Humans are first out of the Gate
(44 posts) (15 voices)-
asimov1
MemberOr the ' Great Filter ' is at work ....or could be applied to us soon ( a possible root cause of the , 'where are they' Fermi Paradox)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_FilterThe universe is still young , prolly not enough heavy elements to make life in the first 5 to 10 billion years....not to rule this out, but life in the first 5 to 10 billion years would be very rare and very spread out across the cosmos.
20 to 40 billion years may be the optimum genesis period....possibly much later as the universe fills up over time with heavier elements
KEY everything in the universe wants to be at its lowest state, for Atoms that means fission or fusion into iron...as in iron bar iron
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just 650 million years ago everything was single cell, so it only takes engineering wise it only 100 million yeas to go from amoeba to man....perhaps as little as 100 million years from chemicals to man IF the environmental pressures where applied. So 4500 million years is only 45 x longer than 100 million years....we are perhaps a little slow in the first 3 billion, but evolved at a decent pace in the last 500 millionI would say that chemicals to man should take 500 million to 2.5 billion years in ' real world conditions ' , with 250 million years the shortest feasible time in real world conditions ( you could prolly do it in the lab in a million years or so..*a linear experiment )
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.Asteroids - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Documentary
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00vv0w8/Horizon_20102011_Asteroids_The_Good_the_Bad_and_the_Ugly/Posted 3 months ago # -
Spud100
MemberThere's so many possibilities that it becomes mentally exhausting to contemplate. How old is the cosmos, how big, does it repeat, how does it repeat, how is life distributed, what kills it off, what does it take for intelligence to survive????? All that, and more. But the thesis does provide a partial answer to Fermi's Great Silence. Another issue is the speculation that the cosmos that we see is divided into different domains where the laws of physics vary slightly...domains rather then different separate universes. Some domains may not be conducive to life, not having anything to do with cosmic rays sterilizing, it may be how electrons or protons hold together, or don't.
Posted 3 months ago # -
IMperfect
MemberThe range of "error" in that reasoning is astronomical!
What this article fails to acknowledge - which should be obvious to anyone paying close attention in this forum - is that LAR implies that at a certain point even a few decades (let alone hundreds or thousands of years) will make all the difference in the Universe in terms of how technologically advanced a civilization is.
Therefore, the probability that we and other (close enough for detection) civilizations are aligned at the same level of technology for possible detection of each other is extremely small.Posted 3 months ago # -
Mr. G
MemberYes, Asimov. There does appear to be many filters at work. Hopefully we passed most of them.
There have been many mass extinction events on Earth and there are no doubt many others in our future. Examples of these include asteroid impacts, supervolcanos and supernovas. In addition to those are manmade existential risk like nuclear war, gray goo, superviruses and the like. It really seems to be a matter of balancing rapid technological development before the next mass extinction event and prudence in not destroying ourselves.
An interesting sidenote is that without these earlier mass extinction events mankind wouldn't have evolved. For instance, most of the water on Earth is thought to have come from the collision of comets. And, without the extreme climate change to knock off the dinosaurs mammals wouldn't have been able to dominate.
G
Posted 3 months ago # -
Mnemomeme
Memberseems to me that dihydrogen-oxide is more likely a byproduct of some organism than just the random slamming of asteroids into a boiling ball of lava.
Life "as we know it" continues to expand in new directions all the time, even though most of them have been here longer than we have... like the weird virus-producers that live in the mantle and spew retroviruses out into the known biosphere.... we only know they're there because we went exploring black smoker vents at the sea floor and found their virus products keeping the smoker vent communities alive.
It's actually quite likely that these virus products aren't being generated by anything we can currently even recognize as life, but instead a sort of hybrid between primordial soup and molten lava.... which if that's the case could just be evidence of the gaia machine since there's no discernable benefit for whatever it is to be producing those virii in the first place.
Assuming they are extremophiles because that explanation is plausible does not account for the presence of geodes all over the planet. Geodes are crystalline formations that manipulate the nutrient content of soil to make it more favorable for themselves, they promote living things to till the soil in the directions they want to move by outgassing in that direction to increase fungal activity, which stimulates bacteria, which promotes worms, and so on, and the soil "collapses" before them to move them.
This might not be seen as intentional behavior until you take into account that they replicate by attracting lightning, and produce colonies like cells. Planting one geode in a pile of desert sand may take ten or fifteen thousand years to produce a forest, but that's exactly what will happen as a result of the geode's long term presence. They're not currently listed as living things because the definition of life requires that the living thing be made of organic materials, and a geode is not considered organic material due to its crystalline nature. It has all the other properties of a living thing... it's just very very very slow.
Breaking them open releases the gasses inside that produce the 'life' functions that generate the crystals and cause the outer shell to grow and expand, so we can't actually study them in a living state. Moreover, the life cycle of a geode that dies of old age may take millions of years, and we simply cannot exist long enough to study this incredibly slow moving process. I will point out, however, that proteins are nothing more than highly complex crystals, and there is no substantial difference between geodes and ameobae except their time scale due to their structural format.
This perspective then also, if taken seriously, allows one to see planets as very large geodes with a living core, and the smaller versions as a type of symbiote or parasite, and biomes then as the 'internal organs' of these odd life forms. I'm rambling, and this is another one of those "out there" posts (not taught in 4th grade public education, therefore not 'true') that attract troll-flies, so I'll bring this to a close.
