Are we alone.... The answer is ''Yes''

maninasia

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

No, we don't.

There are a number of theoretical possibilities for faster than light travel, but there is good reason to think they are impossible. FTL travel is time travel into the past unless Relativity is wrong, and you get into kill-your-younger-self paradoxes.

I'm not talking about FTL travel, please do the courtesy of reading my statement again. What I am talking about it skipping travelling through space altogether! I even gave you the links to read about it, knock yourself out.

In the first instance space is bent so much a wormhole can be used to used to connect two originally very distant points.

In the second instance the traveller literally surfs on a wave of expanding and contracting space but not through space.

This is why I wrote 'Why take a horse and cart when you can fly on a plane'?

Zubeneschamali

maninasia wrote: »

I'm not talking about FTL travel, please do the courtesy of reading my statement again. What I am talking about it skipping travelling through space altogether! I even gave you the links to read about it, knock yourself out.

So you're not talking about faster than light travel, you are just talking about travelling to places faster than light travels there. I see.

Anyhow, warpdrive, hyperspace, running really fast, it's all the same. However you do it, it allows time travel into the past unless Relativity turns out to be wrong.

maninasia

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

So you're not talking about faster than light travel, you are just talking about travelling to places faster than light travels there. I see.

Anyhow, warpdrive, hyperspace, running really fast, it's all the same. However you do it, it allows time travel into the past unless Relativity turns out to be wrong.

What you are talking about is the chronological protection problem, hawkings discusses it in the link I gave above.

science_biggot

I think you could be right . . . there is actually alot going against the chances of an advanced civ out there . . .

its kind of disheartning when you look at all the arguments against life

ps200306

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Science doesn't search for truths, it searches for facts.

And who says science won't end up with a fully fledged theory of everything. Just because we don't know everything now, it doesn't mean this won't be the case eventually. We don't fully understand the make up of our universe of whether the universe is infinitely complex.

A theory of everything is a logical impossibility assuming "everything" includes the theory itself. It falls foul of Russell's Paradox.

Capt'n Midnight

hmmm...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/11/comet_algae_hystrichospheres/

"The data reveals a lack of detectable nitrogen and an anomalous C/O ratio (similar to bitumen) clearly establishing that this obviously biological form could not possibly represent a modern biological contaminant," reads a paper describing the researchers' findings, published in the Journal of Cosmology.

"The extremely well-preserved and very thin (2μm diameter x 100μm long) flagella are interpreted as indicating a low-gravity, low-pressure environment and rapid freeze-drying."

Additional samples were checked by the NASA Marshall Space Flight Centre, which found biological structures deeply embedded in the rock - further ruling out the possibility of the organisms being the result of biological contamination from Earth.

Perhaps it's ejecta from previous hits returning to earth ?

ps200306

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Perhaps it's ejecta from previous hits returning to earth ?

Perhaps it's a lump of paving stone uncritically accepted as a meteorite
There seems to be quite a lot of articles debunking that one.

Dublin Red Devil

I believe there is life on other planets. There has to be. The universe is so massive, So many Galaxys, Millions upon millions of planets. It would be almost impossibe for there not to be others with life forms like us.

flanna01

The assumption that there was other forms of life in the Universe - Is not disputed....

The original post was - We will never communicate with another intelligent race.

Capt'n Midnight

Dublin Red Devil wrote: »

I believe there is life on other planets. There has to be. The universe is so massive, So many Galaxys, Millions upon millions of planets. It would be almost impossibe for there not to be others with life forms like us.

If they existed they would not be like us.

Look back at the sort of things that existed in the Cambrian , we are what survived many extinctions.

Even now the most intelligent animals on this planet include
cat
magpie
dolphin
octopus

We hail back to the top middle group.

These guy's didn't make it - they could have been exploring the galaxy by now.


It's more likely that life on another planet is unicellular , like the life on our planet was for greater than 80% of the history of our planet

flanna01

I can only imagine the amount of conditions that had to be perfect to evolve the current human form of life.... To then discover and develop radio waves must be trillions to one.

Assuming that an intelligent race is similar, or more advanced than us, who is to say that there isn't a more universal method of communication?

If radio waves were the 'norm'... Wouldn't space be full of radio traffic? Should there not be radio signals bouncing around all over the place... Some of them billions of years old?

