It would appear that there are a few posts in this thread that base their argument on the Drake Equation. It should be remembered that Drake only formulated and published his equation as a method of stimulating debate (and, some cynics would argue, to encourage funding for SETI). The Fermi paradox makes far more sense to me... Fermi paradox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Maybe that's because I'm a cynical old git, who knows ?
Can anyone else read this without 'mentally narrating' it in the voice of Hawking's computer? I can't!
yea he cant be that smart or he would have fixed that fukn thing by now. might as well have forest gumps voice
"The mathematical model produced by Prof Andrew Watson suggests that the odds of finding new life on other Earth-like planets are low because of the time it has taken for beings such as humans to evolve and the remaining life span of the Earth." We may not be able to find it, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. "His model, published in the journal Astrobiology, suggests an upper limit for the probability of each step occurring is 10 per cent or less, so the chances of intelligent life emerging is low – less than 0.01 per cent over four billion years." Multiplied by a few gazillion planets and it means that life is all over the universe.
Or, that there may have been / will be life all over the universe at some point in its existence - but not necessarily at the same time...
And yet, as far as we can tell, it's not... Which brings us back to the Fermi paradox - ie "where is everybody?" If the equations doesn't match the observable results, then one posibility is that the maths is wrong...
But that's a whole different question... Time is, of course, a relative concept. Some would say it's just nature's way of stopping everything happening at once...
I consider it almost unthinkable that there cannot be other life 'out there' particularly given the numbers and even given the lowest of odds. That WE have been unable to prove it, let alone communicate with them, I find completely understandable. Let's face it - if you belonged to some alien race would you respond to us? And that's even assuming some other life form has developed the means to communicate such vast distances. And that's assuming that they've developed such technology long enough ago for their signals to reach us presently. And that's assuming we've developed the technology already to recognise whatever super transmission technology any such advanced civilisation could be using, or have used way back when, for the signals to be reaching us today.
or maybe developed in their future to reach us now or our future or their present or....or maybe they can send coherent signals faster than light.. we souldnt assume other forms of life (should they exist) have the same constraints as us. thats it im goin for a beer :Cyclops:
I love all of this Universe stuff. One of the best facts I heard was that a Neutron star's matter is so dense, that if you had a sugar cube size of it here on Earth, it would weigh the same as Mt. Everest. I believe a Neutron star also has the mass of a star packed into a diameter of about 7 miles. This stuff messes with my brain.
Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead, only realize the truth... THERE IS NO SPOON. Then you will see that it not the spoon that bends, it is yourself.