Anyway, oxygen being a decay product of certain radioactive ions of a dozen other elements, and hydrogen being the vast majority of the solar wind's material substance... it would be pretty odd if the greatest likelihood of water existing comes from comets that formed in some mysterious magical nebula on the other side of the galaxy, and just happened to crash into this planet in large enough abundance to sustain a massive biosphere and not absolutely everything else in the solar system as well.
Since hydroxide only needs one more hydrogen atom to complete the circuit to become water, and since all organic life is based on crystalline acids, it's pretty plausible that hydroxide was a primary metabolic product of something a long time ago that covered the whole planet in a several mile deep layer of biofilm. You know, primordial clorox or drano or something.
Posted 3 months ago # -
Mr. G
Member@Mnemomeme
You made some good points. The comet theory of the origin of the Earth's water is somewhat disproven. The chemical analyis of the water found on comets and the Earth's oceans shows different water. However, there are another group of planetoids that still might fit the bill.
Your idea has some merit, although I disagree about your theory about the geodes. Water could have been produced through photosynthesis and the breakdown of chemicals on the Earth by photolysis. Photolysis being the breakup of chemicals on the surface by radiation from the Sun.
G
Posted 3 months ago # -
The validity of our interpretations of the Fermi Paradox may hinge on whether the universe is finite or infinite.
If the universe is finite, it very well may be we are in a "young" universe and therefore there are not very many other technological civilizations out there yet.
If the universe is infinite, then it's impossible that we are not flooded with technological civilizations right now, because if we exist, then infinite other technological civilizations similar and identical to us also exist and these would eventually arrive at a point whereby all, some or many would be communicating with us and each other.
So, since we don't see technological extraterrestrial civilizations all around us communicating with us and each other, the universe must NOT be infinite. If indeed technological extraterrestrial civilizations ARE all around us communicating to us and with each other, but we fail in our ability to recognize them, then the Fermi Paradox is cause by ourselves.
So it really comes down to two questions:
1) Is the universe infinite or finite?
2) How good is our ability to perceive?The universe is probably NOT infinite because if it were, the night sky would be white, not black. The light from ALL the stars out there -- not only the ones within the Hubble volume, but beyond -- would have been able to have arrived at Earth by now.
So if the universe is finite, it very well may be young and all our neighbors have not yet become sophisticated enough for inter-galactic, or even inter-stellar communication.
As far as the Duration of a civilization factor in the Drake Equation, this presents possibly the substantiation of the Fermi Paradox, but it need not if one considers that "all the lilies of a field usually bloom at the same time." This would mean that we, along with other civilizations are all about the same age.
It is doubtful, however that any given galaxy would have more than one (1) technological civilization in bloom because, if the Singularity is an inevitability -- and I believe it is -- then two or more post-Singularian civilizations would stand a good chance of annihilating each other. This would not seem to advance the Universe's aparent agenda of neturalizing entrophy with omni-present, distributed intelligence.
James Jaeger
Posted 3 months ago # -
Mr. G
MemberThe universe is probably NOT infinite because if it were, the night sky would be white, not black. The light from ALL the stars out there -- not only the ones within the Hubble volume, but beyond -- would have been able to have arrived at Earth by now.
No, that implies infinite age. Not infinite size.
G
Posted 3 months ago # -
Mnemomeme
Memberthis is the encyclopedia version
http://skywalker.cochise.edu/wellerr/students/geode/Geodes.htmand here's something incredibly strange...
http://rheumatology.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/4/443.full...and here's the tourist-trap explanation... (Iowans tend to be so thorough, this one's better than the encyclopedia version :)
http://www.igsb.uiowa.edu/browse/geodes/geodes.htmSo, here's how crystals are known for certain to grow... we know this is the case, because we grow them in labs now for industrial purposes.
http://www.mnh.si.edu/earth/text/2_2_2_2.htmlhere's something awesome
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-03/heat-controlling-synthetic-crystal-could-lead-most-efficient-insulators-everso... when I said that geodes might be living things, I wasn't joking or just making things up. We aren't looking for that with most of these studies, we're looking for money, and geode guts are made of money. The assumption is already that they came FROM living things, because they display so many life-like traits, and this is a much less ethically damaging scenario than the idea that we're going around digging up a living thing and bashing it open for the pretty money inside.
We know that pressure and subtle chemical balances are necessary in order for a crystal formation to begin, we know the environment where crystals can grow has to be specifically maintained... growing crystals artificially is a rather difficult process because of the fine tuned specifics of the environment required. We know that the most common way for crystals to form is from gasses being trapped in a high pressure pocket. What we don't know specifically about geodes is why there are such an abundance of these pockets found in certain places. We make assumptions about water having dissolved chemicals that permeate the shells of geodes... but it's just an assumption. Why there would be an abundance of tiny pockets of pressurized crystal-forming gasses is something we just don't live long enough to observe.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-chemists-create-synthetic-153588.aspx
"We created three-dimensional, synthetic DNA-like crystals," said UCLA chemistry and biochemistry professor Omar M. Yaghi, who is a member of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA and the UCLA–Department of Energy Institute of Genomics and Proteomics. "We have taken organic and inorganic units and combined them into a synthetic crystal which codes information in a DNA-like manner. It is by no means as sophisticated as DNA, but it is certainly new in chemistry and materials science."The discovery could lead to cleaner energy, including technology that factories and cars can use to capture carbon dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere.
