The Fermi Paradox - Where is Everybody?

[questionmark]

This planet has

How far WE are from such technology is totally irrelevant, it is not US colonising the galaxy that we are talking about.

Again most of this is irreverent at best and quite possibly fallacious.

We are not talking about what human are capable of now, we are talking about a galaxy which has been able to sustain life for billions of years.

As for saying what worlds we will or won't colonise in the future, unless you have a time machine you can not possibly know what technological capabilities we will have a century from now, never mind millennia from now.

Once again irrelevant, we don't have to recognise the biology, we have to recognise the technology and communications of an alien race. It is I adamit, highly possible that we can't recognise alien technology because it is too advanced.

I don't get your point here. Why would you assume that all technological species would emerge at roughly the same time, especially as there are stars (and therefore planets) that are considerably older than ours.

You can doubt what ever you like, me I'd rather base my doubtsw on the evidence.

More irrelevance. What we are capable of has nothing to do with this.

While not trying to push you down from your superiority pedestal, on this planet we have life for at least 3.48 billion years. So that life is possible for billions of years is not indicative of any notable level of higher civilization anywhere (as I said, evolution also has its laws). In that case the wish is father of the thought.

Now, if you try to claim that intelligent life first developed on a gas planet, well possible, but most likely we could never recognize it because we would keep breathing our possible interlocutor in.

And yes we know that there is possibly a galaxy that formed only 500 million years after the big bang, but those guys are quite a long way away from us and I tend to doubt that anybody ever will send us anything from UDFj-39546284... no matter how advanced the civilization it will take them quite a while to bridge those 13,8 billion lightyears.

So I tend to doubt that any civilization out there is much more than a few thousand years ahead of us, and that will very much limit their ability to bridge very large stretches of space.

And, can I ask you for any evidence you are basing your doubts on except that we don't know that there is any life because we could not go anywhere so far to find out?

[shrooma]

Mass of the object increases because you have to add energy to the object to increase its speed, and energy = mass.

.

i KNEW jogging was wrong!

all those joggists had to do to lose weight was stay bloody still!!

.

[magikgoddess]

Could planet Earth be some sort of max-security prison... perhaps that's why we're not a tourist attraction to the intergalactic community at large? Has someone already put fourth this theory? To me, it makes a lot of sense (it would explain our violent & destructive nature).

[questionmark]

Could planet Earth be some sort of max-security prison... perhaps that's why we're not a tourist attraction to the intergalactic community at large? Has someone already put fourth this theory? To me, it makes a lot of sense (it would explain our violent & destructive nature).

Quite a few science fiction authors.

Now, from there to reality...

[StarMountainKid]

Astronomers have found a twin star to Earth's own sun, only much older. The rare star is the oldest known "solar twin," and offers a peek at what Earth's star will look like in 4 billion years.

The star, called HIP 102152, appears to be as similar to the sun in its basic characteristics as any other known star. However, whereas the sun is only 4.6 billion years old, HIP 102152 is 8.2 billion years old, and so represents a sun-like star at a very different stage of life. In fact, it's the oldest solar twin ever seen.

HIP 102152 lies about 250 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Capricornus (the Sea Goat), and was observed with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile.

http://www.space.com/22563-oldest-sun-twin-discovered.html

I quote this here because I think it's relevant to the discussion. If there are solar twins in the galaxy almost twice the age of our sun, and more stars older by lesser degrees, and surmising that some of these stars have earth-like planets, and on some of these planets intelligent, technologically capable species have evolved, what have they been doing all this time?

To my mind, there are three reasons for the Fermi Paaradox. A: the earth has not yet been contacted, B: earth has been visited but deemed innappropriate for contact for some reason, or C: that intelligent, technologically capable species are rare in the galaxy.

I favor C.

[questionmark]

http://www.space.com...discovered.html

I quote this here because I think it's relevant to the discussion. If there are solar twins in the galaxy almost twice the age of our sun, and more stars older by lesser degrees, and surmising that some of these stars have earth-like planets, and on some of these planets intelligent, technologically capable species have evolved, what have they been doing all this time?

