100 Billion

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  • _niko0

    largest object ever discovered in universe is theoretically impossible.

    http://www.popsci.com/technology…

    • *ahem... not "theoretically." This was a principle, not a scientific theory, more assumption that a rulemonospaced
    • anyway, I love how the scientists get excited to rewrite the book so that it's always up-to-datemonospaced
    • << 'theoretically impossible'. Lazy knee-jerk anti-intellectual nonsense. "Previously thought impossible' is much better.mikotondria3
    • almost every article says the same thing, then again, the existence of the universe is theoretically impossible as well_niko
    • mind blown.utopian
    • fyi, it's a cluster of objects, not a single 4 billion light year wide 'thing'.detritus
    • It might not actually break anything either, it might just hint at the universe being several orders of magnitude bigger than we thought it was, in which case the cosmological principle stays intact.detritus
    • bigger than we thought it was, in which case the cosmological principle stays intact.detritus
  • dbloc0

  • _niko0

    ^ just because we are incapable of measuring or seeing things yet it doesn't mean that they don't exist or that we won't discover them.

    Think of everything we're discovering about the universe on a daily basis. Dark matter was unheard of a few years ago.

    Hell, we're discovering new animals on our planet that we never knew existed or could possibly exist with our current scientific knowledge, like the shrimp that live on sulfur vents on the bottom of the ocean, so how can we begin dismiss the possibility of life elsewhere?

    • I agree, but that's not how science works. Science works off of data, not off of science fiction.

      Just fyi, dark matter is still just a theory because we have no means to measure, or detect it other than gravitational lensing.
      twooh
    • FYI, dark matter is still a theory. The only means we have to theorize is gravitational lensing.twooh
    • And also my argument was not about dismissing life elsewhere at all. I was arguing that it was likely.twooh
    • and gravity is a theory too, but it is 100% real in every waymonospaced
  • twooh0

    We have scientific data though. That is really the only methodology to work with, and the only grounds we should be working with. Everything else would have to be something else, because that's not how science works, yeah?

    To be honest, I'm seeing your argument along the lines of, "well, we don't have any evidence to disprove the existence of a deity", when according to our scientific understanding, it's considered unlikely because we're supposed to be basing things off of what we can measure, and not by things we cannot measure. Does this make sense?

    • For the record, I don't have a problem with 'what if's'. I think it's important for scientists to keep that in mind.twooh
  • twooh0

    I know, but I responded by saying it's statistically unlikely. That's all.

    You can't really say we have no metric for it because then we can't talk probability here.

    • We can't though :)

      The Drake equation, fascinating as it is, means zip
      detritus
  • detritus0

    I'm not arguing anything, I'm simply postulating a scenario which I find dark and fascinating - a mere 'what if?'.

    • and we don't have a metric for comparison - if we did, we'd've discovered life outside of our own. We haven't.detritus
    • personally I think it's unreasonable to assume there's nothing else out there, but wtf do I know?detritus
  • twooh0

    deitrus,
    I'm confused. First you're saying 'what if' we're the first by a large margin; that life on Earth is somehow a universal anomaly. This is basically not very different than an argument that creationists use. You do see that right? But then you're arguing that we have no metric for comparison.

    Like I said, there are probably hundreds of millions of galaxies that are older than ours. Statistically speaking, winning the Powerball would be more likely.

  • ernexbcn0

    God put those planets there to test our faith.

  • albums0

    Matter is generated spontaneously in the vacuum of space and you guys are arguing about whether (intelligent) life exists elsewhere?

    Too many unknowns to man for us to even think we have a clue.

  • dorfsman0

    It's worth bearing in mind that when people quote the speculated size of the Universe when arguing for the likelihood of other intelligent lifeforms out there the numbers can actually be interpreted to confirm the exact opposite. For example, if planet's like Earth are quite typical, as many hypothesise, then owning to the exceptionally huge numbers involved (the Milky Way alone supposedly contains around 200 to 400 billion stars) the Universe should be positively teeming with life. So as physicist Enrico Fermi asked in 1950 then where indeed are they?
    To quote the Fermi parodox wiki page
    "The age of the universe and its vast number of stars suggest that unless the Earth is very atypical, extraterrestrial life should be common.[2]"
    "The Fermi paradox can be asked in two ways. The first is, "Why are no aliens or their artifacts physically here?" If interstellar travel is possible, even the "slow" kind nearly within the reach of Earth technology, then it would only take from 5 million to 50 million years to colonize the galaxy.[12] This is a relatively small amount of time on a geological scale, let alone a cosmological one. Since there are many stars older than the Sun, or since intelligent life might have evolved earlier elsewhere, the question then becomes why the galaxy has not been colonized already. Even if colonization is impractical or undesirable to all alien civilizations, large-scale exploration of the galaxy is still possible; the means of exploration and theoretical probes involved are discussed extensively below. However, no signs of either colonization or exploration have been generally acknowledged."
    "Even if such civilizations are rare, the scale argument indicates they should exist somewhere at some point during the history of the universe, and since they could be detected from far away over a considerable period of time, many more potential sites for their origin are within range of our observation. However, no incontrovertible signs of such civilizations have been detected."
    Have a read, it is fascinating stuff:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fer…
    More on the Drake Equation too:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The…
    and the rare Earth hypothesis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rar…
    The eccentric Ray Kurzweil does an excellent job of analysing the arguments for and against the existence of other intelligent beings in the Universe in his book "The Singularity in Near" concluding that we are indeed alone. This is not to say this is entirely correct of course :) It just sometimes seems an accepted fact that the universe definitely has other intelligent lifeforms when the math can actually rather convincingly illustrate the opposite. Something to think about...

