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Author Topic: There's no one out there!  (Read 81508 times)

dodgy geezer

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #225 on: January 25, 2010, 10:44:56 pm »

If you're capable of traveling in space there's nothing at all harsh about the environment of Europa or Titan. And certainly nothing harsh about grabbing an iceball of any size you like from the Oort cloud without even getting out of your ship. But the main point is that there's MUCH MORE raw material there than there is on Earth, able to be gained with much less expenditure of energy.

Why come to a place where there is less of everything, and you don't know what the Americans and Russians might do if you started to 'invade'. Or do you think that the aliens would be able to handle nuclear war just fine, but be unable to land a remote pumping unit on Europa unopposed?

I can't think of any basic resource at all which isn't hundreds of times more common elsewhere in the Solar System than it is on Earth. Perhaps guano?

Have you any questions about the response I gave with respect to orbital axis tilt?
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justboatonic

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #226 on: January 25, 2010, 11:18:25 pm »

Amongst all the possible reasons why there are no intelligent civilisations bar us in the galaxy could be due to the Great Filter. Put simply, this is a hypothesis which states there could be a barrier to the evolution of intelligent life. The filter could be in the past of, or in front of any civilisation's development. It can be thought of as containing one or more highly improbable evolutionary steps leading to intelligence. Out of all the supposed millions of stars thought capable of being the starting point for intelligent life, there is zip, nada intelligent civilisations in the galaxy observable by us. The Great Filter must be powerful enough with critical improbable steps that from all these millions of stars, no other intelligence is apparent.

If we consider for a moment, the filter is for any given civilisation in its past, this would mean there is some improbable step in the sequence of events where an Earth like planet sustains an intelligent lifeform comparible technology wise to ourselves. To further this, our planet is roughly 4.5 billion years old. The earliest microfossils can be traced back to roughly 3.8 billion years yet human kind only appeared here in what, the last 200,000 years? This shows that the development of intelligence can take a very long time and improbable steps were needed to reach this point.

So if the filter is behind us, this could explain why there are no observable intelligent civilisations in the galaxy. Why? Because if its improbably on due to extraordinary circumstances, it can be argued other planets may not be so fortunate.

Take for example Mars. Often hoped as a place in the solar system where even today microbial life could exist. What if we did find such life on Mars? It is often stated that if life is found on Mars or anywhere else in the solar system, this would prove life evolved separately twice so would show life could be common through the galaxy.

Finding such life could be indicative that the filter operates sometime in the past but after evolution gets started. It would show that the filter prevented the life evolving further as the planet was not habitable for higher life forms. This could also mean that while simple microbial life may be common, the filter stops the emergence of intelligence developing.

The other possibility is that the filter lies in the future. In these circumstances, the filter could be some terminal technological or terminal natural disaster which prevent any civilisation progressing to one that could be capable of spreading out amongst the galaxy.

Either way, the filter would have huge implications.
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justboatonic

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #227 on: January 25, 2010, 11:41:59 pm »

If you're capable of traveling in space there's nothing at all harsh about the environment of Europa or Titan. And certainly nothing harsh about grabbing an iceball of any size you like from the Oort cloud without even getting out of your ship. But the main point is that there's MUCH MORE raw material there than there is on Earth, able to be gained with much less expenditure of energy.

Why come to a place where there is less of everything, and you don't know what the Americans and Russians might do if you started to 'invade'. Or do you think that the aliens would be able to handle nuclear war just fine, but be unable to land a remote pumping unit on Europa unopposed?

I can't think of any basic resource at all which isn't hundreds of times more common elsewhere in the Solar System than it is on Earth. Perhaps guano?

Have you any questions about the response I gave with respect to orbital axis tilt?

SETI response first. As I posted, SETI is the generic term now used for the search for intelligent lifeforms. Im suprised you insist on your narrow definition and start date for SETI. Drake started his search in 1960. The Russians were conducting 'SETI' searches during the 60's. The WOW! signal was received in 1977. Big Ear which received the signal was one of several telescopes being used to find such a transmission.

