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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Tell me why this isn't the greatest miracle in materialism again ?
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Never mind playing with the Drake equation.
There are 17 bn worlds - I love the spurious 2 significant figures I must admit - in our galaxy.
"1 in 6" star systems. Which means we can justify 1 in 10.
On the most conservative number of stars in the galaxy.
That's an average distance of 25 LY. Call it 100.
Now I'm a STRONG uniformitarian. So let's say of these 10 bn concurrent earth like worlds only 1:10 are actually in the Goldilocks zone and eliminate another 2 orders of magnitude arbitrarily, despite life starting as soon as it rains and doing technology on ooooh ALL within a few Ga: 1:1000 - not that distribution over time is linear at all. We'd all be bunched about now.
That averagely conservative figure puts 10 of us within 300 LY
Of course if we were optimistic, there are 4 x as many stars to start with. And then 100 x as many moons and other habitats. And 10 x as many xenologies - extending the Goldilocks zone by ... 10. And the arbitrary conservative factor is 0.
20 LY
Why is it that we don't bump in to each other again? Pick up each other's 'Neighbours' at least?
[ 06. April 2013, 07:53: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
Pass. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
E
Edited because I spelt pass wrongly!
[ 06. April 2013, 07:58: Message edited by: SusanDoris ]
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Like all the good stuff, it is a mystery isn't it?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Why is it that we don't bump in to each other again? Pick up each other's 'Neighbours' at least?
It's a fascinating mystery, isn't it? I've don't have a strong view as to why we haven't met alien life yet (assuming, of course, that we haven't yet...) but it's interesting to speculate.
A couple of theories are that (a) intelligent life forms just don't survive long enough for there to be overlap with other intelligent life, or (b) intelligent does indeed need God's 'kickstart' to get it going, and God's only done that on this little planet of ours.
What do you think, Martin?
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
This is called the Fermi Paradox
Suggested reasons range from the prosaic (all the aliens are transmitting in Q-Waves which we haven't discovered yet) to the horrifying.
Dunno what it has to do with materialism though.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Kevin (if I may use your cognomen South Coast).
(a) - like Demas' Q-waves and horror - is completely blown away by the numbers even if it were reasonable.
Therefore (b).
And Demas (ooh, and correct, gain a house point), it's got to do with all the cognoscenti here being materialists. It is fashionable in modern Christianity (sorry for the tautology) to believe in God despite Him not being in the slightest bit necessary to explain existence, life and mind.
[ 06. April 2013, 08:12: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
This is called the Fermi Paradox
Cheers for the link, Demas. That's really interesting. And it's made me think I need to get reading some more sci-fi!
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
It's a mystery to me - in that I can't understand a word of it. ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
All Greek eh?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
It is fashionable in modern Christianity (sorry for the tautology) to believe in God despite Him not being in the slightest bit necessary to explain existence, life and mind.
On the other hand, existence, life and mind are necessary to believe in God...
You describe a position modern Christianity was forced into unwillingly, not one joyfully embraced.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
All Greek eh?
ναί
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Demas - it's joyfully embraced round here. Nice rhetorical comeback on necessity.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Demas - it's joyfully embraced round here.
Naah. We're just trying to convince ourselves. Find us a decent miracle-working holy relic and watch us change our tune.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Tell me again what this has to do with materialism. Do you mean that theism explains why there might be life on only one planet out of 17 billion? Does it?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Demas - implicit in the following methinks: Oh Wing-ed Serpent, of course.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Seeing as for most of the earth's history, life was single cells of prokaryotes, and prokaryotes don't travel let alone communicate, and we've only been trying to listen for <100 years, the likelihood that any 'neighbours' would be available for communication is pretty well non-existent. The vast spans of billions of years swallows all. Time.
Further, there is no directionality to evolution on earth, so why would we expect complex life to be available. Most is probably a soup of organic molecules and simple cells. Nothing more.
So no paradox, no miracle.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard: 20 LY
Why is it that we don't bump in to each other again? Pick up each other's 'Neighbours' at least?
