Are we alone in the universe?

[marharth]

But gold is the easiest to find, and I'm not talking about water for the ship, I mean water for their people. Vast amounts of that water to fuel their civilization.

Gold is still not nearly as effective as other methods. Lead is just as good as gold.

 

I didn't mean water for the ship either.

[hoofhearted4]

what if there is only one other alien race out there. and/or what if they (or all others, if there are more then one) are exactly like humans. carbon based life forms, evolved from ape like creatures, and they look just like someone from Earth would look.....what if they ARE from Earth!?!?!?!

 

 

i believe there is life out there. but im betting any life we come into contact with will be bacteria like or what have you, single celled organisms.

 

and of all the planets that can support life, i bet most of them only support such organisms. or at the most advanced, animals. considering most of the earth is non humans, id be willing to assume that most of the earth are non "intelligent" creatures, like cows, birds, fish, insects, etc, etc.

[StormTemplar]

what if there is only one other alien race out there. and/or what if they (or all others, if there are more then one) are exactly like humans. carbon based life forms, evolved from ape like creatures, and they look just like someone from Earth would look.....what if they ARE from Earth!?!?!?!

 

 

i believe there is life out there. but im betting any life we come into contact with will be bacteria like or what have you, single celled organisms.

 

and of all the planets that can support life, i bet most of them only support such organisms. or at the most advanced, animals. considering most of the earth is non humans, id be willing to assume that most of the earth are non "intelligent" creatures, like cows, birds, fish, insects, etc, etc.

 

 

I came to think something similar because of how in spite of the Universe being massive, we (all the life out there) live under the same laws of physics. Life develops from single celled organisms, requires water, is exposed to the light of a nearby star, is influenced by gravity, and so on. At least in our Galaxy and probably those surrounding us. There will be common points between us and the aliens, physically and probably also socially. Some people assume they would be completely different from us, but why? The conditions are more or less the same everywhere. If we wish to communicate we dispose of light, sound and direct contact. Then there's radio waves and such, but can you reach such technology before mastering the natural means of communication that are available to anything on this Galaxy?

 

We as humans have been through that first stage of primitive communication, without any technology. There's this argument about how, aliens wouldn't understand us because they'd see us the same way we see a dog barking. That argument is easy to turn around. When you think of it, we actually understand almost everything about dog "language". We've been through the same kind of language before. When you see a dog barking at another, you don't see it as random unless you've never seen a dog in your life. You can clearly tell when they mean to defend territory or food, when they are being playful, when they're just trying to get the other dog's attention and so on. In the same way, if a developped civilisation out there sees us sending radio waves or images indicating the position of Earth out to space, they won't be seeing animals acting randomly. They'll have been through that stage themselves and they will clearly understand that we seek communication.

Edited October 31, 2011 by StormTemplar

[hoofhearted4]

^^ very nice thought! interestingly put :D kudos

[Marxist ßastard]

Gold is needed to shield from deadly radiation

Electromagnetic radiation is best stopped by a material with high atomic mass. Neutron radiation is best stopped by a material with lots of hydrogen. Other particle radiation is easily stopped, but introduces design complications.

 

Uranium is the best material to shield electromagnetic radiation. Water and plastic are best for neutron radiation. A good, simple radiation shield would be plastic-water-uranium-plastic. More advanced designs use multiple metal foils, like plastic-lead-tin-copper. Aboard the ISS, there's a plastic-lined panic room that astronauts retreat to during solar flares. (There was also an experiment to cover the station's aluminum skin with a layer of plastic, but that didn't work very well.)

 

A moving vessel could very practically sacrifice radiation shielding for speed if it avoids stopping in high-radiation areas. Or it could use a non-material radiation shield, like an artificial magnetosphere. But if it has to have a panic room, the materials for the metal part of the radiation shield could be easily scrounged up from asteroids.

