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Ricochet 
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
Joined: February 27 2005
Location: Nauru
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Points: 46301
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 Posted: December 02 2009 at 18:22 |
 stonebeard wrote:
It's incredibly probable life exists somehwere other than here.
It's much less probable that life is intelligent.
It's much much less probable that life can visit here.
No, aliens have not been here.
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I'm with him.
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A Person
Forum Senior Member
Joined: November 10 2008
Location: __
Status: Offline
Points: 65760
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Posted: December 02 2009 at 18:24 |
Ricochet wrote:
stonebeard wrote:
It's incredibly probable life exists somehwere other than here.
It's much less probable that life is intelligent.
It's much much less probable that life can visit here.
No, aliens have not been here.
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I'm with him.
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Me too.
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Equality 7-2521
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15784
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Posted: December 02 2009 at 18:26 |
What do you mean by aliens? Do you mean life on other planets? Do you mean intelligent life on other plants? Do you mean green men in flying discs?
There's most definitely other life in the Universe. I tend to believe we're the only intelligent life though. We most definitely have not been visited by aliens in the past.
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"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
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Posted: December 02 2009 at 18:42 |
I'm for the who knows maybe brigade. What I actually think is that it took 10 billion years for the Universe to coalesce into a state that could support life and 4 billion years for that life to evolve to our current state - I think it is perfectly possible that we are the first and that alien life is much more probably in the future than now.
By using the word Aliens and asking if they have visited Earth you are implying sentient life (Yeah I know bacterialogical non-sentient life could get here on comets and meteors, but all of those objects originate in the Oort cloud and would not have come from another solar system and I cannot see life evolving out in the Oort cloud - it's just not a Goldilocks Zone). I wouldn't call bactieria "Aliens" - I would call it alien life though, but we can't detect that over stellar distances so we cannot say whether it exists or not.
The practical impossibilities of Interstellar travel rules out the last two options.
The Drake Equation (for all it's worth) is only valid for extraterestrial civilisations who are at a sufficient technological advancement to be able to transmit radio signals - those that fail the test we will never know about and those that don't we could still miss, so whether they exist or not is imaterial. And due to the age of the Universe, the age a planet would have to be to have evolved a technological civilisation and the speed of those radiowaves we are restricted to a very small protion of the Universe in which to look.
The Rare Earth hypothesis is okay, I can live with that ... the universe is big enough to support more than one Rare Earth - it's just numbers, but the evidence falls by the same test as those predicted by the Drake Equation - unless we can detect their presence we cannot prove they exist.
Are we unique? - possibly ... more importantly - are we the first? - likely.
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jampa17
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 04 2009
Location: Guatemala
Status: Offline
Points: 6802
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 08:43 |
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wonder why people said that is not likely that Alien beings should not be cleaver of more intelligent than us... If you test our abilities, we have been screwing everything we touchess... it would be nice if there's someone better than us don't you think... I still don't vote... the explanation are interesting... but I remain doubtfull...
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Change the program inside... Stay in silence is a crime.
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008
Location: Big Muddy
Status: Offline
Points: 5208
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 10:24 |
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I didn't know about the Drake Equation. Just going to the Wiki article and some of its links was great fun for the last 1/2 hour of my life. Highly recommended.
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 10:46 |
Negoba wrote:
I didn't know about the Drake Equation. Just going to the Wiki article and some of its links was great fun for the last 1/2 hour of my life. Highly recommended. |
 yup hours of fun - and that's just for our galaxy - when you consider how many galaxies there are in the universe it gets quite sobering - not only are we on an insignificant little ball of rock orbitting an insignificant star in the backwaters of the Milkyway galaxy, our galaxy isn't anything special either.
Another sobering thought is just how huge our nearest galactic neighbour the Andomeda Galaxy is - it's difficult to see just how big it is because at 2million light-years away it's actually quite dim in our night sky but this mock-up pic shows how big it looks compared to the moon:
Edited by Dean - December 03 2009 at 10:47
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Equality 7-2521
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15784
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 10:56 |
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The Drake equation is just a back of the envelope calculation. I don't know why people give it any merit.
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"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 10:59 |
I don't think they do that much - it's a parlour game, a mild diversion.
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Citizen Erased
Forum Senior Member
Joined: April 25 2009
Location: Scotland
Status: Offline
Points: 192
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 11:02 |
p0mt3 wrote:
Citizen Erased wrote:
Aww. I'm the only "they don't exist" voter.
I'm normally quite open minded but I just tend to feel...meh, i dunno, cynical about it.
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After debating with you in the other thread and finding out exactly the type of stuff you believe in, I found this post to be hysterically funny. 
Sorry . . . had to . . .
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God. Aliens. Yes, hysterically funny. We all know that they are the exact same, eh? I'm actually completely open minded to the possibility of aliens existing. I don't personally believe they do but hey, could be wrong. If only many atheists were the same with God.