    • paragraphs man. it's a friday afternoon, and you're asking my eyes a lot right now!twooh
    • we're still discovering new life on our own planet, nevermind other planets or star systems or galaxies._niko
    • @twooh Sorry man. Copy and pasted my comment from another forum thus formattingdorfsman
    • Given the scale of a galaxy, and the technical requirements in interplanetary travel, this is flawed.ETM
    • That's like spending your life walking around the world and stumbling across a specific landmark.ETM
    • There are still spots on earth not fully explored.ETM
    • Beings could be buzzing around the galaxy and easily miss or ignore us.ETM
  • detritus0

    Well, if the elements we need for life all came out at once after the big bang, that'd be a very pertinent question, ETM.

    Given that only the lightest three or so elements came from the First Event, I'll forgive the universe requiring a few rounds of star creation and supernovae to complete the set!

    .

    twooh: That's all well and good, but given it'll be a long time before we're usefully able to even SEE detail in another galaxy, let's just focus on our own. Besides which, your response doesn't really add anything against my proposition.

    All I'm saying is 'what if?', not 'it is'.

    • fair enough. I don't really see it though because it's so unlikely.twooh
    • says who? we have absolutely no metric for comparison!detritus
  • twooh0

    We do not live in the oldest galaxy in the universe. We are discovering galaxies that were born only 420-million years after the big bang itself. For comparison, our Milky Way is closer to 510-million. So it's pretty doubtful that if there were other living beings out there, that they would be younger than homosapiens, or anything like us.

    As I had said earlier, it's statistically nearly impossible to come across another species like us. So far, the Kepler telescope has managed to discover several planets within the proper habitable zones to their stars, but none with the exact ratio as ours. It's a very thin margin to meet. For example, Mars fits within a habitable zone, but it is obviously inhospitable since it lacks an atmosphere.

    • Based on our narrow criteria for life and it's requirements. We have no real understanding of how life could vary.ETM
    • As well, they use carbon-based life as the model.ETM
  • ETM0

    The universe is estimated to be 13.75 billion years old. The earth about 4.5 billion. If we have a head start, WTF was the universe doing for the last 14 billion years?

  • detritus0

    What of we're first by quite a large margin?

    What if we had some quizzical head start - some statistically unlikely lack of gamma ray bursts in the vicinity? Some happenstance deposition of all the right ingredients on this one wee globe, the only one blessed-so?

    What if we spend the next 10 million years slowly plodding across the galaxy, finding nothing but our own cousins from different divergences of Earth's old tree?

    What if we achieve all that we need and decide to turn in and somehow put our collective self to bed... and only then the universe warms to the idea and starts creating life everywhere?

    We would say we were alone, that we were somehow chosen.

    And as ever, we'd be wrong.

    • I think it's about time to have a joint and a cider.detritus
    • or... what if our human form is the same result of nature in every evolving instance?lambsy
    • there're good practical reasons we have a carbon-based bipedal format, so yeah - why not?detritus
  • detritus0

    What of we just happen to be the first?

    Somebody has to be.

    the older I get and the more I read up on this and enjoy the possibilities... the more I realise how futile arguing about it on the internet is.

    • says the non-living particulate organic materialalbums
    • first what?twooh
    • First live planet? Sorry, what's the bulk of this thread been about again?detritus
  • youngdesigner0
  • ernexbcn0

  • TheBlueOne0

    Drake equation is obsolete: http://www.sentientdevelopments.…

  • CanHasQBN0

    Has anyone ever pondered about the physical size of a potential alien being? The scale of their bodies could be completely different than ours. What if their bodies are the size of Earth? And they live on a Rock that's one-trillion times the size of Earth? Why do we automatically assume alien life is somewhere between 0ft and 10 ft tall?

    • PhysicsMorning_star
    • Are you talking about leg strength/stability and the ability to hold their bodies up?CanHasQBN
    • because relativity tells us there will not be rocks one trillion times the size of earthfadein11
    • Yes and gravity and the behaviour of particles and potential 'brain' size and resources and...Morning_star
    • etc.Morning_star
    • What if god hid those big rocks in the corner of space?CanHasQBN
    • The universe doesn't work like that i'm afraid.Morning_star
    • it's definitely something to consider though.CanHasQBN
    • Morning_Star knows all... hence his presence herealbums
  • pig0

    Tycho Brahe

    Eike Konig