NASA funded a SETI search in 1971 (EDIT to remove an error). In 1979 UC Berkley launched SETI SERENDIP. In 1986 UC Berkley instigated SERENDIP 2. SENTINEL effectively started in 1983 to 85 to be superseded by META. META 2 started in 1990 in Argentina to search the southern hemisphere. META 2 is still operational after a system upgrade in 1996.

BETA came on line in October 1995 to replace META (not META 2). Then there is MOP and Project Pheonix, MOP being funded by the US Government until cancelled by Congress (see earlier).

Why do you dismiss SETI before 1999? Its not logical and its an inaccurate stance to take.

As regards Europa and Titan, it is perfectly legitimate to suggest that any ET could visit those places first. Irrespective of the relaities of space travel such a civilisation could conclude that a better return for effort could be got a few more million miles into the solar system. Alternatively they could send expeditions to both. However as the premise is they dont exist, I consider it a mute point anyway. If other professors consider a space faring civilisation may decide to visit earth instead of the places you suggest, that's something you need to take up with him. I merely passed comment on the matter.

Havent seen your comments about axle tilt.

EDIT what made you give up on your SETI farm of 20 machines after nearly 10 years? Was it the realisation that after all those years and machine time, not a single candidate had been found?
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dodgy geezer

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #228 on: January 26, 2010, 03:27:15 am »

....
Why do you dismiss SETI before 1999? Its not logical and its an inaccurate stance to take.
...
Havent seen your comments about axle tilt.

EDIT what made you give up on your SETI farm of 20 machines after nearly 10 years? Was it the realisation that after all those years and machine time, not a single candidate had been found?

Any work in the 1960s involved looking at individual stars without much of an idea what you were looking for. I know nothing of any Soviet work but rumours - I don't think anything was ever released. A good example of the 60s work is Jocelyn Bell's 'LGM' discovery of Pulsars in 67 - you just pointed a telescope and waited for something you thought was unusual to come out. In those days EVERYTHING was unusual...

The Ohio 'Big Ear'work from 73-85 was a long run at very limited frequencies, but manually checked. I think the physical printouts still exist, but I don't think anyone will go through them with modern systems. It found many thousand 'odd' signals, but of course had no facility to follow any up, and these were typically one-offs anyway. They were essentially listening to static ....

Nasa funded a seti STUDY in 1971 - just a study to consider how to make a telescope (which was never built). Much of the work you cite as 'listening projects' are in fact projects to consider what to build and how.

SETI Serendip is the SETI I was talking about - the only one which has had a long-ish run and actually examined the output in a fairly coherent way.

Sentinel and META are primarily projects to develop listening equipment. Sentinel equipment was a simple spectrum analyser which was given a short trial, and its sucessors were META and BETA. Each of these ran for a few years, and each of them showed a requirement for better analysis equipment. I think META ran in total for 10 years, but they have only examined 5 years worth of data..


None of the early studies were able to scan anything like the bandwidth we now can with computer assistance, and many were trials to develop the hardware and the concepts. That is why I discount work done before about 2000.

Havent seen your comments about axle tilt.
- you will find them above at 09:03 pm...

what made you give up on your SETI farm of 20 machines after nearly 10 years? Was it the realisation that after all those years and machine time, not a single candidate had been found?
No - it was that once they made the upgrade from SETI Classic to BOINC in 2005 I was able to use the farm for a variety of other purposes which I thought more useful, and I slowly ran SETI processing down. I think one or two slower machines are still ticking over on it, but most of my systems currently do Folding@Home(cancer research) and GIMPS Mersenne Prime Number searches. 10 years is not a long time to do a SETI scan - hundreds would be more appropriate, but I personally will probably benefit more from the F@H work....  %)

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malcolmfrary

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #229 on: January 26, 2010, 01:18:04 pm »