To my mind, there are three reasons for the Fermi Paaradox. A: the earth has not yet been contacted, B: earth has been visited but deemed innappropriate for contact for some reason, or C: that intelligent, technologically capable species are rare in the galaxy.

I favor C.

250 light years is a good indicator for it to be A.

[magikgoddess]

Quite a few science fiction authors.

Now, from there to reality...

Can I deny reality and substitute it for something more fun?

[Waspie_Dwarf]

While not trying to push you down from your superiority pedestal,

Who is on a superior pedestal here? I didn't resort to personal attacks. If you don't like your views being questioned you really shouldn't be on a discussion forum.

on this planet we have life for at least 3.48 billion years. So that life is possible for billions of years is not indicative of any notable level of higher civilization anywhere (as I said, evolution also has its laws). In that case the wish is father of the thought.

Even if 3.48 billion year is the average time it takes an average civilisation to develop this does not hold water as an argument. As I have already pointed out not all stars are the same age. An Earth like planet around a sun like star just 10% older than our sun would have been capable, even using your argument, of producing a civilisation like ours 400 million years ago.

Now, if you try to claim that intelligent life first developed on a gas planet, well possible, but most likely we could never recognize it because we would keep breathing our possible interlocutor in.

Where does this argument come from?

And yes we know that there is possibly a galaxy that formed only 500 million years after the big bang, but those guys are quite a long way away from us and I tend to doubt that anybody ever will send us anything from UDFj-39546284... no matter how advanced the civilization it will take them quite a while to bridge those 13,8 billion lightyears.

I'm not talking about other galaxies. Population I stars (high metalicity stars like the Sun) started forming 10 billion years ago, that means that there is a good 6 billion years for civilisation like ours to form even if it does take more than 3 billion years.

So I tend to doubt that any civilization out there is much more than a few thousand years ahead of us, and that will very much limit their ability to bridge very large stretches of space.

This doubt makes no sense given the fact that there are considerably older sun like stars than ours. It would need a highly improbable set of coincidences for intelligent life to form simultaneously all around the galaxy given a window several billion years long when they could have formed.

And, can I ask you for any evidence you are basing your doubts on except that we don't know that there is any life because we could not go anywhere so far to find out?

I gave you my evidence. I have now repeated it. The fact that you choose to ignore evidence when it doesn't fit your belief system (as demonstrated both with me and your refusal to accept Relativity in your discussion with StarMountainKid) is not something I can change.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

http://www.space.com/22563-oldest-sun-twin-discovered.html

I quote this here because I think it's relevant to the discussion.

Thank you, it is totally irrelevant as it proves exactly the point I was making and questionmark was ignoring.

As for why we haven't found evidence of alien civilisations, I'm going to fall back on the default science position... we just don't know. To favour any one position over another with no supporting evidence is just a guess.

[questionmark]

Who is on a superior pedestal here? I didn't resort to personal attacks. If you don't like your views being questioned you really shouldn't be on a discussion forum.

Even if 3.48 billion year is the average time it takes an average civilisation to develop this does not hold water as an argument. As I have already pointed out not all stars are the same age. An Earth like planet around a sun like star just 10% older than our sun would have been capable, even using your argument, of producing a civilisation like ours 400 million years ago.

Where does this argument come from?

I'm not talking about other galaxies. Population I stars (high metalicity stars like the Sun) started forming 10 billion years ago, that means that there is a good 6 billion years for civilisation like ours to form even if it does take more than 3 billion years.

This doubt makes no sense given the fact that there are considerably older sun like stars than ours. It would need a highly improbable set of coincidences for intelligent life to form simultaneously all around the galaxy given a window several billion years long when they could have formed.

I gave you my evidence. I have now repeated it. The fact that you choose to ignore evidence when it doesn't fit your belief system (as demonstrated both with me and your refusal to accept Relativity in your discussion with StarMountainKid) is not something I can change.