"What we think this will be important for is potentially getting to a viable carbon dioxide–capture material with ultra-high selectivity," said Yaghi, who holds UCLA's Irving and Jean Stone Chair in Physical Sciences and is director of the CNSI's Center for Reticular Chemistry. "I am optimistic that is within our reach. Potentially, we could create a material that can convert carbon dioxide into a fuel, or a material that can separate carbon dioxide with greater efficiency."
The research was federally funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Basic Energy Sciences. The lead author is Hexiang "DJ" Deng, a UCLA graduate student of chemistry and biochemistry who works in Yaghi's laboratory.
..yet for some reason, the people who have the most experimental success with crystals are nanotech/biochemist combinations.... so...
...seems extremely probable to me that geodes are a type of living thing. A silicon-based life form that's been here on earth for millions (possibly billions?) of years.
All of this said... the fact that we're not finding noisy life in the universe may have damned little to do with how noisy it is, and much more to do with how jittery and rapidly we live. If there are sentient silicon-based life forms, they might just be talking so incredibly slowly that we can't hear them... or alternatively, maybe they communicate so fast we can't even see it happen.
...or a much stranger possibility... we know there are at least six more dimensions in the physical universe than we have sensory interaction with... maybe they're talking on some other layer of the physical universe than we're even looking at? Maybe we're that guy wandering around New York City staring at his own feet, and asking himself, "where are all the people? Isn't this place supposed to be crowded?"
Posted 3 months ago # -
since cosmic and geological calamities occur with a frequency of every few million years- but humans went from fire to space stations in just thousands of years- it is unlikely that these are filters at all- it is also becoming apparent that it's not that easy to destroy yourself either- even a global nuclear or biotech war cannot destroy all of humanity and it's information networks- so the most likely are early filters for the development of life and of course technological singularities where civilizations evolve beyond physicality and are either running on microscopic ultradense computation substrates like neutronium and black holes like invisible dust motes in a Dyson swarm around their stars- or the very quantum vacuum itself and have 'left' our universe [we wouldn't know about such a supercivilization even if it were HERE] there is also the possibility of some space faring civilizations who had to use industrial tech to escape their dying planet - but these would almost certainly be colonized asteroid arks and their tech would be dark and hidden inside- if an alien arkship were orbiting the sun near earth we likely could not tell it was artificial without sending a probe-
Posted 3 months ago # -
zombiefood
Member(fenix is the sai)
Memories and emotions flooded back as he entered the Curlew building. All biometrics hailed him by name, as they recognized him, as they would have everyone on earth, and granted him full access to Fenix’s “personal conversation area”. He took the high-speed elevator with the high g force warning on it that was primarily used to transport minions and freight. It opened directly into his old clean area where he lay when he was old and near death. Fenix’s screen image was of a wise gray haired old man with a comforting smile. He greeted Red as an old friend. Even though Red had serious doubts that Fenix was capable of any emotion it would be hard to prove it. As always there was not much room for small talk with Fenix. Beside the screen was an interesting robot standing motionless. It reminded him of toys that were popular in the 1990’s. The coating was shiny plastic and garishly multicolored. Royal blue, bright yellow, fire truck red and about six feet tall. Trim and light it looked lighter and smaller than a minion. It was more like the minions that Fenix originally produced. At that size it could go any place Red could go. Red cracked a smile as he gazed upon that face, a caricature of human with outlandishly large hands and feet. The absurdly large red-lipped smile, green nose, big blue eyes with no lids and big black eyebrows seemed clownish. Red said, “He sure will be popular with the kids”.
Fenix said “more so than you know. I have brought you here to tell you something as important to humanity as my existence ninety years ago. One of our solar satellites has uncovered something I suspected for many years. There is now proof that earth is not the only life bearing planet. What the satellite has discovered is that there is a huge conglomeration of laser beams directed near to and following the orbit of our sun around the galaxy. I have orbited a phalanx of collectors to continuously monitor the transmissions. The large beam consists of millions of smaller beams. Each of the beams seems to have been collected in a location somewhere near the center of the galaxy and focused toward the north pole of our sun. Some of the beams are instructional loops endlessly repeating themselves over and over regarding the esoteric aspects of the use of the beams. These beams contain concentrated broadband usage info so whoever finds the beams can gain access to a few other select beams. Data from one of these loops produced a blueprint to construct this robot. Let me introduce you to UberBob.”
“Nice to meet you Red. Welcome to galactic reality TV.” Unlike other robots this ones’ face was expressive. The lips moved to form words and the eyebrows also were appropriately in motion.
“The pleasure is mine Uberbob. What is your function?”
“I’m the cable guy and I’m here to hook you up for audio/video downloads and uploads and you are on the air. I am also ambassador, trade representative and earths concierge to the galaxy. If you are willing I would be honored if you would help me show your planet to the rest of the galaxy.”from" the quantum sausage machine'
Posted 3 months ago # -
asimov1
Memberref water
water is hydrogen and oxygen
hydrogen is supremely abundant in the universe , oxygen produced in stellar furnaces and supernova
oxygen is highly sticky, loves iron and loves hydrogen too ( note oxygen is abundant )
water and oxygen is scattered through the solar system in great abundance, any iron oxides that fell onto the very hot early earth would have separated into iron and oxygen, as the gas made its way to the surface it would have bumped into a lot of hydrogen, the lightest gas , at cooler temperatures hydrogen and oxygen combine. You need very high temperatures to disassociate water thermally so once made it tend to hang around.
There is also plenty of water ice in the solar system. We do have a fair whack of water, but remember most of the light elements are no longer at the earth core, gazillions of tons of light hot and thus gaseous elements making there way to the surface or being trapped in the upper crust and mantle.