I never really understood the idea of looking for hydrogen's natural resonance frequency.  If the white coated gentlemen are right about it being the commonest element out there, it sounds like trying to read a document printed in black on black paper.  With the light turned off.  Added to that, it is accepted that the radio signals that we have been transmitting will be about 100 light years out by now.  We have transmitted next to nothing deliberately, and to be intelligible as a signal we would have had to send a very powerful, very directional signal over a very long time period.  As a race, it is unlikely that we will have the attention span to commit the required resources to send and receive, even if we thought of the right place to aim at.
Thats all assuming somebody out there to receive and reply.  If there are life-forms out there that we would recognise, and with comparable  technology, they might well have evolved a similar racial attention span.  This would not be good for the chance of contact.
As to the raw materials idea - I can't see that importing large quantities of basics such as water or methane would be a good idea.  Even if you could plant a few hundred cubic miles of water on your home planet gently, what would it do to the rest of the planet?  Similarly with methane, with the added problem of "Where do you get the oxygen from to use it?". 
Then again, it is known that we have the oort cloud around our solar system.  Any system that has developed to be like ours (basic assumption for similar evolution) will likely be similarly equipped.  They will therefore have the material close to home, and will do their shopping there rather than travelling far away.  (I used to have two Focus stores within a mile of where I live.  Both closed, and I now get flyers from them telling of the bargains to be had 25 miles away.  I dont go.  Same sort of thing, only bigger)
The little green men, and the large purple ones, may be out there, but until we find a flaw in Einstein's logic and a way to exploit it, we aren't going to find out.  Our attempts to date rely on political and economic attention span and commitment.  Unless it is somehow possible to convince the world that pouring resources into the project is worth doing for the benefit of about ten generations down the line, it ain't going to happen.  Even then, keeping the financial people's hands off the value of the resources would be an impossible task.
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dodgy geezer

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #230 on: January 26, 2010, 01:52:55 pm »

I never really understood the idea of looking for hydrogen's natural resonance frequency.  If the white coated gentlemen are right about it being the commonest element out there, it sounds like trying to read a document printed in black on black paper.......

 Unless it is somehow possible to convince the world that pouring resources into the project is worth doing for the benefit of about ten generations down the line, it ain't going to happen.  Even then, keeping the financial people's hands off the value of the resources would be an impossible task.

The argument goes:

There's lots of hydrogen in the Universe, and it radiates at 1420Mhz. So if you want to examine the structure of the universe, listening at 1420Mhz to find out where the hydrogen is is a good idea. That's one of the things we do.

If anyone else wants to examine the structure of the universe, they'll probably listen there as well. So shouting at that frequency stands a good chance of being heard by someone who has a radio telescope and knows what the universe looks like.

Though you might think it would be drowned out, actually there really is very little stuff in the universe, so clouds of hydrogen do stand out quite well. And we think we might be able to distinguish between natural and artificial radiation...perhaps...with the wind behind us...on a good day... Much of the SETI work goes to dreaming up new ways to examine the radiation we receive and process it according to someone's idea of what 'artificial' ought to sound like. remembering, in particular, that frequencies drift for all sorts of reasons... In the early days they were very happy if they got a signal at all, so I think it is hard to claim that early work was foolproof listening...


The rest of your points are quite right. It is a Hollywood belief that interstellar aliens will want to come here to suck up our oceans, steal our air, take our jobs and run off with our women. And it is an almost impossible task to obtain resources for such a long-term study with no practical advantage (as it probably should be), which is why there really is very little SETI work done. The net result is that we just don't know, and are unlikely to know in the near future. I do not think you can say that we have looked and found that we are alone....



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malcolmfrary

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #231 on: January 26, 2010, 10:04:17 pm »

It would be ironic if the little purple people (just been reading my Julian May books again) decided that, as oxygen was vital for their life-forms, and less common than hydrogen, that broadcasting on oxygens frequency would be more productive.  {:-{
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dodgy geezer

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #232 on: January 26, 2010, 10:15:12 pm »

Indeed. Though the hydrogen excitation frequency was picked for strong technical reasons, they would by no means be the first society to ignore engineering requirements in favour of a cultural imperative....
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dreadnought72

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #233 on: January 26, 2010, 10:42:47 pm »

It would also be rather a shame if the galaxy's 100000 sentient species were all listening and not broadcasting.  :-))

Andy
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justboatonic

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #234 on: January 27, 2010, 03:16:59 pm »

It would also be rather a shame if the galaxy's 100000 sentient species were all listening and not broadcasting.  :-))

Andy

That could be a possibility. If they are likely to exist.