The fact of the matter is .... There isn't!

This leads me to believe, that any intelligent civilisation is so far away, that any transmission would be lost long before the Earth had a chance of intercepting it..

maninasia

There are other ideas, like using neutrons or lasers. Look 'em up.

There is also the problem of quantum encryption and the ability to tell signal from noise.

Capt'n Midnight

flanna01 wrote: »

discover and develop radio waves must be trillions to one.
...
This leads me to believe, that any intelligent civilisation is so far away, that any transmission would be lost long before the Earth had a chance of intercepting it..

We wouldn't be able to detect a radio wave.

we are in the process of ditching analog TV forever ,
digital signals are subject to the "digital cliff" it's pretty much all or nothing. If you can decode the signal and you recover enough information you can use the error correction to build the original content, if you can't then you just get white noise. It's not like voice or morse code where you can hear stufff admidst the static

so for ET listening in the glory days of audio broadcasts across the oceans are gone, we are filling in the blank parts of the spectrum with "white space"

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/4371/could-natural-nuclear-reactors-have-boosted-life-on-this-and-other-planets

it's possible natural nuclear reactors may have helped life on earth

though this would mean that tides and a moon would be kinda handy for ET

"The natural reactor in Africa is real, but the reason it was of so much interest is that it is so rare," Boynton said. "I would say it is all but impossible that any natural reactor has happened anywhere else in the solar system. It may be it has only happened once on Earth!"

flanna01

Food for Thought:

There are billions of fish on our own planet Earth..

Yet we haven't communicated with one of them.

Gwynston

flanna01 wrote: »

Food for Thought:
There are billions of fish on our own planet Earth..
Yet we haven't communicated with one of them.

Indeed.
That's one of the paradox arguments - that having finally evolved, "intelligent" life might only exist for such a tiny period of time. So the window of opportunity for communicating with, or detecting intelligent life elsewhere within the same window is very limited.

For all the teeming life we've had on Earth for billions of years, it's only in the past couple of hundred years we've been in that window. And who knows how many hundreds of years we'll remain in that window (if even that long) before we're wiped out?

Curly Judge

Gwynston wrote: »

Indeed.
That's one of the paradox arguments - that having finally evolved, "intelligent" life might only exist for such a tiny period of time. So the window of opportunity for communicating with, or detecting intelligent life elsewhere within the same window is very limited.

For all the teeming life we've had on Earth for billions of years, it's only in the past couple of hundred years we've been in that window. And who knows how many hundreds of years we'll remain in that window (if even that long) before we're wiped out?

I think that if we are not fried by a gamma ray burst or a local super nova we'll probably survive.
The thing we then have to worry about is some form of genetic weakening like in the cheetah.
The discovery of the genome means that we'll be able to control our own evolutionary destiny so I think the prospects are reasonably bright.
There is always the possibility that we are the first in the universe!
I mean.....someone had to be first.....right?

flanna01

We have been able to communicate outside our own planet for less than 100yrs - This is a very small window of time.

So... Will we survive and continue to transmit signals, in the hope that one day (probably millions of years from now), somebody will be able to receive and translate our signals...?

Here's the problem...

It's a near certainty that mankind will not see out another thousand years...

Anything that can happen, will happen over time...

We earthlings, have nuclear arms pointed at each other across the globe. The first nation to launch an attack, will cause a domino effect, with every other powerful nation following suit... Basically, that's the 'Endgame' of the human civilisation as we know it.

How long before a 'dirty bomb' finds it's way into an extreme terrorist cell? We already have mad mullah's threatening to blow the west to kingdom come... We have leaders of nations that are so deluded that they openly threaten to strike American bases....

Politics aside... We have no idea what new mutant viruses will be unleashed upon us... We still can't locate the feared Ebola strain, or where it hangs out?

We have rocks falling from the sky, Yellowstone park is overdue to blow, Sun bursts, gamma rays, rising sea levels.... The list goes on...

This last 100yrs has witnessed two world wars, the Cuban missile crisis could have been the third (Good job George W Bush wasn't the Prez!), we invade countries & nations at will, we breed hatred among races and cultures... This is just one big pressure pot that cannot possibly sustain a future as a civilisation...

Maybe when our signals do reach another alien civilisation... Should anybody come to visit us, they would only find another Mars... A barren land that poisoned itself many hundreds of thousands of years ago...