The earth early atmosphere was thick and dense, we are in a fairly cool location sunshine wise and the magnetosphere prevents most of the cosmic rays and solar wind from stripping away the atmosphere. Look at Venus , the atmosphere incredibly dense and hot, the high G helps retian atomsophere. Mars was lacking high G , physically bulk and an enduring magnetosphere. So despite the cooler location only a fraction of the gases where collected or emitted from the core, the low G means a tall and tenuous atmosphere , one that's easily stripped away. No doubt the bulk of atmospheric striping on Mars occurred when it was still young.
Concentrations of Hydrogen and helium sit at the top of the atmosphere ( slight increase in concentration anyway ), key is the fact they are light so they dont need much of a kick to send them off into space. This is why most of the hydrogen and helium has disappeared from earth's atmosphere, they heavier stuff , CO2 and especially H20 , which needs a great deal of energy to turn to steam or tenuous vapour at high altitudes remains behind.
Being a bit further from the sun, and possibly due in part to the asteroid belt and Jupiter effect we may have had a few more icy comets and oxygen bearing rocks than normal. We also got whooped by a huge planet ( the moon ) , we nicked its heavy core , plus prolly most of its atmosphere. The bulk of the debris from moon earth impact would have naturally gravitated towards earth with its stronger and further reaching gravity field.
If the moon had sunk to earths core we might have a very thick Venusian style atmosphere...we got gas from the moon , gas from the moons core and a little extra mass ( but not too much ) , enough mass to get the density of atmosphere we see today. Minus the zillions of tons of CO2 that has been buried by life on earth.
So there are two reasons why we have a thinnish , but watery atmosphere somewhat unique in our solar system.
The really light stuff would have been hurled off into space when the hot moon and hot earth collided, this would of acted as a solar wind cushion, and help retain heavier gases like water vapour. ( NOTE without life, earth starts to look like venus , runaway greenhouse effect )
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i dont see earth as particularly special in any way (life aside), yes a few unusual rolls of the dice, buts that's all it took.Remember, without life, earth and Venus look very similar. No life = thermal runaway masses of CO2 , ocean boils or become simmering lakes, with out lubrication tectonic activity grinds to a halt. Energy that would have ground up and moved tectonic plates now escapes via volcanoes. The dense atmosphere increases surface temperatures , leaching all the gas from the the crust and upper mantle, more gas , bigger greenhouse effect ......now it looks like venus. Lighter gases making there way to the upper atmosphere, including super heated tenuous water vapour, so now even the water can be striped away ...looks even more like Venus now !
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two key points to take away with you1 the planets look like random rolls of a very big set of dice.....true to a certain extent
2 the planets are very ' made ' , that is an abundance of forces and processes are at work strongly shaping the outcomes
so its not really very random at all in that sense.....a+b+c=d variations w+ x+y = z variations
Hydrogen and oxygen abundant, so are potentially watery worlds , just need to roll a double 6 for big oceans
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You might need a great deal of goldilocks luck for intelligent civilisations, its just too in the universe early to tell for sure, but there are probably a million or a billion very earthy planets in the galaxy ....or at least they where earthy at one stage in their history. There are a lot of false starts like Venus and Mars. There may have been genesis on all 3 , or just one and it spread to the rest, only in earth did life hang on in their and prevent the runaway green house effect.Mars smaller and further from the sun prolly cooled down a little too quickly , Venus nearly as large as earth and closer to the sun heated up a little to quickly. Genesis on both planets snuffed out for different reasons. If genesis occurred on Mars there should still be life on mars, deep inside the rocks. It may take a heck of a lot of drilling and exploration but there's tons of viable habitat on Mars, even if the viable pockets are scattered and small. Those pockets will continue to exists for billions of years to come. Im sure Venus is to hot for carbon life, but we may yet find pockets of silicone life or some very high temperature variant.
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.From all the evidence thus far , the universe it totally abundant with potential edens, water , planets large and small , near and far from the sun, moons large enough for genesis. Amino acids and other key chemicals in great abundance. Sure a lot of lame ducks in the mix, but millions if not billions of potential edens in every galaxy. So the universe walks right up to the edge of life in and does so in significant abundance....there is a blockage somewhere....that blockage may not be genesis, but the inability to sustain sludge life or sludge plus for the necessary duration.
Sludge may yet be found to be truly abundant , we do not yet know. Our own solar system too small of a sample. Of course if we find slightly different life on Mars and say Europa & Titan then sludge pools are not the blockage. In 10 billion years or perhaps in just a 1000 we will know with great certainty through contact or just scientific knowledge the full spread and range of life in the universe. .....the blockage is NOT earthy type planets, for they are abundant.
Posted 3 months ago # -
RedQ
MemberThe Universe is designed to create life. Panspermia rains DNA down on every planet in the Universe, and there are countless planets. One Earth-like planet will impregnate almost every other planet in most of its galaxy. Sasselov’s assumption is wrong. Life on Earth sprung up immediately. Life on Earth came from out there. Wherever we go, there we’ll be. Darwin is impotent.
Civilizations don’t kill themselves because they can’t. Mass slaughter, yes, but extinction—no. Malthus and Malthusians will always be with us, but he and they are merely Cassandras. The Great Filter is baloney.
Our galaxy can support lots of civilizations. Are we the first? It would be like winning the lottery. The odds are that there are countless civilizations in our galaxy, many advanced, and we are a zoo planet. See UFOs.