Regarding SETI, DG seems to be confusing the SETI@Home Project with any search for ETI. SETI is the generic name for the search and has been ongoing since the early 60's if one only considers an organised search for electromagnetic signals. Its a bit facieous (sorry spelling!?) to suggest SETI has only been ongoing since 1999 as that is patently not the case. EVEN UC Berkley couldnt subscribe to that premise.

I've been looking at my SETI@Home account, I registered in 2002. I have to admit I stopped frequently doing the SETI number crunching a couple of years ago when I started to do more research into astrobiology and the possibility of intelligent civilisations out there. At first, my faith in ETI was very strong especially due to the WOW! signal.

But, one only has to consider the SETI 'farm' of headless pc's that DG ran to show how almost futile SETI@Home is. Consider this example;

20 headless pc's presumably running 24/7/365. If one assumes SETI@Home only sent each of the headless pc's one unique data packet per day, over a period of the nearly 10 years subscribed to the project, that means crunching almost 200 years worth of data ie 1 data packet per pc (20 pc's) per day times 10 years.

Now, a headless pc used solely for SETI@Home and not using its processing power for anything but that, should be capable of completing at least 2, 3 or 4 SETI data packets per day. Let's be conservative and say each headless pc did 2 SETI data packets per day and that each of these data packets were unique to each of our headless pc's ie one of the headless pc's in this group was not checking a SETI data packet one of the other pc's was or had already worked on.

This means almost 400 years worth of data has been crunched ie 2 data packets per pc (20) per day times 10 years. If the headless pc's managed 3 data packets each per day, you would be looking at getting on for 600 years of data.

So, in this example, we have a lower assumption of 200 years of data searched upto an higher assumption of nearly 600 years worth of data. In other words, using a single pc would have taken from, say, the year 2000 to 2200 or 2600 for the top end of the scale.

Yet despite this not a single verified SETI signal has been found in that data. Not only that, this example of headless pc's isnt rare. SETI@Home are not keen on the multiple headless pc approach used by a number of people in the project partly due to the 'credits' they give out. However I dont really see their objection as it gets far more data crunched than if each person only had one pc doing the work.

And yet still SETI fails to find a verifiable candidate despite these multiple headless pc's and other users. The nearest it has got is one signal SHGb02+14a which SETI@Home itself discounts.

Taken in this context and with people leaving the project due to disillusionment at finding nothing, its easy to see why SETI@Home resorts to sending begging emails to users no longer in the project and asking them to return.
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justboatonic

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #235 on: January 27, 2010, 03:25:36 pm »

Using the princable of Occam's Razor  -----  {:-{----- Maybe there are Thousands or Millions of advanced Civilisations in this Galaxy But no one has developed a faster than Light or Warp Drive, so--- they are restricted to their own solar systems ---- Maybe FTL drive is not possible or maybe it is not possible for a living being to travel FTL !!!!! This could maybe explain why we haven't had the Nabors knocking on the door asking if they can borrow a bowl of sugar...As for communications using radio waves to reach the nearest solar system is like going out into your front garden and shouting to a friend who lives a mile away (The chances of him hearing it are astronomic and even if he did hear it it would be so distorted by background noise he wouldn't recognise what it was anyway   :(( :((
Freebooter

Jimmy, despite what popular sci fi tells us, you dont need wormholes, warp drives or any FTL travel to get across the galaxy. It would take only one civilisation to colonise the galaxy. Even travelling at 1% of light speed, this single civilisation could colonise the whole galaxy in about 10 million years.

There has been plenty of time, if just one other civilisation rose in the galaxy for this colonisation to have happened. We do not see any evidence of colonisation. We can conclude that no one has attempted it. We can lay claim that there has not been another civilisation more technologically advanced than us even now. Microbial life in the Galaxy is likely to be very common. Intelligent life will be exceedingly rare if it exist at all bar us.
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dodgy geezer

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #236 on: January 27, 2010, 04:15:18 pm »



But, one only has to consider the SETI 'farm' of headless pc's that DG ran to show how almost futile SETI@Home is. Consider this example;
...
Taken in this context and with people leaving the project due to disillusionment at finding nothing, its easy to see why SETI@Home resorts to sending begging emails to users no longer in the project and asking them to return.

I am intrigued at your maths. You don't need to estimate - you could just ask me, and I would tell you that I have somewhat over 1m 'credit' units processed. This is with the new more complex process, where each work unit attracts different amounts of credit, depending on how difficult it is.

