This new planet thing has got me thinking.

Cpt_pineapple
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This new planet thing has got me thinking.

 

 First off there is no evidence of life just an "Earth-like" Planet that could theoretically sustain life.

 

Hear me out. There are people that I'm sure you dismiss the claims of alien abductions/sightings etc... Now this got me to thinking, wouldn't it be irrational to assume that we're alone in the universe so to speak? With all the galaxies and stars and the like I feel it would be extremely improbable that there isn't a single planet in the universe besides us that can sustain and does sustain life.

 

Now this is the part that got me thinking. We may never know. Not in my generation, not in the one after that and so on. But aye there's the rub, we have no evidence for or against aliens and probably never will. But in a universe so big, is the absence of evidence evidence of absence? You can probably see where I'm going with this is the absence of evidence of God such evidence for absence? You may laugh and scoff at the alien abductioners or UFO sightings, but does that mean there is no alien live in our galaxy let alone Universe? So you debunk creationism, old Earth believers etc... is that really enough proof of God's absence?

 

And also, this has got to make you wonder. If the planet is sutiable for life, it doesn't mean it contains life. Have you wondered with all the planets we detected, few have had these conditions for life, so why us? Why does Earth have life?

 

Sorry if this is a non-sensical rambling Undecided


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Quote: Hear me out. There

Quote:
Hear me out. There are people that I'm sure you dismiss the claims of alien abductions/sightings etc... Now this got me to thinking, wouldn't it be irrational to assume that we're alone in the universe so to speak? With all the galaxies and stars and the like I feel it would be extremely improbable that there isn't a single planet in the universe besides us that can sustain and does sustain life.

I don't believe it would be irrational to believe that we are alone in the universe, just because of the fact that we haven't found evidence of any of lifeforms, and we don't know FOR SURE what is beyond all we have seen.  When this evidence comes to light, sure.  But also as you said, I believe it is possible that there is some kind of lifeform somewhere else in the universe, with the possibility that the universe is infinite.  Therefore, I do not claim that is rational either (if that is even possible?)  I know for sure I do not believe in green aliens with big eyes, big heads, and skinny bodies, simply because it sounds silly.

Quote:
You can probably see where I'm going with this is the absence of evidence of God such evidence for absence? You may laugh and scoff at the alien abductioners or UFO sightings, but does that mean there is no alien live in our galaxy let alone Universe? So you debunk creationism, old Earth believers etc... is that really enough proof of God's absence?

The possibility of alien lifeforms is not supernatural, now is it?

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I really don't have the

I really don't have the time to re-hash all of this but in The God Delusion Dawkins points out this very "why is earth so different from other planets" issue, as does Victor Stenger in God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows God Does Not Exist

 The fact is that life exists on our planet because conditions are right for it. Considering the number of galaxies out there it is more than likely that another planet such as ours exists but our planet exists as it would WITHOUT the existence of a god.

The fact of the matter is that if life on other planets exist this only serves to further prove that the judeo-christian god certainly does not exist in any manner that theists claim it does. 

Science isn't concerned with any god. It has no reason to be. It seeks not to prove it's absense but as Stenger proves, in doing so all evidence points to NO. Read Stenger and when you get a chance, read Dawkins. There's a lot of information in there about this topic.  

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Well, as much as I'd like

Well, as much as I'd like to agree that we've found a planet suitable for life; my skeptical instinct leads me to doubt it. All we know is that the planet is in the goldilocks zone and terrestrial. Other than that, we have not a clue. I believe I read that by the standards they are applying to the criterion, Mars is also suitable for life (which it may very well be for a life form that had evolved on it). But the fact that we have found another planet in the goldilocks zone does demonstrate how unrare they are, considering there are estimated billions of planets in our galaxy alone, and we have found less than 200 of them.