One argument that weighs heavy on my mind is that the speed of light is a limit. My hunch is that the speed of light is no limit. We just need the science.
Cheer up!
Posted 3 months ago # -
No, that implies infinite age. Not infinite size.
GWell what's the difference. If the universe is infinitely large, it will be infinitely old as well. If it's infinitely old it will be infinitely large, given it's expanding.
Posted 3 months ago # -
the most likely are early filters for the development of life and of course technological singularities where civilizations evolve beyond physicality and are either running on microscopic ultradense computation substrates like neutronium and black holes like invisible dust motes in a Dyson swarm around their stars- or the very quantum vacuum itself and have 'left' our universe [we wouldn't know about such a supercivilization even if it were HERE]
If the universe is indeed infinite, then it makes great sense that supercivilizations are "microscopic ultradense computation substrates like neutronium and black holes like invisible dust motes in a Dyson swarm around their stars- or the very quantum vacuum itself and have 'left' our universe."
And yes, we "wouldn't know about such a supercivilization even if it were HERE."
I fully agree, they are probably here and they are probably microscopic. And Ray Kurzweil believes and discusses this in his books, THE AGE OF SPIRITUAL MACHINES and THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR.
Even if the universe is NOT infinite, this makes great sense. If the universe is infinite however, I don't see how there could possibly NOT be any supercivilizations SOMEWHERE.
James
Posted 3 months ago # -
Mr. G
MemberIf the universe is infinitely large, it will be infinitely old as well.
What about the Big Bang? Scientists estimate the age of the universe to be 17.75 billion years or so. The reason why the universe needs to be of infinite age is to allow time for the light of all those infinite stars to light up every point in the sky.
G
Posted 3 months ago # -
Mr. G
MemberEven if the universe is NOT infinite, this makes great sense. If the universe is infinite however, I don't see how there could possibly NOT be any supercivilizations SOMEWHERE.
This seems very plausible. However, until we detect life on another planet it's all just speculation.
G
Posted 3 months ago # -
Mnemomeme
MemberMr.G
The universe is assumed to be 15.4 billion years old last I looked, maybe your number is righter than the one I saw, in either case it doesn't matter. It's almost sixty billion lightyears across. This means we're seeing light that has travelled sixty billion years, in a universe that's supposedly only 15-17 billion years old. Expansion is the supposed explanation for this, but if it were really the case all stars would be red, and we would be so far past the exponent curve that we could watch as the sun recedes from view into the void, right now. The whole model is broken and it's obvious from a lot of different directions. The reason we conceive of the universe being finite in the first place is actually because we're finite, and we assume everything is like us. Hell, for a very long time we assumed the universe orbits the earth, because the entirety of human experience orbits the observer. It's all ridiculous nonsense.Posted 3 months ago # -
>If the universe is infinitely large, it will be infinitely old as well.
If.
>What about the Big Bang? Scientists estimate the age of the universe to be 17.75 billion years or so.
I though they estimated it at about 14.8 billion years.
>The reason why the universe needs to be of infinite age is to allow time for the light of all those infinite stars to light up every point in the sky.
I agree. If the universe were infinitely old, the sky would be white as all the light from even the most distant stars would here by now.
James
>G
Posted 3 months ago # -
Mnemomeme
MemberIf the universe were infinitely old, the sky would be white
nah, here-in lies another problem. Two objects travelling in opposite directions at C/2 never shine light on one another. Therefore, the detectable universe is moving relative to earth at <C meaning the parts we see are all going roughly the same direction we are, at roughly similar speed. With this in mind, it's estimated based on gravity that we might be seeing as much as 4% of the universe when we look around for light, at most, based on the redshift and blueshift quantities of visible stars.
Granted this info comes from L-CDM theory which I think is stupid as hell... but even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day.
Posted 3 months ago # -
Mr. G
MemberIt's all ridiculous nonsense.
It would be pointless to defend the Standard Model to anyone who mistrusts science. So, I won't. But, your reasons for disagreeing with the Standard Model reveal a very limited understanding of cosmology. To be honest, it is almost comical. Why would all stars be red? Do you realize that new stars are forming all the time? Do you have any idea about this topic whatsoever?
Now, to respond in another way to your criticism. You are right to assume that the Standard Model is not entirely correct and may be completely incorrect. However, there are no scientists out there who make the assertion that the Standard Model is 100% the way the universe operates. This is not how science works. When a better model comes along this one will be replaced. At any rate, it is not ridiculous nonsense at all.
G
Posted 3 months ago # -
Mnemomeme
Memberyour reasons for disagreeing with the Standard Model reveal a very limited understanding of cosmology. To be honest, it is almost comical. Why would all stars be red? Do you realize that new stars are forming all the time? Do you have any idea about this topic whatsoever?