20 lightyears is still an awfully long distance for anything but radio waves.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet
...simple cells...
I've never heard of "simple cells".
I have certainly heard of mind-blowingly complex ones though...
Care to elaborate?
(Downstairs in DH?)
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
no prophet: Seeing as for most of the earth's history, life was single cells of prokaryotes, and prokaryotes don't travel let alone communicate, and we've only been trying to listen for <100 years, the likelihood that any 'neighbours' would be available for communication is pretty well non-existent.
This is covered by the Drake equation. I'm quite sure that it gives a distance bigger than 20 light years.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
It's a wonderful world.
Louis Armstrong
Or Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Cedd007
Shipmate
# 16180
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Posted
The figures suggested for the Drake formula have had their ups and downs over the years. So there is room for speculation. I reckon it's one species per galaxy cluster. Providential.
Posts: 58 | From: Essex, United Kingdom | Registered: Jan 2011
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet
...simple cells...
I've never heard of "simple cells".
I have certainly heard of mind-blowingly complex ones though...
Care to elaborate?
(Downstairs in DH?)
Prokaryotes: cells without organelles, i.e., no nucleus, no mitochondria etc, single strand of DNA. Most of the earth's history is these, along with eukaryotes which have organelles. If these organisms are communicative and travel, then we will can talk and visit with our neighbours. If not, not.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
A couple of theories are that (a) intelligent life forms just don't survive long enough for there to be overlap with other intelligent life, or (b) intelligent does indeed need God's 'kickstart' to get it going, and God's only done that on this little planet of ours.
Or (c) human-level intelligence is an incredibly rare trait for organisms to develop. We're doing this again?
[ 06. April 2013, 16:46: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
no prophet, of course there's directionality, teleology, complexity from simplicity, nature - biology - finds a way. By materialism chemistry did. And you fell for one of the greatest fallacies. They've been transmitting for a billion years. To which: LeRoc. Neighbours is on telly. Radio waves. Stars manage to transmit them over millions of light years. Billions. One of the cognoscenti will know how far we can detect them. Ah, there's one in Eridanus. 5 GLY. That's before we build a billion kilometer array. So we can easily detect deliberate interstellar radio over a thousand LY now. A hundred is nowt. Lased nukes.
But I'm sure you clever young chaps - Oi, Croesos! - will find a way to make the Fermi Paradox go away again.
[ 06. April 2013, 17:02: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And you fell for one of the greatest fallacies. They've been transmitting for a billion years.
Not exactly. Any transmission is on a billion year (or however long) delay. That says nothing about the duration of the transmission. Transmitting for five minutes a billion years ago is still only five minutes of transmission, even when it reaches a point a billion light years away. If you're not listening at the exact right five minutes, the signal will pass you by.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
no prophet, of course there's directionality, teleology, complexity from simplicity, nature - biology - finds a way.
I wish there was. Evolution is merely 'adaptation to local conditions'. Has nothing to do with direction. Not about improvement, just the organisms' selection for survival to the changes over lengthy periods of time, and/or to sudden change. So we need to consider carefully our place in the cosmos. While life may be common, life beyond that of at most small conglomerations of cells will be rare as rare can be. Consider Evolutionary Time Lines, where the history of life involving smarty-pants humans is a really small sliver. As Mark Twain put it, if the history of the planet was signified by the Eiffel Tower, the last lick of paint on the top-most bolt at the very peak of the tower signifies the time humans have been here (much much less than that if we consider communication and transportation issues as suggested by the OP). But the lick of paint is too thick, Twain used Lord Kelvin's number which short by a factor of 10 or 15. Maybe if you rubbed your hand on the top of that bolt, not even seeing the few molecules on your palm - that would signify the span of human history.
Most of the history of the earth didn't have any life and when it occurred, didn't vary from little single cells for almost the entire time. The miracle is only that we're here at all talking about it. Life may be common, but life we could talk to? Regrettably, probably isn't out there. I'll have to see it before I believe. Me and St Thomas.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I think we're being quarantined, at least until we get our shit together.