But as far as your little analogy goes; to say that lack of evidence of non-existence should be evidence of possible existence is a pretty poor way of looking at things. We know what conditions it would take for a planet to sustain life, and we can statistically (with a large margin of error, mind you) demonstrate that there are many, many planets out there with those desirable attributes. So, we can safely speculate that since life could arrise on earth, it has likely occurred elsewhere in the universe, somewhere, sometime. Though, given that we cannot, at this point, prove this, we cannot offer it as fact, or assume it to be true. But it is not, by any means, a stretch to consider such things.

But when you want to say that since "we cannot disprove God, he may exist," you are also admitting that the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Fluffy Pink Unicorn, Boogey Man, Santa Claus, and Zeus are all just as plausible.

If you want to believe that some intelligence was behind the universe in the beginning, that's fine (even if I don't agree with you). But when it comes to describing that intelligence, theology is a poor substitute, because it is implausible. And I know you’ve probable heard this a million times, but if you want to invoke your god to explain the universe, it is your job to prove its existence. Otherwise, you better get to disproving all the other gods. As it is now, there is no reason to believe there is a god, only incredulous reckoning.

Edit: I suppose my whole point is that we have good reason, based on what we know about the universe, to suspect there is life out there. But when it comes to God, there is no evidence, only unexplained gaps. 

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ear me out. There are

ear me out. There are people that I'm sure you dismiss the claims of alien abductions/sightings etc... Now this got me to thinking, wouldn't it be irrational to assume that we're alone in the universe so to speak?

Probably. There are 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the known universe. Their existence is not chaotic but rather bound by laws of physics, just like stars and galaxies. There are probably billions of planets like Earth and many, many with life. Statistically, the odds are against us being alone.

 With all the galaxies and stars and the like I feel it would be extremely improbable that there isn't a single planet in the universe besides us that can sustain and does sustain life.

 I see we are already on the same page.

 Now this is the part that got me thinking. We may never know. Not in my generation, not in the one after that and so on. But aye there's the rub, we have no evidence for or against aliens and probably never will. But in a universe so big, is the absence of evidence evidence of absence?

If there was life elsewhere, especially intelligent life, we could theoretically detect it, but it is beyond the scope of todays instruments. 

You can probably see where I'm going with this is the absence of evidence of God such evidence for absence? You may laugh and scoff at the alien abductioners or UFO sightings, but does that mean there is no alien live in our galaxy let alone Universe?

I do scoff at alien abduction sightings. It's nonsense. The ONLY way ANY civilization could detect us was via our radio signals, which we've been beaming out for only 80 years or so. Even if they hopped in their spaceships which could travel at light speed (impossible, by the way, according to relativity) they still wouldn't reach us for a couple hundred years or so. "UFOs" have these odd tendancies to be sighted fifteenfold near Air Force Bases, especially when the US military is testing these strange, classified new weapons.

And anyway, of course not. It does not disprove the notion. 

 So you debunk creationism, old Earth believers etc... is that really enough proof of God's absence?

No. I do not subscribe to that notion. Debunking creationism is debunking creationism, because they are loons. It does not disprove God. The negative proof fallacy is only used when someone uses the You cannot disprove God as an argument for the existence of God.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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Cpt_pineapple

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

 First off there is no evidence of life just an "Earth-like" Planet that could theoretically sustain life.

Hear me out. There are people that I'm sure you dismiss the claims of alien abductions/sightings etc... Now this got me to thinking, wouldn't it be irrational to assume that we're alone in the universe so to speak? With all the galaxies and stars and the like I feel it would be extremely improbable that there isn't a single planet in the universe besides us that can sustain and does sustain life.

Now this is the part that got me thinking. We may never know. Not in my generation, not in the one after that and so on. But aye there's the rub, we have no evidence for or against aliens and probably never will. But in a universe so big, is the absence of evidence evidence of absence? You can probably see where I'm going with this is the absence of evidence of God such evidence for absence? You may laugh and scoff at the alien abductioners or UFO sightings, but does that mean there is no alien live in our galaxy let alone Universe? So you debunk creationism, old Earth believers etc... is that really enough proof of God's absence?