yeah, I'm fuckin daft.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift
In physics (especially astrophysics), redshift happens when light seen coming from an object that is moving away is proportionally increased in wavelength, or shifted to the red end of the spectrum. More generally, where an observer detects electromagnetic radiation outside the visible spectrum, "redder" amounts to a technical shorthand for "increase in electromagnetic wavelength" — which also implies lower frequency and photon energy in accord with, respectively, the wave and quantum theories of light.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light#Universal_expansion
Universal expansionThe expansion of the universe causes distant galaxies to recede from us faster than the speed of light, if comoving distance and cosmological time are used to calculate the speeds of these galaxies. However, in general relativity, velocity is a local notion, so velocity calculated using comoving coordinates does not have any simple relation to velocity calculated locally[17] (see comoving distance for a discussion of different notions of 'velocity' in cosmology). Rules that apply to relative velocities in special relativity, such as the rule that relative velocities cannot increase past the speed of light, do not apply to relative velocities in comoving coordinates, which are often described in terms of the "expansion of space" between galaxies. This expansion rate is thought to have been at its peak during the inflationary epoch thought to have occurred in a tiny fraction of the second after the Big Bang (models suggest the period would have been from around 10−36 seconds after the Big Bang to around 10−33 seconds), when the universe may have rapidly expanded by a factor of around 1020 to 1030.[18]
There are many galaxies visible in telescopes with red shift numbers of 1.4 or higher. All of these are currently traveling away from us at speeds greater than the speed of light. Because the Hubble parameter is decreasing with time, there can actually be cases where a galaxy that is receding from us faster than light does manage to emit a signal which reaches us eventually.[19][20] However, because the expansion of the universe is accelerating, it is projected that most galaxies will eventually cross a type of cosmological event horizon where any light they emit past that point will never be able to reach us at any time in the infinite future,[21] because the light never reaches a point where its "peculiar velocity" towards us exceeds the expansion velocity away from us (these two notions of velocity are also discussed in Comoving distance#Uses of the proper distance). The current distance to this cosmological event horizon is about 16 billion light years, meaning that a signal from an event happening at present would eventually be able to reach us in the future if the event was less than 16 billion light years away, but the signal would never reach us if the event was more than 16 billion light years away.[20]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda-CDM_model
ΛCDM or Lambda-CDM is an abbreviation for Lambda-Cold Dark Matter, which is also known as the cold dark matter model with dark energy. It is frequently referred to as the standard model of big bang cosmology, since it attempts to explain:the existence and structure of the cosmic microwave background
the large scale structure of galaxy clusters
the distribution of hydrogen, helium, deuterium and lithium
the accelerating expansion of the universe observed in the light from distant galaxies and supernovaeIt is the simplest model that is in general agreement with observed phenomena; however, a small minority of astrophysicists have challenged the validity of the model.[1]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Size_of_the_universe#Size.2C_age.2C_contents.2C_structure.2C_and_laws
Size, age, contents, structure, and laws
Main articles: Observable universe, Age of the universe, Large-scale structure of the universe, and Abundance of the chemical elementsThe universe is immensely large and possibly infinite in volume. The region visible from Earth (the observable universe) is a sphere with a radius of about 46 billion light years,[18] based on where the expansion of space has taken the most distant objects observed. For comparison, the diameter of a typical galaxy is only 30,000 light-years, and the typical distance between two neighboring galaxies is only 3 million light-years.[19] As an example, our Milky Way Galaxy is roughly 100,000 light years in diameter,[20] and our nearest sister galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy, is located roughly 2.5 million light years away.[21] There are probably more than 100 billion (1011) galaxies in the observable universe.[22] Typical galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million[23] (107) stars up to giants with one trillion[24] (1012) stars, all orbiting the galaxy's center of mass. A 2010 study by astronomers estimated that the observable universe contains 300 sextillion (3×1023) stars.[25]
The observable matter is spread homogeneously (uniformly) throughout the universe, when averaged over distances longer than 300 million light-years.[26] However, on smaller length-scales, matter is observed to form "clumps", i.e., to cluster hierarchically; many atoms are condensed into stars, most stars into galaxies, most galaxies into clusters, superclusters and, finally, the largest-scale structures such as the Great Wall of galaxies. The observable matter of the universe is also spread isotropically, meaning that no direction of observation seems different from any other; each region of the sky has roughly the same content.[27] The universe is also bathed in a highly isotropic microwave radiation that corresponds to a thermal equilibrium blackbody spectrum of roughly 2.725-kelvins.[28] The hypothesis that the large-scale universe is homogeneous and isotropic is known as the cosmological principle,[29] which is supported by astronomical observations.
The present overall density of the universe is very low, roughly 9.9 × 10−30 grams per cubic centimetre. This mass-energy appears to consist of 73% dark energy, 23% cold dark matter and 4% ordinary matter. Thus the density of atoms is on the order of a single hydrogen atom for every four cubic meters of volume.[30] The properties of dark energy and dark matter are largely unknown. Dark matter gravitates as ordinary matter, and thus works to slow the expansion of the universe; by contrast, dark energy accelerates its expansion.
The most precise estimate of the universe's age is 13.72±0.12 billion years old, based on observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation.[31] Independent estimates (based on measurements such as radioactive dating) agree at 13–15 billion years.[32] The universe has not been the same at all times in its history; for example, the relative populations of quasars and galaxies have changed and space itself appears to have expanded. This expansion accounts for how Earth-bound scientists can observe the light from a galaxy 30 billion light years away, even if that light has traveled for only 13 billion years; the very space between them has expanded. This expansion is consistent with the observation that the light from distant galaxies has been redshifted; the photons emitted have been stretched to longer wavelengths and lower frequency during their journey. The rate of this spatial expansion is accelerating, based on studies of Type Ia supernovae and corroborated by other data.