What you are trying hard to ignore here is that the majority of the time "life" has struggled to be a being with more than one functional neurone, that in fact took the first two billion years of evolution, that this life was finally capable of planfully altering its environment took most of the rest of the 3.48 billion years life exists. And while that may be exponential it still does not indicate that within a few short years people are suddenly capable of harnessing the power they need to make interstellar travel possible (and not I did not say unleashing but controlling). And no matter what other civilization there might be out there: They have the same problems doing that as we do.

And, that I dispute relativity is your interpretation, what I dispute is that relativity is applicable in all contexts. That it is being based on the limited perception of observers is already a good indication of its limitations... unless of course we want to claim that those observer have the ability to perceive all.

And StarMountainKid's twice as old star, if true, only shows that the possibility of older intelligent life than that on earth is far more limited than you would like to believe, else we would have a few more of those around... and that also makes the Fermi paradox a less thought through postulate.

[StarMountainKid]

Thank you, it is totally irrelevant as it proves exactly the point I was making and questionmark was ignoring.

My post is totally irrelevant because it proves your point? I always think a little evidence to back up someone's opinion is relevant. I guess opinion is more relevant than evidence.

To favour any one position over another with no supporting evidence is just a guess.

This time you are correct.

[Lilly]

Just a thought about the, "Either we're alone in the universe or not" quote. I'd favour adding some more to that idea. Even if we're not alone the distance to the nearest ETs may render us 'essentially alone'...especially if FTL space travel is not possible.

[skookum]

Just a thought about the, "Either we're alone in the universe or not" quote. I'd favour adding some more to that idea. Even if we're not alone the distance to the nearest ETs may render us 'essentially alone'...especially if FTL space travel is not possible.

We still although very occasionally now find creatures on our planet we have never seen before. Kind of puts it into perspective how hard it would be to find intelligent ET's in the Milky Way, let alone the Universe. The Universe might be full of life, but like most life on our planet does not have the intelligence for communication.

If FTL is possible then I bet that a civilization that advanced would have created FTL communication. If that is the case then looking for radio waves is even more unlikely to turn up anything. How can we really find something if we don't really know what to look for?

SETI only realistically has a chance of finding a civilization at the same technological level as we are. We know we have been sending signals out for more than half a century, the question is how long will we continue to use them? If it is only another 50-100 years that is a very small window for a civilization to be detected with our current methods.

Edited July 23, 2014 by skookum

[Waspie_Dwarf]

My post is totally irrelevant because it proves your point? I always think a little evidence to back up someone's opinion is relevant. I guess opinion is more relevant than evidence.

Sorry, that was a typo, it should have said totally relevant.

[questionmark]

When you accelerate mass, the faster it goes the more kenetic energy it has, and as energy = mass, its mass increases. At relativistic speeds the ratio of energy/mass increases exponentially.

well, as you did not call me on that I will confess that you are almost right and I'll try to explain the thing a little:

If we want to have a good example on mass to energy (or vice versa) we can have a look at the fusion process of the sun, there a deuterium nucleon hits a tritium nucleon and suddenly we have helium... and lost some mass. What happened to it? It simply converted itself into heat and light, therefore energy.

Now we take that helium nucleon and put some vector energy to it, do we have anything but helium? No, we still have helium, but this nucleon will keep on moving until it can release that energy to something else... for example by hitting an obstacle. So we have helium + energy.

Now, taking the good old formula that energy is work by mass what happens if we want to make that nucleon a little faster? Well, we don't have have to apply only the energy to put the mass into movement but we have to put in the energy to put in the mass+the energy that mass is carrying into a faster movement.

But that does not mean that mass=energy.

And that does not mean that, given enough energy, the mass has a build in speed limit.

[StarMountainKid]

And that does not mean that, given enough energy, the mass has a build in speed limit.

Then why can the Large Hadron Collider for instance not accelerate protons faster than the speed of light?