If we stay with the old Seti Classic, where you processed one work unit for a point, I have slightly over 12k work units done in slightly over 180k processing hours - around 20 processing years. But this is not '20 years of data' - it's 1 years worth of 20 machines running, or 4 years worth of 5 machines running...
Given that in the early days many of my machines were 286s, and a modern machine  can easily be 100 times faster, this would equate to 70 days 'worth of data' today. In a few years time this will be the equivalent of 1 days 'worth of data', according to your analysis.


Of course this isn't really '20 years worth of data'. It's 15 hours of 286 processing for 12,000 snapshots of part of the sky (which probably took Ariciebo a few minutes to obtain). Is this a lot? Not really - this is just what it took to do an automated check if the snapshot contained anything interesting or not with the computers we had then.

At this rate it has been estimated that it would take up to 2025 to find an interesting signal. The timescales would, of course, have been impossible for manual checking. This is a reason why I think that we have only just got to a stage where we are capable of conducting a decent search....

Oh, and Seti peaked at about 0.5m active users. Now that BOINC allows people to provide processing for many other projects (15 at last count) this has dropped to about 0.25m active. I don't think this is too bad, given the competition....


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justboatonic

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #237 on: January 27, 2010, 10:05:53 pm »

I am intrigued at your maths. You don't need to estimate - you could just ask me, and I would tell you that I have somewhat over 1m 'credit' units processed. This is with the new more complex process, where each work unit attracts different amounts of credit, depending on how difficult it is.

If we stay with the old Seti Classic, where you processed one work unit for a point, I have slightly over 12k work units done in slightly over 180k processing hours - around 20 processing years. But this is not '20 years of data' - it's 1 years worth of 20 machines running, or 4 years worth of 5 machines running...
Given that in the early days many of my machines were 286s, and a modern machine  can easily be 100 times faster, this would equate to 70 days 'worth of data' today. In a few years time this will be the equivalent of 1 days 'worth of data', according to your analysis.


Of course this isn't really '20 years worth of data'. It's 15 hours of 286 processing for 12,000 snapshots of part of the sky (which probably took Ariciebo a few minutes to obtain). Is this a lot? Not really - this is just what it took to do an automated check if the snapshot contained anything interesting or not with the computers we had then.

At this rate it has been estimated that it would take up to 2025 to find an interesting signal. The timescales would, of course, have been impossible for manual checking. This is a reason why I think that we have only just got to a stage where we are capable of conducting a decent search....

Oh, and Seti peaked at about 0.5m active users. Now that BOINC allows people to provide processing for many other projects (15 at last count) this has dropped to about 0.25m active. I don't think this is too bad, given the competition....




Im familiar with how SETI@Home works. Clearly, if you have a headless pc working 24/7/365, you are getting a year's worth of data crunching out of it. Multiple the number of packets each day on 20 headless pc's and you get multiple years of data being churned out. Im impressed you kept 20 headless pc's going for nearly 10 years. It doesnt really matter what the processing speed of the headles pc's is, its the number by time that gives the pc's processing years.

The fact of the matter is if you only had one pc working 24/7/365, it would take you 20 times longer than if you did the same number of units on 20 pc's. The point I was making is that for all the inordinate amount of time you had your 20 headless pc's crunching, nothing was found. The same goes for all the other participants of SETI@Home, including me and, all the others who run multiple headless pc. Ultimately you realise how futile it is and either stop completely or just do the odd packet here and there.

SETI@Home regularly sends me emails asking me to rejoin the number crunching. Strangely enough, they also ask me for donations of the monetary sort. I dont suppose Im unque either so clearly they are losing a lot of people.

Last I heard from Seth Shostek (not personally you understand) was he expects to find a signal in the next 100 years so Im surprised you mention 2025! However, I think he'll be waiting a lot longer.
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dodgy geezer

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #238 on: January 28, 2010, 12:02:55 am »

Im impressed you kept 20 headless pc's going for nearly 10 years.

Keeps me warm. They're still there, of course. Also a major contributor to Global Warming, which can't be bad.... :}

The point I was making is that for all the inordinate amount of time you had your 20 headless pc's crunching, nothing was found.