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And lo, the mighty riffage was played and it was good
<a href="www.last.fm/user/jonzo67" targe
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008
Location: Big Muddy
Status: Offline
Points: 5208
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 11:19 |
The article I referenced was just a nice entry point into some of the state of thought about these subjects. And I enjoyed reading them, that's all I was saying.
The articles did actually talk a little bit about some of the pessimism about their being multitudes of civilizations equal to or greater than ours. Mainly, that it seems like we should have some sort of signal, but as of now we've seen none.
I'm sure this is all old hat to some, but I'm having fun getting a little more up to date.
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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Equality 7-2521
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15784
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 11:24 |
Dean wrote:
I don't think they do that much - it's a parlour game, a mild diversion. |
I don't think anyone who has any knowledge of physics outside of wikisearches does, but I see lots of kids on forums and some in discussions I've had try to use it to refute any points I make.
It's become very frustrating for me. I wasn't speaking about its use in this thread though.
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"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Equality 7-2521
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 11 2005
Location: Philly
Status: Offline
Points: 15784
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 11:28 |
Negoba wrote:
The article I referenced was just a nice entry point into some of the state of thought about these subjects. And I enjoyed reading them, that's all I was saying.
The articles did actually talk a little bit about some of the pessimism about their being multitudes of civilizations equal to or greater than ours. Mainly, that it seems like we should have some sort of signal, but as of now we've seen none.
I'm sure this is all old hat to some, but I'm having fun getting a little more up to date. |
Brian Greene has written two very good popular science books dealing mostly with Cosmology and also modern physics in a more general sense. He focuses too much on String Theories which I'm not a fan of, but they're still very good.
If you're a bit more serious in learning about this kind of stuff I would recommend them.
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"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008
Location: Big Muddy
Status: Offline
Points: 5208
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 11:44 |
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I bought and started "The Elegant Universe" and then gave it to my Dad. Need to finish that book....
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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SaltyJon
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
Joined: February 08 2008
Location: Location
Status: Offline
Points: 28772
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 11:51 |
Vompatti wrote:
I'm fairly certain that they created the Earth.
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Indeed, the Earth is a gigantic supercomputer.
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Slartibartfast
Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / In Memoriam
Joined: April 29 2006
Location: Atlantais
Status: Offline
Points: 29630
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 11:55 |
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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chopper
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
Joined: July 13 2005
Location: Essex, UK
Status: Offline
Points: 20030
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 12:42 |
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
What do you mean by aliens? Do you mean life on other planets? Do you mean intelligent life on other plants? Do you mean green men in flying discs?
There's most definitely other life in the Universe. I tend to believe we're the only intelligent life though. We most definitely have not been visited by aliens in the past. |
Glad to hear you're so sure of that. 
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 13:05 |
chopper wrote:
Equality 7-2521 wrote:
What do you mean by aliens? Do you mean life on other planets? Do you mean intelligent life on other plants? Do you mean green men in flying discs?
There's most definitely other life in the Universe. I tend to believe we're the only intelligent life though. We most definitely have not been visited by aliens in the past. |
Glad to hear you're so sure of that. |
It is pretty much a mathematical certainty Alan - the nearest star to us is Proxima Centauri, which is a mere 4.2 light years away, which sound pretty close until you realise that 4.2 light years is 24,673,274,438,400 miles. Now, discounting any fictional FTL travel or fanciful wormholes, sub-light is the only way to travel. The space shuttle can travel at 17,500 mph, it would take 161,000 years to get there - assuming it could carry enough fuel (which it can't) - at that speed if Centaurans set out when we fell out of the trees and picked up a rock, they'd be arriving here sometime next Wednesday. To reduce the time to get here all you have to do is increase the speed, which requires a square-law increase in energy and a proportional increase in fuel.
If we assume that there is intelligent life on a planet orbitting Proxima Centauri, not only have they got to traverse that distance somehow without breaking the laws of physics, they also need a reason to cross that distance.
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chopper
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
Joined: July 13 2005
Location: Essex, UK
Status: Offline
Points: 20030
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 13:11 |
That accepted (although didn't Einstein propose the theory of wormholes) there is no way anyone can say that with 100% degree of certainty.
Especially after watching Jedward on the X-Factor.
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008
Location: Big Muddy
Status: Offline
Points: 5208
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Posted: December 03 2009 at 13:17 |
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The chance of getting even a meaningful radio signal through a wormhole is almost zero, let alone matter. And while evidence of black holes is fairly strong, from my knowledge, we've never been able to confirm the existence of a wormhole.
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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Do You Believe in Aliens?
of more intelligent than us... If you test our abilities, we have been screwing everything we touchess... it would be nice if there's someone better than us don't you think... I still don't vote... the explanation are interesting... but I remain doubtfull...