It might be infinite in volume depending on how space actually expands, but there's lots of good physical reasons to believe that the amount of matter is finite.
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Do you believe in life elsewhere?
- Thread starter pica
- Start date
Oh, I think there are lots of good reasons to believe it - but not enough preponderance evidence to put me in the "definitely finite amount of matter" camp.
Of course, I'm still not willing to admit the big bang was necessarily a singularity either.
Hmmm. Interesting. In a truly infinite universe, there would be an infinite number of planets with life.
Forgive me for recoiling from that particular suggestion. That's more counter-intuitive than my Earth-evolved brain can handle.
bassybill said:Hmmm. Interesting. In a truly infinite universe, there would be an infinite number of planets with life.
Forgive me for recoiling from that particular suggestion. That's more counter-intuitive than my Earth-evolved brain can handle.
And how is your brain coping with the mess at Molyneux?
It isn't. But at least we only lost to Man City 5-2 last night. That means we're doing better than Man U who got stuffed 6-1 at the weekend, much to the amusement of all of us who like to laugh at the sad, pathetically predictable, non-Mancunian Old Trafford glory hunters, wherever they may be.And how is your brain coping with the mess at Molyneux?
That's "Molineux", btw.
EDIT I should add that I give total football kudos and respect to the genuine Manchester United supporters who have followed their local team through thick and thin. All two hundred of them.
/diversion
Actually I do. We keep believing we know it all. "Can't drive faster than 60mph, can't fly faster than speed of sound". Then there's "facts" like, bumble bees can't fly, curve balls break laws of physics, Abba was greatest band of all time.
I think the universe could be infinite in both directions. When I was growing up the atom was the smallest thing. They were just finding out about quarks and leptons and such. When they get the technology they'll probably find something smaller. Maybe they already have. I don't keep up with things like that. One mystery solved will reveal another.
Then again, what I don't know would fill an infinite number of books.
I have no evidence. Just a suspicion.
Then again, what I don't know would fill an infinite number of books.
I have no evidence. Just a suspicion.
If you want evidence of your suspicions look at Buckminster Fuller's idea of a four frequency isotropic vector metric and the vector equilibrium of the cuboctahedron and how extrapolations of that structure grows in fractal octaves both infinitely large an infinitely small. If you can get past his new agey presentation Nassim Haramein has some good animations illustrating how it works.
What I believe:
I believe in the importance of science and discovery, and that we should try to more thoroughly understand the universe that we are a part of. However I also believe:
That the universe is *fundamentally* more complex than we are capable of perceiving. Can we actually comprehend 8 dimensions, or that time is relative vs absolute?
We can write about it, but we cannot actually comprehend it. It's like an ant trying to understand whats going on in the Sears tower in Chicago. It's not simply a matter of education - the ant is biologically incapable of understanding what's going on inside the Sears tower, and how that activity relates to the broader world.
So let's keep studying, testing, debating and learning...
But let's also remember how vast this all is, and how finite our ability to grasp it is. One thing I really believe; no matter how big, complex and mysterious we believe it all is... Our tendency will be to underestimate it so we can define it in ways that our brains are capable of comprehending.
I believe in the importance of science and discovery, and that we should try to more thoroughly understand the universe that we are a part of. However I also believe:
That the universe is *fundamentally* more complex than we are capable of perceiving. Can we actually comprehend 8 dimensions, or that time is relative vs absolute?
We can write about it, but we cannot actually comprehend it. It's like an ant trying to understand whats going on in the Sears tower in Chicago. It's not simply a matter of education - the ant is biologically incapable of understanding what's going on inside the Sears tower, and how that activity relates to the broader world.
So let's keep studying, testing, debating and learning...
But let's also remember how vast this all is, and how finite our ability to grasp it is. One thing I really believe; no matter how big, complex and mysterious we believe it all is... Our tendency will be to underestimate it so we can define it in ways that our brains are capable of comprehending.
Hmmm. Interesting. In a truly infinite universe, there would be an infinite number of planets with life.
Forgive me for recoiling from that particular suggestion. That's more counter-intuitive than my Earth-evolved brain can handle.
the last several posts are all fundamentally true (i THINK.....), at least, I do not know enough to disagree with anything in them.
however, we have strayed WAY off the path of this thread, which is "is there life out there or not (meaning ET life...life beyond earthly life.)
obviously MOST of us don't know the answer to that one way or another... and those who do have first hand knowledge of it's existence (because, maybe, they have been picked up by little green men and anally probed) won't be believed because they'll just be perceived as nuts.
i still say the following is fundamentally sound
1. You can not prove a negative, you can only say "so far as I know, there is no life out there"
2. if there is life out there, and they are advanced enough, maybe they they will come here some day, and manifest themselves to everyone.