And the point I was making was that it was a long time for 286s, it would have been a short time for a supercomputer, and an impossible time for manual calculation. How do you determine whether that is a huge amount of resource used to address the problem, or not nearly enough? All you can do is say that a person was willing to spend that time at that point in history - not that it proves there is nothing there because the time seems a lot to you...


SETI@Home regularly sends me emails asking me to rejoin the number crunching. Strangely enough, they also ask me for donations of the monetary sort. I dont suppose Im unque either so clearly they are losing a lot of people.

Well, the figures are as I quoted, and available from their website. I'm not surprised they're asking people for money - they had their funds cut half-way through their project and have no other funding whatsoever. Again, this is another reason why it is hard to do a 'full' study of the sky - politicians think it will involve a quick swing of a telescope over a weekend or two, and pull funding when cash gets tight. Earlier projects involved simply looking at a few hundred stars or so - doable with limited funds, but not really a full search...



Last I heard from Seth Shostek (not personally you understand) was he expects to find a signal in the next 100 years so Im surprised you mention 2025! However, I think he'll be waiting a lot longer.


At least we agree within an order of magnitude - that's pretty close for astronomy! I have found a reference here where he talks about reconsidering in 50 years, so that splits the difference: http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_shostak_surrender_070118.html He has some interesting things to say generally at that link, including his belief that Alien intelligence has become more likely to exist rather than less over the years...
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justboatonic

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #239 on: January 28, 2010, 05:58:02 pm »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7077724/Hunt-for-Earths-twin-planet--takes-leap-forward.html

Addressing a Royal Society conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) programme, he said: “The search for twins of Earth is motivated by the ultimate prospect of finding sites with favourable conditions for the development of life."

By now, scientist had expected to have found around 8 exo solar systems that mimic ours, even before Kepler. Instead they have found none. They do point to the Glise system however as being like our solar system even though the Glise system is a brown dwarf and not a main sequence star like our sun. About as similar as chalk and cheese then!
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dodgy geezer

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #240 on: January 28, 2010, 06:49:35 pm »

From the same article:

"...It is hoped that within about four years Kepler will have found planets of the same size as Earth that are also in the “habitable zone”...."


And that is why I believe we should wait for a few years before coming to the conclusion that there are few or no planets similar to Earth in our local area of space....
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justboatonic

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #241 on: January 29, 2010, 12:37:06 pm »

From the same article:

"...It is hoped that within about four years Kepler will have found planets of the same size as Earth that are also in the “habitable zone”...."


And that is why I believe we should wait for a few years before coming to the conclusion that there are few or no planets similar to Earth in our local area of space....

And hope springs eternal. Still doesnt answer Fermi's Paradox, or the Rare Earth Theory, or the lack of colonisation of the galaxy in a very small amount of time compared to the galaxy's age.

Kepler may well find Earth size planets in the HZ. But unpalitable as it may seem, it may also prove beyond doubt, that there are none.
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dodgy geezer

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #242 on: January 29, 2010, 02:23:35 pm »

... Still doesnt answer Fermi's Paradox, or the Rare Earth Theory...

Umm? It doesn't provide answers for the Problem of Pain, or who the Dark Lady was either. It's not designed to do so. It's designed to look for a limited range of planetary systems...

Kepler may well find Earth size planets in the HZ. But unpalitable as it may seem, it may also prove beyond doubt, that there are none.

Another thing it cannot do is prove "beyond doubt" that there are none. It is our first telescope with a good chance of finding some planets of this type. You do not seem to appreciate the experiment's limitations. I thought I had explained earlier at length that Kepler will ONLY be able to detect planetary systems where the orbital plane is directly in line with our line of sight, so finding no such planets certainly does not mean that no HZ E-types exist....

It may find some, it may not. But we will have to wait about three years before HZ E-type information starts to come in, and, as I said at the beginning of this thread, it is pointless to speculate until the data is available, and incorrect to say that failure to find HZ Es in the first 6 weeks of data implies that there will be few or none by the end of the experiment....
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justboatonic

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #243 on: January 29, 2010, 08:15:50 pm »

Umm? It doesn't provide answers for the Problem of Pain, or who the Dark Lady was either. It's not designed to do so. It's designed to look for a limited range of planetary systems...