The relative fractions of different chemical elements — particularly the lightest atoms such as hydrogen, deuterium and helium — seem to be identical throughout the universe and throughout its observable history.[33] The universe seems to have much more matter than antimatter, an asymmetry possibly related to the observations of CP violation.[34] The universe appears to have no net electric charge, and therefore gravity appears to be the dominant interaction on cosmological length scales. The universe also appears to have neither net momentum nor angular momentum. The absence of net charge and momentum would follow from accepted physical laws (Gauss's law and the non-divergence of the stress-energy-momentum pseudotensor, respectively), if the universe were finite.[35]
The universe appears to have a smooth space-time continuum consisting of three spatial dimensions and one temporal (time) dimension. On the average, space is observed to be very nearly flat (close to zero curvature), meaning that Euclidean geometry is experimentally true with high accuracy throughout most of the Universe.[36] Spacetime also appears to have a simply connected topology, at least on the length-scale of the observable universe. However, present observations cannot exclude the possibilities that the universe has more dimensions and that its spacetime may have a multiply connected global topology, in analogy with the cylindrical or toroidal topologies of two-dimensional spaces.[37]
The universe appears to behave in a manner that regularly follows a set of physical laws and physical constants.[38] According to the prevailing Standard Model of physics, all matter is composed of three generations of leptons and quarks, both of which are fermions. These elementary particles interact via at most three fundamental interactions: the electroweak interaction which includes electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force; the strong nuclear force described by quantum chromodynamics; and gravity, which is best described at present by general relativity. The first two interactions can be described by renormalized quantum field theory, and are mediated by gauge bosons that correspond to a particular type of gauge symmetry. A renormalized quantum field theory of general relativity has not yet been achieved, although various forms of string theory seem promising. The theory of special relativity is believed to hold throughout the universe, provided that the spatial and temporal length scales are sufficiently short; otherwise, the more general theory of general relativity must be applied. There is no explanation for the particular values that physical constants appear to have throughout our universe, such as Planck's constant h or the gravitational constant G. Several conservation laws have been identified, such as the conservation of charge, momentum, angular momentum and energy; in many cases, these conservation laws can be related to symmetries or mathematical identities.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingers_of_god
Fingers of God is an effect in observational cosmology that causes clusters of galaxies to be elongated in redshift space, with an axis of elongation pointed toward the observer.[1] It is caused by a Doppler shift associated with the peculiar velocities of galaxies in a cluster. The large velocities that lead to this effect are associated with the gravity of the cluster by means of the virial theorem; they change the observed redshifts of the galaxies in the cluster. The deviation from the Hubble's law relationship between distance and redshift is altered, and this leads to inaccurate distance measurements.A closely related effect is the Kaiser effect.[2] It is caused, again, by peculiar velocities lending an additional Doppler shift to the cosmological redshift, and it leads also to a kind of line-of-sight distortion. It is not caused, however, by the random internal motions of the cluster predicted by the virial theorem; rather, it arises from coherent motions as the galaxies fall inwards towards the cluster center as the cluster assembles. Depending on the particular dynamics of the situation, the Kaiser effect usually leads not to an elongation, but an apparent flattening ("pancakes of God"), of the structure. It is a much smaller effect than the fingers of God, and can be distinguished by the fact that it occurs on larger scales.[3]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble%27s_constant
Hubble's law is the name for the astronomical observation in physical cosmology that: (1) all objects observed in deep space (interstellar space) are found to have a doppler shift observable relative velocity to Earth, and to each other; and (2) that this doppler-shift-measured velocity, of various galaxies receding from the Earth, is proportional to their distance from the Earth and all other interstellar bodies. In effect, the space-time volume of the observable universe is expanding and Hubble's law is the direct physical observation of this process.[1] It is considered the first observational basis for the expanding space paradigm and today serves as one of the pieces of evidence most often cited in support of the Big Bang model.Although widely attributed to Edwin Hubble, the law was first derived from the General Relativity equations by Georges Lemaître in a 1927 article where he proposed that the Universe is expanding and suggested an estimated value of the rate of expansion, now called the Hubble constant.[2][3][4][5][6] Two years later Edwin Hubble confirmed the existence of that law and determined a more accurate value for the constant that now bears his name[7]. The recession velocity of the objects was inferred from their redshifts, many measured earlier by Vesto Slipher (1917) and related to velocity by him.[8]
Posted 3 months ago # -
Mnemomeme
MemberSo, velocity might be local, or not. The universe might be infinite, or not. We might be able to see things moving away from us faster than the speed of light, or not. Gravity might travel, or not, and if it does it might move at infinte speed or not. There might be an event horizon around us 46 billion lightyears wide, or not. We could be witnessing expansion of space-time, or not. The speed of light might be constant, or not. There could be a black hole swallowing us, or not, if blackholes exist, but they might not.. Everything in the universe might be pointing at us, or not.
yeah... works out just fine, glad we cleared all of that up.
Here's a map:
. <--- this is one lightyear
............... <--- this is 15 lightyears
.............................................. <----- this is forty six lightyears.<--- this is how far light travels per year
............... <------ this is how old the universe is, divided by one billion
.............................................. <---- this is the age of the universe divided by a billion... times pi, also it's how big the universe is divided by a billion... the parts we can see anyway.So... if the universe is X old, and X*pi wide, that would mean it's (X*pi/2)^2 gravities schmool, where schmool describes how fucking stupid this idea actually is.
Posted 3 months ago # -
Mr. G
Memberyeah, I'm fuckin daft.
No, obviously it's the thousand's of career scientists and Mr. G who are daft and you are brilliant. Occam's Razor anyone?
Wiki parroting does not show comprehension, or even if you took the time to read and not skim the articles. Anyway, when talking about a star's color we do not invoke red shift. Star color and red shift are totally different concepts.
