for it, but can’t yet be ruled out.
His logic is flawed. As far as we know, the probability of spontaneous abiogenesis alone on any single planet may be far less than that, like one part in 10 to the thousandth power or less. The only thing we do know for sure is that it’s not zero. Otherwise only the conditional probability of abiogenesis is given, provided we do contemplate the question. Which is exactly 1, and implies a non-zero absolute probability, but is not informative beyond that.
The usual counter claim, that life on Earth is known to have emerged at the tail end of the Late Heavy Bombardment, that is, as soon as it became possible, therefore spontaneous abiogenesis must be easy, does not hold water. If circumstances created by a multitude of large impacts were a necessary, but not sufficient condition to abiogenesis, the probability of this process even immediately after this stage might have been vanishingly small, and declining rapidly ever thereafter. In this case for each instance of life we would find the same rule observed on Earth, in spite of an extremely small absolute probability.
This situation may change in two cases:
1. Life is discovered with molecular machinery radically different from ours, or at least with a genetic code which has nothing to do with the code table all terrestrial life forms seem to share.
2. An actual theory of abiogenesis is developed, supported by experimental evidence, which makes quantitative estimates possible.
We have neither (1) nor (2) so far. It would be sufficient to identify a single life form, which is clearly not an offspring of the single common ancestor of all other terrestrial life, including bacteria and archaea. None was found, not even on Earth. And theory of abiogenesis is not more than story lines supported by much hand waving.
On the contrary, there is indication that there is a rather high lower limit to Kolmogorov complexity of evolvable replicators. Up to that point it is only happenstances of chemistry, Darwinian evolution can’t possibly help at all.
It is also fashionable to posit a very short future for any advanced technological civilization, often connected to doom and gloom, to cAGW or an all out nuclear war or something. However, it basically serves as an escape route to meet the fact head on, that no life is observed so far on large scales.
A Kardashev Type III civilization is certainly observable over cosmic distances, because, if nothing else, there is no way to shield its thermal radiation due to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, so they would show up as groups of a special kind of infrared galaxies. None is observed.
If life and even civilization were plentiful in the cosmos, it is a contradiction, because no credible scenario is found so far which would kill off each and every instance before reaching that stage. And once there, it becomes next to indestructible, even by suicidal tendencies in some regions.
We are on the verge of implementing programmable molecular assemblers. With that technology a Kardashev Type III civilization is certainly attainable on a timescale much shorter than the lifetime of the Universe. That’s the key to sustain life under the general circumstances in space, using only common raw materials and free energy, both abundant everywhere.
So no, I think life on Earth may be a true miracle, one which is consistent with physics, but in no way follows from it. We may well be unique in the entire observable Universe with a potentially unlimited lifespan, so all its vast resources are our inheritance.
… our inheritance, yes, which I find very cheerful. Whereas the disciples of the ET religion think it very depressing if there were no ETs. Just another case of upside-down thinking so prevalent nowadays.
Nope. The clay hypothesis provides both things under constrained conditions: a rocky planet orbiting a reasonably nonvariable star in its habitable zone (sufficient liquid water). The only other premise is ‘ordinary’ chemical rocky composition.
There is no “clay hypothesis“, only a clay story. There are numerous such stories around, some are mutually exclusive, all useless.
“all [the universe’s] vast resources are our inheritance.”
I’ll sell you my share of everything off-planet for $100, US.
You will need to create a document showing that you have also sold your children’s inheritance as well.
Berenyi Peter wrote: “If life and even civilization were plentiful in the cosmos, it is a contradiction, because no credible scenario is found so far which would kill off each and every instance before reaching that stage. And once there, it becomes next to indestructible, even by suicidal tendencies in some regions.”
I think humans will be at that place in less than 100 years. Once humans learn to live off-planet (hollowed-out asteriods), then the human race will become next to indestructible because they can move themselves out of danger, and will have plenty of resources with which to expand
If we can do it, others could do it.
From what I have read of recent theorization regarding the formation of the solar system.
1) Large planets, once formed, will slowly spiral in towards their parent star. This has something to do with interactions with remaining dust and smaller bodies.
2) Current models show that Jupiter did just this, which also explains why Mars is smaller than the earth, Jupiter stole most of the material that would have gone into the making of Mars.
3) Jupiter would have kept spiraling in, eventually expelling all of the inner planets from the solar system, except for the presence of Saturn.
4) Saturn also began to spiral in once it formed. Fortunately for us, Jupiter and Saturn got into a situation where Jupiter was orbiting the sun precisely 3 times for every two orbits of Saturn.
5) This cosmic dance caused a great transfer of energy, stabilizing the orbits of both Jupiter and Saturn as well as causing Neptune and Uranus to actually switch places. (We suspect that this is so due to isotopic examination of the gases that make up Neptune and Uranus.)