There may be still cockroaches scraping a living out under the rocks.

Duggys Housemate

Gwynston wrote: »

Indeed.
That's one of the paradox arguments - that having finally evolved, "intelligent" life might only exist for such a tiny period of time. So the window of opportunity for communicating with, or detecting intelligent life elsewhere within the same window is very limited.

For all the teeming life we've had on Earth for billions of years, it's only in the past couple of hundred years we've been in that window. And who knows how many hundreds of years we'll remain in that window (if even that long) before we're wiped out?

That's an extremely weak argument. If civilisations progressed at our rate but were thousands, millions, or billions of years ahead they would be on more than one planet.

Duggys Housemate

flanna01 wrote: »

We have been able to communicate outside our own planet for less than 100yrs - This is a very small window of time.

So... Will we survive and continue to transmit signals, in the hope that one day (probably millions of years from now), somebody will be able to receive and translate our signals...?

Here's the problem...

It's a near certainty that mankind will not see out another thousand years...

Anything that can happen, will happen over time...

We earthlings, have nuclear arms pointed at each other across the globe. The first nation to launch an attack, will cause a domino effect, with every other powerful nation following suit... Basically, that's the 'Endgame' of the human civilisation as we know it.

How long before a 'dirty bomb' finds it's way into an extreme terrorist cell? We already have mad mullah's threatening to blow the west to kingdom come... We have leaders of nations that are so deluded that they openly threaten to strike American bases....

Politics aside... We have no idea what new mutant viruses will be unleashed upon us... We still can't locate the feared Ebola strain, or where it hangs out?

We have rocks falling from the sky, Yellowstone park is overdue to blow, Sun bursts, gamma rays, rising sea levels.... The list goes on...

This last 100yrs has witnessed two world wars, the Cuban missile crisis could have been the third (Good job George W Bush wasn't the Prez!), we invade countries & nations at will, we breed hatred among races and cultures... This is just one big pressure pot that cannot possibly sustain a future as a civilisation...

Maybe when our signals do reach another alien civilisation... Should anybody come to visit us, they would only find another Mars... A barren land that poisoned itself many hundreds of thousands of years ago...

There may be still cockroaches scraping a living out under the rocks.

The chance of a nuclear attack is much much lower than the Cold War ( and defences are greater). There are far fewer active warheads pointed anywhere.

None if the rest of your arguments would end civilisations. If sea levels rise well we'll just deal with that.


In any case thus is human history. Other species would have reached space travel before nuclear wars, or had a one world government. If there were so many of them.

ps200306

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

The chance of a nuclear attack is much much lower than the Cold War ( and defences are greater). There are far fewer active warheads pointed anywhere.

None if the rest of your arguments would end civilisations. If sea levels rise well we'll just deal with that.


In any case thus is human history. Other species would have reached space travel before nuclear wars, or had a one world government. If there were so many of them.

+1. The first two world wars didn't wipe us out. In fact, the flu of 1918 killed more people than the war. The plagues of the high middle ages altered the course of civilisation but certainly didn't end it. A Yellowstone eruption wouldn't either. Human civilisation is sufficiently global that it would take a genuinely global catastrophe to end it.

Civilisation isn't enough to go trawling around the universe, of course. We've had civilisation for at least 50,000 years but have been exploring our little corner of the universe for only 50. Whether technological civilisations come and go like last year's winner of X-Factor, we have no clue.

mickmackey1

flanna01 wrote: »

the Cuban missile crisis could have been the third (Good job George W Bush wasn't the Prez!)

To be fair Kennedy was more than prepared to blast the Russians, so you should check your history as well as your exobiology :pac:

flanna01

If Kennedy wasn't sitting in office... I seriously doubt we would be having this conversation today....

maninasia

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

That's an extremely weak argument. If civilisations progressed at our rate but were thousands, millions, or billions of years ahead they would be on more than one planet.

Exactly, they are not going to sit around in one place.

They are also going to continue to evolve and change. That means that once they off their home planet/rock/sun/whatever, they have a much higher chance of survival.

They are also unlikely to remain 'one' civilisation or species, rather they will branch off and evolve into different civilisations and species as they move off into different sectors of space.