The protons will each have an energy of 7 TeV, giving a total collision energy of 14 TeV. At this energy the protons have a Lorentz factor of about 7,500 and move at about 0.999999991 c,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider

[questionmark]

Then why can the Large Hadron Collider for instance not accelerate protons faster than the speed of light?

http://en.wikipedia....Hadron_Collider

Because they are limited in the energy input to 100(?) Mwatt?

(Don't have the figure in my head right now)

[StarMountainKid]

Because they are limited in the energy input to 100(?) Mwatt?

What would be the consequences or the effect of accelerating a proton or any other object faster than the speed of light? If you rode in a space ship traveling faster c what would you experience?

[questionmark]

What would be the consequences or the effect of accelerating a proton or any other object faster than the speed of light? If you rode in a space ship traveling faster c what would you experience?

First we should establish that nothing can travel faster than the propulsion that powers it... so it has little to do with the 100 Mwatt.... therefore CERN will not be able to accelerate anything faster than the speed of electricity (or better said, the alternating electric polarization of a neutron) which in vaccuum is equal to the speed of light.

Now, your question puts us in the realm of speculation because we have no way to observe a proton at a speed faster than light. All we can say for sure is that it would release more energy on impact than a neutron traveling slower and hit the target faster.

[questionmark]

First we should establish that nothing can travel faster than the propulsion that powers it... so it has little to do with the 100 Mwatt.... therefore CERN will not be able to accelerate anything faster than the speed of electricity (or better said, the alternating electric polarization of a neutron) which in vaccuum is equal to the speed of light.

Now, your question puts us in the realm of speculation because we have no way to observe a proton at a speed faster than light. All we can say for sure is that it would release more energy on impact than a neutron traveling slower and hit the target faster.

Edit: and coming to think of it, at what point will the pull of gravity be strong enough to pull that thingy apart, just as happens in the collision?

[StarMountainKid]

First we should establish that nothing can travel faster than the propulsion that powers it... so it has little to do with the 100 Mwatt.... therefore CERN will not be able to accelerate anything faster than the speed of electricity (or better said, the alternating electric polarization of a neutron) which in vaccuum is equal to the speed of light.

Then how do you propose to accelerate any mass faster than the speed of light?

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

I am sorry to interrupt the discussion guys, but there is no way to accelerate anything to a speed faster than the speed of light, no matter how much energy you use.

To reach the speed of light would require an infinite amount of energy. So accelerating beyond the speed of light would require more than infinite energy. That is clearly not possible !

[questionmark]

I am sorry to interrupt the discussion guys, but there is no way to accelerate anything to a speed faster than the speed of light, no matter how much energy you use.

To reach the speed of light would require an infinite amount of energy. So accelerating beyond the speed of light would require more than infinite energy. That is clearly not possible !

And, besides repeating a interpretation of the math could you show us the math?

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

Sure, here you go:

http://cds.cern.ch/r...009-003-Eng.pdf

http://math.ucr.edu/...fLight/FTL.html

http://en.wikipedia....rgy_equivalence

http://en.wikipedia....gy_and_momentum

http://en.wikipedia....cial_relativity

Edited July 26, 2014 by Noteverythingisaconspiracy

[questionmark]

Sure, here you go:

http://math.ucr.edu/...fLight/FTL.html

http://en.wikipedia....rgy_equivalence

http://en.wikipedia....gy_and_momentum

http://en.wikipedia....cial_relativity

Lets then start by the point 2 of your first link: Third party observer. That is how the whole relativity theory works and was based on. How does a third party observe (and therefore define) the interaction of observable elements. Yes, I could totally agree that you cannot define what you cannot see and therefore consider it infinite. But is it? Not so long ago infinite was considered to be 7x7 (see scriptures).

And that you can find under 16 of your first link (The infinite energy argument). Let me quote the second sentence of the last paragraph:'It is really just one way in which things cannot be made to go faster than light, rather than a proof that there is no way to do so.'

The confirmation of that theory came mostly by work done in particle accelerators and there we come to the above question: can you ever accelerate anything beyond the velocity of the energy applied?