6) The gravitational disturbances also stirred up the outer solar system causing many comets to either be kicked out of the solar system all together, or to come plunging into the inner solar system. These comets were the source of what has become known as the late heavy bombardment.
7) The late heavy bombardment did two good things for the earth. In the early molten phase, almost all of the heavy elements sank to the earth’s core and most of it’s water boiled away. Those comets and meteors seeded the earth’s crust with both the metals and water.
I believe that life exists elsewhere in the universe.
That allows me to buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks for a buck eighty.
I can get a much better tasting senior coffee at McDonalds for $0.75 including sales taxes.
g
Including TWO free refills.
g
Dear heavens, not the verdammt Drake Equation again. I thought Crichton killed that nonsense dead, but noooo …
I particularly loved this tidbit:
An “empirical answer”? Do they understand what “empirical” means?
So their claim about the number of planets with intelligent life is “verifiable by observation or experience”??? In what universe is that true?
The mind boggles …
w.
Also read my reply, a couple screens up. They completely butchered the null hypothesis which they took as “a universe without intelligent civilization”, where in fact it must be “a universe with one intelligent civilization” since otherwise this topic cannot be discussed (if there is no intelligent civilization to discuss it). The authors think they’re improving on the Drake Equation, but only made a schoolboy error of logic.
Ah there ya go, are you sure humanity qualifies?
In a model universe, Willis, which is to say an imaginary one ; )
Willis – such display of “no self esteem” is most uncommon of you. I believe we have one very god example and might be closing in on one or to more. That might not display life today, but surely once or at some time in the future, will have the premisses for life on their surface.
But for what it’s worth, and never having met you, I still consider you intelligent and advanced. 😉
Love that word “surely”, which in common usage has come to mean “I think this is true but only because I have no understanding of it”, the denoument of which is usually that it is false.
Is this the WUWT link you meant for Crichton?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/09/aliens-cause-global-warming-a-caltech-lecture-by-michael-crichton/
Where the good Dr Crichton said,
Go and sail your Boat Willis. This stuff is way too heavy for you in your present state of euphoria.
G
When is D-Day ??
But wait, there’s the military & pilot observers of those pesky interfering foreign craft that should be reliable. Only problem is that even they are considered to have mental & observational acuity issues. And then consider that even if the gov’s agreed, all of the civil mental issues to deal with along with a funding drop for all those radio tele’s. So just safer to claim that all those experts operating radar, flying commercial/military planes & standing guard over nuke storage & missile facilities also need tin hats…..
http://www.amazon.com/UFOs-Generals-Pilots-Government-Officials/dp/0307717089
http://www.stantonfriedman.com/
Speed = distance / time. Time was regarded for a long time as being a constant. Einstein proved time is not a constant but changes at certain speeds and with changes in gravity. E = mc (squared) puts “C” as a constant that is the speed of light. Light originates in the upsetting of the atom causing discrete changes in particle orbits. These orbits are controlled by nature’s speed limit and the light emitted is too. Quantum mechanics finds that particles emitted from an atom do so as a wave until observed, when it collapses to a particle. Some elements produce only one particle, others (like calcium) produce 2. When one is observed it collapses to a particle with a + or – spin orientation. If one on the earth is plus the other will be a minus even if it is on the moon. Instant communication faster than the speed of light. Spooky action at a distance as Einstein put it.
For 2 alien species to meet up to a chat, both would have to be technically advanced enough to do it, but not too advanced to become extinct. They would have to beat the time distance problem. Quantum mechanics is about the best bet to do that.
The Schroedinger Equation which you are alluding to describes not the physical state of the particle, but our knowledge of its physical state. Light doesn’t travel as a wave, it’s just a particle as Feynman showed — but the particle doesn’t travel continuously because classical notions of continuity don’t apply at the speed of light. The photon has classical qualities only at the endpoints of its journey.
So if light (or EM radiation) travels as a particle (photon) how do photons and atoms collide in “empty” space ??
Not challenging ; Just asking how do they ever meet ? I savvy how the wave hits the beach. Seems like it can hit the pier piling, just as easily.
Are photons passing me by and I just don’t notice they hit me ??
QM is worse than weird !!
G
george e smith: It’s not an issue compared with cyclotron bubble-trace outputs. Thereon, many particles collide simultaneously to form single large particles, which is surely impossible. But it all makes sense if time flows backwards, so that it’s simply a large particle disintegrating into many, and that’s how we understand it. So how does time flow backwards at the high energy focus of the cyclotron? Who knows? And who knows the answer to your question?
One would have to factor in the length of time it would take for enough fossil fuels to form on the habitable planet. Without enough fossil fuel, there will be no advanced civilization.
http://irishenergyblog.blogspot.ie/2015/12/astronomy-ireland-lecture-search-for.html
One would have to factor in the length of time it would take for enough fossil fuels to form on the habitable planet. Without enough fossil fuel, there will be no advanced civilization.