Another thing it cannot do is prove "beyond doubt" that there are none. It is our first telescope with a good chance of finding some planets of this type. You do not seem to appreciate the experiment's limitations. I thought I had explained earlier at length that Kepler will ONLY be able to detect planetary systems where the orbital plane is directly in line with our line of sight, so finding no such planets certainly does not mean that no HZ E-types exist....

It may find some, it may not. But we will have to wait about three years before HZ E-type information starts to come in, and, as I said at the beginning of this thread, it is pointless to speculate until the data is available, and incorrect to say that failure to find HZ Es in the first 6 weeks of data implies that there will be few or none by the end of the experiment....

Im very familiar with Kepler's limitations etc but thanks for pointing it out to others!

Its true Kepler cannot prove beyond doubt that there are none since it isnt looking at the whole of the galaxy. However, the mission statement for Kepler is that it will sample a hundred thousand stars. Should Kepler find one Earth twin, this will be extrapolated to calculate how many potential 'earth' twins are out there. This cannot be denied since Kepler mission scientists have actively pushed this sampling methodology.

By the same token, if Kepler finds no such Earth twins in any of the sampled star systems, the Kepler mission scientists cannot then turn around and say 'oh Kepler found nothing but we still expect there to be millions of Earth twins out there.' Well, not if they are being consistent anyway.

Plus, its interesting in this clip http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7000795.ece that it is now considered that we may not need to search 'out there' at all.

"Addressing the meeting to mark the 50th anniversary of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) programme — a quest that has fallen far short of its objectives — Professor Davies will argue that demonstrating that life has appeared more than once on Earth would be the best evidence yet that it must exist elsewhere in the Universe."

And perhaps more telling;

"He told The Times: “We need to give up the notion that ET is sending us some sort of customised message and take a new approach.”

Ah but he's just some crackpot addressing the Royal society!

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dodgy geezer

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #244 on: January 29, 2010, 10:12:43 pm »


Its true Kepler cannot prove beyond doubt that there are none since it isnt looking at the whole of the galaxy.



Then why did you say: "Kepler may well find Earth size planets in the HZ. But unpalitable as it may seem, it may also prove beyond doubt, that there are none."?



 ... Well, not if they are being consistent anyway.

It is quite reasonable to extrapolate findings if there it finds some, and to point out that it cannot see everything if it finds nothing. There is no inconsistency with this. Of course, they have done neither of these things yet, so we will have to wait and see...


Plus, its interesting in this clip http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7000795.ece that it is now considered that we may not need to search 'out there' at all.

As well as being an astrophysicist Paul Davis styles himself as an 'astrobiologist' and has set up the 'Centre For Fundamental Concepts in Science' centre at Arizona State University, one of whose aims is the search for alternative forms of life. You are presenting his lecture as if it were settled science policy, while it is almost certainly a puff piece for his work and a plea for more funds.

The very article you quote includes other scientists putting opposing points of view, such as Colin Pillinger. I'm sure I included this quote about this biological proposal before:

"Not all are convinced by the “shadow biosphere” concept. Colin Pillinger, who led the Beagle 2 Mars landing mission, said: “I prefer to deal in scientific fact — this is wildly science fiction. You’d be off your trolley to go searching for arsenic-based life.”

Colin Pillinger seems to believe that Paul Davis is well on the way to becoming a crackpot...




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justboatonic

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #245 on: January 30, 2010, 11:54:33 am »


Then why did you say: "Kepler may well find Earth size planets in the HZ. But unpalitable as it may seem, it may also prove beyond doubt, that there are none."?

Quite simply I reconsidered that saying 'beyond doubt' was not reasonable.


Quote
It is quite reasonable to extrapolate findings if there it finds some, and to point out that it cannot see everything if it finds nothing. There is no inconsistency with this. Of course, they have done neither of these things yet, so we will have to wait and see...


As well as being an astrophysicist Paul Davis styles himself as an 'astrobiologist' and has set up the 'Centre For Fundamental Concepts in Science' centre at Arizona State University, one of whose aims is the search for alternative forms of life. You are presenting his lecture as if it were settled science policy, while it is almost certainly a puff piece for his work and a plea for more funds.