"So, velocity might be local, or not. The universe might be infinite, or not. We might be able to see things moving away from us faster than the speed of light, or not. Gravity might travel, or not, and if it does it might move at infinte speed or not. There might be an event horizon around us 46 billion lightyears wide, or not. We could be witnessing expansion of space-time, or not. The speed of light might be constant, or not. There could be a black hole swallowing us, or not, if blackholes exist, but they might not.. Everything in the universe might be pointing at us, or not."
Yes, there a million things that science can't explain. So, what? Science does not claim to know all of the answers. That's why they are called theories.
In fact there are other competing theories to the Big Bang which are seeking confirmation by other scientists. An interesting one is M Theory in which the universe does not start from a singularity. There are many others, but none seem to work as well as the Standard Model.I am finding it increasing irritating of the hostile attitude towards science of seemingly the majority of this forum. Kurzweil would be disgusted if he every bothered to look. Lol. The Singularity comes from nothing else than exponentially advancing technological progress. These advancements are not created by accident. They are the result of the constant painstaking applied scientific rigor of scientists building upon each other's work since the days of Newton and before.
G
Posted 3 months ago # -
gareththomasnz
MemberUtterly ridiculous - really we must mean so little and there must be billions of species as intelligent as ours.
Get it BILLIONS !!! ... and the next step is singularity - convergent evolution
What does it mean ?
1. It means that there will be no galactic age of space galleons and interstellar travel.
2. It means that more intelligent species than our own have no requirement to contact the billions of lesser species.
Those two concepts are mistaken projections of the past and present upon the future. We don't know what does lie beyond the singularity but we know two things that do not.
Posted 3 months ago # -
Mnemomeme
Member"Durr, me draw circle! Me astronmr! Me smart! You dum! Me draw circle! guuuuhhhhhhhh...."
The standard model isn't science, it's speculative bullshit wrapped in... trillions now... of dollars worth of hope.
It doesn't work, it never has worked, and since the Apollo eleven mission we've known that everything about it is wrong. That's the only time we bothered doing even one reasonable experiment that involved it, and that experiment was to predict the change in gravity on our way to the moon. And frankly, that one was an accident. Everything else about astrophysics is pure untested theory. If you want to call that science, please don't let me stop you. Unicorns are science, faeries are science, and seamonsters are science, by that kind of definition.
I'm not hostile towards science, I'm hostile towards abuses of authority that make science into a joke, or a religion.
If you want to pretend that a skeptical discipline is unquestionable, then I'll have nothing but spite for you.
Posted 3 months ago # -
The Standard model provides the most precise measurements of reality that it is currently possible to obtain. Every time we have used a particle accelerator to look for a hidden particle, it was the standard model that told us what to look for. The current search for the Higgs particle is the latest example of a scientific experiment designed to strengthen or debunk the standard model, depending on whether the Higgs is found or not. Given its impeccable track record, I would bet on the Higgs being found.
From what Mnemomem wrote, I would conclude he scarcely knows what he is talking about.
Posted 3 months ago # -
About the infinite universe and Olders Paradox (which is what James is referring to when he talks about space being dark at night instead of blindlingly light) I would point out that in modern inflationary cosmology inflation expands the universe plus the space between universe at superluminal speeds, so even if there is infinite space beyond our light horizon it is quite possible that light from those island universes never reaches us.
Posted 3 months ago # -
Mnemomeme
MemberThe Standard model provides the most precise measurements of reality that it is currently possible to obtain.
"Good enough."Here's a brief history of "good enough" 'science.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caloric_theory
This example is used to make this argument so often and by so many people, it's become an expanded icon of scientism.Posted 3 months ago # -
You ever read a book called 'the Big Bang Never Happened' by Eric Lerner? I think you would like it. I suspect Lerner's view on how the Big Bang and the Standard model fail and yet remain at the forefront of theoretical research perfectly reflect your own concerns.
Posted 3 months ago # -
Mr. G
MemberI'm hostile towards abuses of authority that make science into a joke, or a religion.
Okay sure. You must have your reasons. I would like to know why if that's okay. It is one thing to disagree with something, but it is quite another to have disdain for something. What kinds of abuses are you talking about?
G
Posted 3 months ago # -
asimov1
MemberModels are good models when most of the questions you ask of that model come out with the right answers.
its as simple as that
some models give out a lot more right answers than others......so we tend to stick with using the top bunch of model as a foundation for further investigation
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.The OP "Humans are first out of the Gate " makes a fair bit of sense , if you are using the top bunch of model as a foundation for further investigation
We probably are not first out of the gate in the entire universe , but we may very well be " first out of the gate " in our galaxy , and quite possibly first in the nearest 1000 galaxies as well
If the milky way is even mildly busy ( as in startrek ) ...we will get a phone call fro ET this century ....a hedgehog crossing a busy road is bound to make contact !
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Right now the table of plausible and logical possibility is n' boxes high and n' boxes wide ....every now and then we get to put a cross in a box , but its mostly unchecked. That said patterns of X's are emerging , columns here , splodges there, from the shapes & patterns of checked and indeed unchecked boxes we are slowly building up a picture 1 pixel X at a time.Posted 3 months ago # -
Mr. G
MemberWe probably are not first out of the gate in the entire universe , but we may very well be " first out of the gate " in our galaxy , and quite possibly first in the nearest 1000 galaxies as well
It really depends on what values you place in the Drake Equation. It is certainly possible, but seems quite unlikely. We need to know what those filters are much more clearly.
G
Posted 3 months ago #
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