C.L. Lewis proposed that, too. I don't remember which book.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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malik3000
Shipmate
# 11437
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I think we're being quarantined, at least until we get our shit together.
C.L. Lewis proposed that, too. I don't remember which book.
That was the premise of his Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength).
I too am confused as to exactly what materialism has to do with the subject of this thread. However, if there are civilised sentient species on other worlds, the reason why we may not have bumped into each other might be that no one has been able to make faster-than-light travel work.
And whether or not life requires a kick-start from the Creator, i don't see what difference that makes in whether or not we would bump into each other.
[ 07. April 2013, 04:57: Message edited by: malik3000 ]
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God = love.
Otherwise, things are not just black or white.
Posts: 3149 | From: North America | Registered: May 2006
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
intelligent does indeed need God's 'kickstart' to get it going, and God's only done that on this little planet of ours
Oh dear, God of the Gaps again. Here's something else in science we don't understand; isn't it a good job that we can posit an inscrutable omnipotent Being to "explain" it.
Extrapolating from a single data point gives so much scope...
Russ
(caught in cynical mood this morning)
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Aye Crœsos (sorry for missing the diphthong), we're doing this again. I Oi'ed you because I value your contributions most highly and we crossed in the post: you'd posted while I Oi'ed you. AND your point about us not listening for the five minute call sign once in a billion years don't cut it. Anyone transmitting will be doing it frequently. Like no prophet - and me of course - this looks like above all dispositional, selective rhetoric. By materialism we are inevitable.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
Martin, you start from the premise of wanting life on other planets. Then create a formula to make your dream come true.
I would dispute many of your assumptions if not all. We are unique. And I am the most unique.
Fly Safe, Pyx_e
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
It is, of course, possible, that the universe is seething with very intelligent living beings - who have come to the conclusion that science, technology, and looking out into the universe for fulfilment instead of into their own hearts, are ultimately futile activities.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Pyx_e - On no I don't. And indeed you are the uniquest of the unique. Whereas I am unique just like everyone else.
The equation ain't mine and it is overwhelmingly irrelevant in the face of my absurdly simplistic faith in strong determinism (life starts when rain does and you'll have it talking to itself on social network sites within oooooh ten trillion (10,000,000,000,000) generations), with which you MUST disagree and the fact that 16.6666...% (16,666,666,666) of our galaxy's minimally 100,000,000,000 stars (and scientists, I ask you, REALLY) are estimated to have earth like worlds.
And furthermore I DON'T want there to be life elsewhere for the sake of my finger painted apologetics. But I REALLY, really, ever so want there to be no doubt. And although only Crœsos has given me cause to doubt, the latest figures are pretty persuasive to someone of my weak minded disposition.
To HAVE to believe that of ten billion worlds where life started as soon as it started raining that none have radio within 100 light years (interstellar travel is irrelevant) because evolving to that capability MUST be ever so rare looks, again, like ... superstition.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
To borrow from sci-fi, perhaps we're not (yet) interesting.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Custard
Shipmate
# 5402
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Posted
It's almost impossible a priori to tell the difference between an event so improbable that it would happen only once in the last 4.5 billion years on somewhere the size of Earth and something so improbably that it would happen only once in the last 13 billion years in somewhere the size of our galaxy.
The fact that we haven't yet discovered any alien life suggests that the origin of life is staggeringly improbably rather than just very improbable.
And as I used to enjoy pointing out to my pupils when I taught this stuff, you only count as intelligent life for the purposes of SETI if you can build a radio or laser or something...
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blog
Adam's likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp thine image in its place.
Posts: 4523 | From: Snot's Place | Registered: Jan 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Here, it rained, Shazan. Not only do we not need a landing on the White House lawn, we don't need to pick up their 'Neighbours' either: just detect more than trace oxygen in any of the 16,666,666,666 planetary systems of which we've looked at 667 or 4.00 x 10^-6 % or 1/24987506.24587706
And if we look at every last one and find nowt, fanatic materialists, ESPECIALLY Christians, will STILL say that life is obviously difficult to initiate everywhere else except our very mediocre little wet rock for perfectly valid 'scientificalistical' reasons that we haven't the faintest idea of.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
AND your point about us not listening for the five minute call sign once in a billion years don't cut it. Anyone transmitting will be doing it frequently.