 

Maybe Earth is a pit stop on a long galactic road trip

For a space-faring civilization, materials on planets are worse than useless. It takes a lot of energy to suck the materials out of the planet's gravity well, while the same materials can be harvested from asteroids and moons essentially for free. And a deep-space vessel would take a preposterous amount of energy to stop or even slow down, so it would only harvest from nearby, resource-rich areas along its current trajectory.

 

Also, a radiation shield doesn't get “used up” when exposed to radiation. Even if the material's crystal structure degrades, it does not change on an atomic level. So it's still useful as a radiation shield, even if it turns opaque or cracks.

Edited October 31, 2011 by Marxist ßastard

[HephaestusAndrocus]

We can't possibly be alone. Actually, that's exaggerating, there is a very small chance that we are alone. But with all the planets in the Multiverse, there will almost certainly be other life. As people have said before, other bodies in our solar system could support life. And if chemosynthetic bacteria can develop, what's to stop chemosynthetic life-forms of more advanced nature developing?

[hoofhearted4]

another thing i think is funny, is how we assume, that if there is other life out there, that it has developed hundreds if not thousands of years ahead of us. Even if there was other life, they still cant deny physics. they cant go faster then light, they cannot travel through black holes, etc. so there is no way that another alien space ship would have reached earth because they would have to have left thousands+ years ago and travel at the speed of light.

 

im not saying that going FTL or traveling through black holes is impossible, who knows whats possible, but to think that every other alien race out there besides us has figured it out, is a little extreme. most likely, even another advanced civilization is still only as advanced as we are. give or take, and still cant perform feats of science fiction such as what ive mentioned and more.

[marharth]

another thing i think is funny, is how we assume, that if there is other life out there, that it has developed hundreds if not thousands of years ahead of us. Even if there was other life, they still cant deny physics. they cant go faster then light, they cannot travel through black holes, etc. so there is no way that another alien space ship would have reached earth because they would have to have left thousands+ years ago and travel at the speed of light.

 

im not saying that going FTL or traveling through black holes is impossible, who knows whats possible, but to think that every other alien race out there besides us has figured it out, is a little extreme. most likely, even another advanced civilization is still only as advanced as we are. give or take, and still cant perform feats of science fiction such as what ive mentioned and more.

That is true. Its possible they are still fairly advanced considering how far humanity got in the last 200 years alone. What if a alien race advanced at the same rate as we did in the last 100 years or so, but since they pretty much started?

[hoofhearted4]

you can still be advanced, but that doesnt mean they know the mysteries of space and time and what have you.

 

and a super duper advanced race assumes that advancement doesnt plateau off. if it is in face impossible for time travel and FTL travel and all the other stuff we have come to think that we will hopefully on day master, then sooner or later, our (or their) advancements will become limited. there has to be a point where you just cant make a smaller chip or a faster way of travel or a deeper understanding of the universe. its just a matter of where that point is. what if we are really close to knowing everything about the universe we can learn. even though there is soo much we dont know, its possible that we are at a point where we are incapable of learning anything more. you can only learn so much from one point in space through a lens. deeper knowledge would require deep space travel and possibly perhaps meeting another alien race (who may or may not know more then we do) but if deep space travel is simply not comprehensible. in that case, the point of plateau is near. or maybe we really will learn more about the universe, in which case, the point of plateau is still a ways off.

 

basically, while scence fiction can come up with ways to travel across space, FTL, cryo sleep, and all that. while we believe its "only a matter of time", perhaps it simply just cant happen outside the depths of our minds, in which case, we, and no other alien race in the universe, will ever meet, nor ever achieve such an advanced Star Wars civilization, because space travel and technology at that extent simply cannot happen.

 

i hope that made sense to everyone besides me :P

[marharth]

Time travel is not possible in the sense of being able to change history.

 

If the mutltiverse theory is correct, you could travel to another universe where the exact same thing that happened in the past is happening there.

 

FTL travel might be possible right now. Eisenstein could of been wrong, because a lot of people at LGNS are claiming they made a particle go faster then light.

 

Also even if FTL travel is impossible, warp holes are still technically possible.