3. if there is NOT life out there, or if there is, but it is not sufficiently advanced to have mastered interstellar or intergalactic space travel, it does not matter to us anyway, since we are certainly centuries away from said travel.
therefore this discussion maybe useful as an entertainment, but really serves the same function as discussing whether God exists or not... it's all a matter of subjective belief.
all i think we can say for certain, again with the possible exception of anal probees, is that there is no evidence of it yet.
however, we have strayed WAY off the path of this thread, which is "is there life out there or not (meaning ET life...life beyond earthly life.)
obviously MOST of us don't know the answer to that one way or another... and those who do have first hand knowledge of it's existence (because, maybe, they have been picked up by little green men and anally probed) won't be believed because they'll just be perceived as nuts.
i still say the following is fundamentally sound
1. You can not prove a negative, you can only say "so far as I know, there is no life out there"
2. if there is life out there, and they are advanced enough, maybe they they will come here some day, and manifest themselves to everyone.
3. if there is NOT life out there, or if there is, but it is not sufficiently advanced to have mastered interstellar or intergalactic space travel, it does not matter to us anyway, since we are certainly centuries away from said travel.
therefore this discussion maybe useful as an entertainment, but really serves the same function as discussing whether God exists or not... it's all a matter of subjective belief.
all i think we can say for certain, again with the possible exception of anal probees, is that there is no evidence of it yet.
Less than a century ago India was several weeks travel away from New York City. Now it's down to hours. Who would have believed it?
yeah, true... BUT i don't foresee intergalactic travel on the horizon for any of US
and... even though it was several weeks away, we had good reason to believe that India actually EXISTED... that is, we had evidence of it's existence.
yeah, true... BUT i don't foresee intergalactic travel on the horizon for any of US
No more than the average western educated person of 1910 could foresee the transcontinental airline service of today some of whom lived to see it.
also true... so i'll go back to my mantra... there is no evidence of it at the present time (that is, there is no evidence to make me believe we will be developing such technologies in time to do any of us any good). if it happens, it happens
There hasn't been any significant improvement of space propulsion in the last 50 years.
We still basically use the same propulsors as in the early 60s. Slightly faster but not significantly.
We still basically use the same propulsors as in the early 60s. Slightly faster but not significantly.
The development of flight enabling people to travel from NY to India in a few hours, although undreamt of by the masses of a hundred years ago, was a technological development, rather than a revolution in scientific understanding. The latter would be needed for us to start thinking about interstellar travel, let alone intergalactic travel.
I'm not saying such revolutions never happen - we've had several in the history of science. I'm just saying that the problems to be solved for instellar travel are of a different nature completely to those that needed to be solved for powered flight here on Earth. Obviously the main stumbling block is the distance involved and the immensity of time that travel would take even at near lightspeed compared to a human lifetime back here on Earth (and some very strange time dilation effects, too).
I'm not saying such revolutions never happen - we've had several in the history of science. I'm just saying that the problems to be solved for instellar travel are of a different nature completely to those that needed to be solved for powered flight here on Earth. Obviously the main stumbling block is the distance involved and the immensity of time that travel would take even at near lightspeed compared to a human lifetime back here on Earth (and some very strange time dilation effects, too).
There's a Goldilocks planet called HD 85512 b in the Vela constellation, just 36 light years away. That could be well worth a look once we have the technology.
So, build a ship capable of a constant 1G (to accelerate relative to the destination for the first half of the journey and decelerate for the second half) and you could be there in just over 7 years on your own personal time scale (not travelling faster than light, just so close to the speed of light for a significant part of the trip that your own time passes much more slowly). You could do the round trip in under 15 years. But about 76 years would have passed here on Earth while you were away, so your girlfriend might not be up to giving you the hero's welcome that you'd deserve.
So, build a ship capable of a constant 1G (to accelerate relative to the destination for the first half of the journey and decelerate for the second half) and you could be there in just over 7 years on your own personal time scale (not travelling faster than light, just so close to the speed of light for a significant part of the trip that your own time passes much more slowly). You could do the round trip in under 15 years. But about 76 years would have passed here on Earth while you were away, so your girlfriend might not be up to giving you the hero's welcome that you'd deserve.
that's actually not a bad idea, assuming you could overcome the obvious....like where would you get a crew willing to do all that. even 15 years doesn't sound like a picnic.
how about this. since we don't KNOW that Goldilocks planets are the only places to look... or even that this is the only one, let's make a list of all stars within, say, 50 light years. then let's make as many ships as we can, and send them to all stars we are able, including this one.
of course, if we didn't find life, that would prove nothing...BUT if we DID!