My point was that you gave no reason to support your assertion that "[t]hey've been transmitting for a billion years". That seems like an awfully long time, especially given that we're not even entirely sure our own transmissions make it past the edge of the heliosphere. What's the basis for your assumption of billion year long transmissions?
quote:
Originally posted by Custard:
The fact that we haven't yet discovered any alien life suggests that the origin of life is staggeringly improbably rather than just very improbable.
Not necessarily. It could just be that the development of human-level intelligence is staggeringly improbable. See my earlier post for an explanation as to why this seems fairly reasonable.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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DonLogan2
Shipmate
# 15608
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Posted
Love the heading in Fermi paradox that states "They are too busy online" as a reason we haven`t seen any evidence of them...made me chuckle muchly.
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“I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth... "
Posts: 359 | From: the very depths | Registered: Apr 2010
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Seeing as for most of the earth's history, life was single cells of prokaryotes, and prokaryotes don't travel let alone communicate, and we've only been trying to listen for <100 years, the likelihood that any 'neighbours' would be available for communication is pretty well non-existent.
The whole point of the Drake Equation is that its trying to put numerical bounds on "pretty well non-existent". Just take those things into account and divide by your guess at the relevant number.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
The whole point of the Drake Equation is that its trying to put numerical bounds on "pretty well non-existent". Just take those things into account and divide by your guess at the relevant number.
The illustrated version can be found here. As always, don't forget the hover text.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Croesos
Sorry nay diphthong on me phone in the middle of a kanban. And yes, sorry, there is no they, only we. We the life of the galaxy will have been whistling in the dark for a Ga.
So, how many extrasolar atmospheres do we need to look at?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
So, how many extrasolar atmospheres do we need to look at?
Quite a lot. I recall reading that a bigwig in SETI (the one who the Jodie Foster character in Contact was based on, IIRC) said that drawing conclusions from the data they have so far would be like dipping a cup into the sea somewhere, seeing just water and concluding there are no fish in any of oceans of the world.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
HA! 1 / 5.352e+24, fourteen orders of magnitude less (or is it more?) - I don't think so!
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
ISTM, many of those who wonder why we have not been contacted assume an even distribution through space and time of civilisations which might have the ability to contact.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I wouldn't know, what makes you think that? I certainly don't.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
If you know a bit about radio technology, then you know that the chance of detecting even a close by alien civilisation are vanishingly small. A quick google brings up this page, which lists some of the technical problems. I would point though to "path loss" as the main problem. The idea that some alien civilisation is trying its hardest to contact us, which is absolutely required to overcome the "one in a trillion" chance that the first article lists, is plain bunk. They will do no such thing, just as we do no such thing. Instead, what potentially could make its way to us is "accidental signal leakage", like our TV signals that are spreading out from earth. But from sufficient distances, and all other star systems are at more than sufficient distances, we are basically talking about an isotropic signal. Taking the simplest formula for isotropic antennae and a TV 54 MHz signal, even to Proxima Centauri we have a loss of 339 dB. Basically, forget it. We wouldn't notice our very next door neighbours, much less anybody further away.
Mind you, I personally don't think that there is anybody out there. But that all is silent doesn't count as particularly convincing evidence for that in my book. The galaxy could be teeming with life, radio-noisy life, and we simply would not know. It's just too big a place...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Hairy Biker
Shipmate
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
20 lightyears is still an awfully long distance for anything but radio waves.
It's the same distance for everything. And how far is it exactly?
1 light year is exactly 9 460 730 472 580 800 metres. That's useful because we can all work in base 10 and visualise a metre. How many can visualise how far light travels in a year? 20 light years tells me nothing (but sounds big).
[ 08. April 2013, 20:33: Message edited by: Hairy Biker ]
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there [are] four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help.
Damien Hirst
Posts: 683 | From: This Sceptred Isle | Registered: Nov 2006
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