First, you would be in error to think that atheism is a result of this type of thinking. Absence evidence is an indicator, but no more. Second, there is no relation at all between 'god' and an alien being. I've heard many theists say you can't know there is no god since you haven't looked everywhere. The problem is that no matter where you look you will not find god, given the nature of god. If you look under the right rock you might find an alien, but no matter which rock you look under you will not find god sitting there.

Quote:
And also, this has got to make you wonder. If the planet is sutiable for life, it doesn't mean it contains life. Have you wondered with all the planets we detected, few have had these conditions for life, so why us? Why does Earth have life?

The question of why there are so few planets that are earthlike is rather silly. We have only detected some 200 planets since finding the first. Given that nearly ANY star we look at seems to have planets, the natural extrapolation is that the number of planets in this one galaxy is gigantic. Out of that many, the odds that even 1 of the 200 so far found would be earthlike are worse than winning the god damn powerball.

The limiter to these long odds is that the elements that planets can be composed of is limited by the actual materials that constitute the galaxy, about which we are fairly well versed. So it would really not be very surprising to find that the freqency of earth-like planets is about 1 in 500 (not that we can genuinely infer this number yet, but that if this number were inferred it would not be surprising). 

One of the semi-compelling reason for thinking an earth-type planet would have earth-type life is that life sprang up on this planet, from a geological perspective, AS SOON AS IT COULD. What makes this semi-compelling (rather than compelling) is that we have no other planets with life to judge by...but this is true of all arguments about life on other planets.

Another aspect of having no other life to judge by is that there may be utterly non-earth-like life out there that would be virtually impossible for us to detect since we wouldn't even know how to look for it.

As pointed out, this cannot be used as a metaphor for finding god because god is not like a plant growing under a rock that you can find by lifting the rock.


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This topic got me thinking

This topic got me thinking of The Drake Equation


 

 

 


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Cpt_pineapple wrote: Now

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

Now this is the part that got me thinking. We may never know. Not in my generation, not in the one after that and so on.

I doubt that we will never know. It may be hundreds of years from now, but given the accelerating pace of scientific discovery, I think we will eventually make contact.

Quote:
But aye there's the rub, we have no evidence for or against aliens and probably never will.

I disagree that we "probably never will."

Quote:
But in a universe so big, is the absence of evidence evidence of absence? You can probably see where I'm going with this is the absence of evidence of God such evidence for absence? You may laugh and scoff at the alien abductioners or UFO sightings, but does that mean there is no alien live in our galaxy let alone Universe? So you debunk creationism, old Earth believers etc... is that really enough proof of God's absence?

Creationism and "old earth" arguments get debunked because there is plenty of evidence to support it, whereas the ONLY support for the creationist viewpoint comes from the bible. I think you could argue that once you've killed creationism, the christian god should be killed as well. I mean, if the very first book of the bible is proven to be a load of junk, then why wouldnt the whole bible be non-factual?

However, since I dont know what "brand" of theism you subscribe to, I would agree with you that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence if we're talking about god in the abstract, energy-field sort of way, but that rarely is the case when theists use this argument. They want to plug in the judeo-christian, or muslim version of god in these arguments, and that is ridiculous.

 

Quote:
And also, this has got to make you wonder. If the planet is sutiable for life, it doesn't mean it contains life. Have you wondered with all the planets we detected, few have had these conditions for life, so why us? Why does Earth have life?

We have discovered such a small percentage of the number of planets out there that the numerical value would be virtually incomprehensible. The earth has life because numerous factors to facilitate it were present here. While it's an amazing thing to think about, nothing about it is so unbelieveable that there is no choice put to attribute it to a supernatural being.

"The powerful have always created false images of the weak."


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Problem is, we are not sure

Problem is, we are not sure if these planets have life, or do not. We are not even sure mars has life or not. Well they found bacteria like structures on mars but everyone is dismissing those. You know, all those pictures you see of these exo-planets are artist renditions of what they think they look like. They have a good idea, but there is no telescope, or way or us to view these planets as close as any in our solar system, many appear as the size of a few pixels on a screen, or do not appear at all. It's estimated there is just as many planets, as stars or more. However we do not see them simply because of their size and they do not emit light at the intensity of the sun.