Just look at what happened on Earth to get an idea. Evolution doesn't stop just because you jumped off Earth.

maninasia

flanna01 wrote: »

Food for Thought:

There are billions of fish on our own planet Earth..

Yet we haven't communicated with one of them.

Well I'm sure I have I tapped on the window of that aquarium in the Chinese restaurant the other day and he came over to say hello.

Duggys Housemate

flanna01 wrote: »

If Kennedy wasn't sitting in office... I seriously doubt we would be having this conversation today....

Absolutely. His armed staff were gung ho.

Solair

The most we could hope to find with something like SETI is a signal that is definitely artificial in origin. We wouldn't really have a hope in hell of decoding it without a lot more information available.

If you take say for example, you were an alien and you stumbled upon a 1950s high-power television transmission, there's really absolutely no way you'd be able to decode it and it's not even intended to be encrypted.

To notice the signal:

1) You'd need to be aware of radiowaves.
2) You'd have to be looking at that particular type of wave / band.
3) You'd need to be looking towards the Earth (which moves in an orbit at huge speed)
4) You'd need to realise that the signals were being intelligently generated and not some naturally occurring thing.

To decode it:

1) You'd have to have knowledge of how human senses worked i.e. hearing and vision in this case.
2) You'd need to actually somehow miraculously guess how an analogue television receiver (of the type compatible with the signal) worked. Baring in mind that these were complex electronic devices that you wouldn't just stumble upon the idea of, it's not really very likely that you'd just figure out what the signal controlled.

So, basically not a hope in hell of figuring out what the signal does.

The same goes for anything we stumble upon. It will just be meaningless garble.

Our more recent digital transmissions (say since the 1970s) are probably more likely to draw attention as they're on/off pulses and quite obviously artificial. Analogue signals could look more like background radiation.

As for life on other planets, who knows! Until we actually get some evidence of life on one of the planets/moons in our solar system (even if that's just some kind of green slime algae or something) we will have no idea how prevalent or rare it is.

We could be the only life in the universe, or it could be very rare, or it could be extremely common and the universe could be teeming with it. Until we find some evidence, we really can't answer those questions.

In terms of space exploration, we're still only at the toddler stage. We've barely explored the kitchen, never mind the backyard!

So, there's no way I'd rule anything out as 'definitely doesn't exist' for quite a long time yet.

bombs away

maybe they could'nt be arsed contacting us, maybe we're just not that interesting enough to talk to. I definitely would have second thoughts after reading through this thread

Capt'n Midnight

Solair wrote: »

The most we could hope to find with something like SETI is a signal that is definitely artificial in origin. We wouldn't really have a hope in hell of decoding it without a lot more information available.

If you take say for example, you were an alien and you stumbled upon a 1950s high-power television transmission, there's really absolutely no way you'd be able to decode it and it's not even intended to be encrypted.

1950's and until very recently terresterial TV was amplitude modulated

there were also clear synch pulses to marks the start of each line and each frame

sound was FM - so not that hard to demodulate and lots of visual clues

colour was by phase , bit trickier but someone would have figured out that it often corresponded to the picture signals - figuring out which colour was which might have been interesting unless there were some obvious clues in the programming (like a rainbow)

teletext is also fairly simple to decode - the big gotcha is that some characters changed the colour or size of the following lines,





But all of that's gone forever (or will be shortly)

Digital means you get nothing unless you know how to decode it. And there are a crap load of mutually incompatible systems.

Have a look at this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrature_Amplitude_Modulation
and that's just to get you your 1's and 0's , next trick is to work out which of them belong to which stream only then can you start worrying out which part of the stream is audio and which is video (and don't forget the mheg teletext stuff and the radio channels and the over the air firmware upgrades)

Did I mention that it's rate adaptive - the stream with more movement probably takes more band width

are you familiar with the discrete cosine transform ?



So to pickup an ET signal , we'd have to hope it was from the first 100years of their civilisation or a radar or something that they wanted us to decode.

100 years is a blip.

mickmackey1

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

So to pickup an ET signal , we'd have to hope it was from the first 100years of their civilisation or a radar or something that they wanted us to decode.

100 years is a blip.

That's kinda the point though. Just as you don't speak Shakespeare to your dog, the aliens won't use their technology if they want to communicate. The purpose of SETI is to pick up deliberate signals from a species which has identified our planet as potentially interesting; by definition we won't detect anything beyond our present range.