The very article you quote includes other scientists putting opposing points of view, such as Colin Pillinger. I'm sure I included this quote about this biological proposal before:

"Not all are convinced by the “shadow biosphere” concept. Colin Pillinger, who led the Beagle 2 Mars landing mission, said: “I prefer to deal in scientific fact — this is wildly science fiction. You’d be off your trolley to go searching for arsenic-based life.”

Colin Pillinger seems to believe that Paul Davis is well on the way to becoming a crackpot...



Makes you wonder why if he is such a 'crackpot,' just why the Royal Society should invite him to a conference to make SETI's 50th year? Its interesting to hear Professor Pilger ridicule the possibility of life based on other elements, in this case arsenic. Although respected perhaps Professor Pilger should really know better than to ridicule such suggestion when searching for alien life.
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dodgy geezer

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #246 on: January 30, 2010, 01:11:14 pm »

Its interesting to hear Professor Pilger ridicule the possibility of life based on other elements, in this case arsenic. Although respected perhaps Professor Pilger should really know better than to ridicule such suggestion when searching for alien life.


I suspect that the reason is that while Davis is looking for grant money to fund trips to obscure places Pilger is also looking for grant money for a Beagle-3. Probably out of the same pot.

And a battle-royal between sets of scientists all vying for the same funding will really liven up a scientific conference. Which is why the Royal Society invited them both. It would be very interesting to hear their competing presentations....
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Jimmy James

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #247 on: February 03, 2010, 09:26:31 pm »

Look at all this and then tell me you think we are the only intelligent life in the universe

_ (http://videos.komando.com/2009/08/20/hubble-ultra-deep-field/)

Freebooter {:-{
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justboatonic

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #248 on: February 04, 2010, 08:38:24 pm »

Look at all this and then tell me you think we are the only intelligent life in the universe

_ (http://videos.komando.com/2009/08/20/hubble-ultra-deep-field/)

Freebooter {:-{


Yep the deep field view is amazing. It does open up interesting questions about how big the universe is and if some galaxies are so far away and travelling extremely fast, we may never see them.

Anyway, I would postulate most galaxies could have one intelligent species out there. Again however, we see absolutely no evidence of other galaxies  having any form of galactic engineering or constructs within them. Bear in mind though that as we get beyond the local group, we are seeing galaxies in the far distant past ie back as they were when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and even longer ago!

Oh, and I only said the milky way isnt teeming with intelligent life and in all probability, we are the oldest and most technologically advance civilisation in the galaxy right now.

Moving on, this is quite interesting http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8498281.stm

"Richard Greenberg was a member of the imaging team for the Galileo mission. He says: "We know from Europa's gravity that a liquid water ocean, roughly 100 miles deep, covers the entire surface - in fact there is twice as much water on Europa as in all of the Earth's oceans combined."

This liquid ocean lies beneath a thick layer of ice, but any planetary body that contains liquid water immediately excites the interest of astrobiologists - scientists interested in understanding the origin and evolution of life in the Universe. "

Simple life on Europa may be possible although with an ocean 100 miles deep below miles of ice, I suspect the pressure would prevent any probe reaching Europa's ocean floors! We can just about get to the bottom of the Marianas Trench about 6 miles?

Interesting while 12 men have walked on the moon, only two men have reached the ocean bottom at its deepest and even then, they had to couldnt walk there.
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justboatonic

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Re: There's no one out there!
« Reply #249 on: February 23, 2010, 07:32:42 pm »

More reasons why there's no one out there

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1001/1001.5455v1.pdf

No sign of galatic archaeology

No sign of intelliegent civilisations dumping radioactive or other toxic waste into their host star

No sign of stellar salting ie using the star to signal their presence

No sign of stellar engineering as stars go off the main sequence

No dyson sphere like constructs ie a dyson 'ring' despite searching several thousand stars.

Regarding searches for Dyson spheres the above document states "The IRAS spacecraft that flew in the mid-eighties was almost an ideal instrument for a Dyson sphere search. It covered nearly the entire sky. The search suggests that there are few if any even mildly interesting candidates within several hundred light years of Earth."

A very interesting document.
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