 

This earth like planet, could have life just as advanced as ours, however we won't know for awhile. We would have some sign, if they are sending out radio signils of course. Evolution may happen much more often then we think, or it could also happen much less often. We will know when we start getting better images of these exoplanets.

 

Anyone know what happened with the bacteria samples from mars? Also to what happened to them?

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Cpt_pineapple wrote:   And

Cpt_pineapple wrote:
 

And also, this has got to make you wonder. If the planet is sutiable for life, it doesn't mean it contains life. Have you wondered with all the planets we detected, few have had these conditions for life, so why us? Why does Earth have life?

 

Sorry if this is a non-sensical rambling Undecided

 

since it seems the rest of the post is address, i shall address this closing part.

the questions of 'why us' and 'why earth' dont make much logical sense, because if it had been anywhere else in the universe, say on planet marklar, the lifeforms living on there (if they were capable of cognative thought) would ask themselves "why marklar? why us?"  as you can see the questions dont really have alot of merit to them because of this anthropic priniciple. 

the answer to 'why earth' is simply that it is just in the right region to support life long enough for us to come to exist in order to ask the question lol.

 

sorry if i may have confused you even more.  


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Quote: This topic got me

Quote:

This topic got me thinking of The Drake Equation

 

Yes, but notice how those are mostly estimates.

 

 

Quote:

I doubt that we will never know. It may be hundreds of years from now, but given the accelerating pace of scientific discovery, I think we will eventually make contact.

 

 

What kind of contact? Radio signals? Spacecraft?

Quote:

I disagree that we "probably never will."

Key word: PROBABLY

 

Quote:

We have discovered such a small percentage of the number of planets out there that the numerical value would be virtually incomprehensible. The earth has life because numerous factors to facilitate it were present here. While it's an amazing thing to think about, nothing about it is so unbelieveable that there is no choice put to attribute it to a supernatural being.

 

Well think of the probability this way: Say a planet with life is like winning the lottery. Improbable.

 

Now say every planet is a lottery ticket. There are trillions and trillions of planets out there and if I bought that many tickets I'm practically guarenteed to win more than once.


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Cpt_pineapple wrote: What

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

What kind of contact? Radio signals? Spacecraft?

I'm guessing that radio signals are the most likely form of first contact.

Quote:
Well think of the probability this way: Say a planet with life is like winning the lottery. Improbable.

Now say every planet is a lottery ticket. There are trillions and trillions of planets out there and if I bought that many tickets I'm practically guarenteed to win more than once.

Of course. I dont understand your point here.

"The powerful have always created false images of the weak."


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This is one of my favorite

This is one of my favorite pictures. It was taken by Hubble over 4 months using almost two weeks of exposure time starting in Sept. 2003.  The area covered in this picture is about 1/10th the size of the moon.

 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Hubble_Ultra_Deep_Field_Black_point_edit.jpg

There are approximately 500 galaxies in this picture. A galaxy can contain up to a trillion stars, while the Milky Way contains about 100 billion stars.

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/cosmology/2006/12/

 

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Lynette1977 wrote: I

Lynette1977 wrote:

I really don't have the time to re-hash all of this but in The God Delusion Dawkins points out this very "why is earth so different from other planets" issue, as does Victor Stenger in God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows God Does Not Exist

 The fact is that life exists on our planet because conditions are right for it. Considering the number of galaxies out there it is more than likely that another planet such as ours exists but our planet exists as it would WITHOUT the existence of a god.

The fact of the matter is that if life on other planets exist this only serves to further prove that the judeo-christian god certainly does not exist in any manner that theists claim it does. 

Science isn't concerned with any god. It has no reason to be. It seeks not to prove it's absense but as Stenger proves, in doing so all evidence points to NO. Read Stenger and when you get a chance, read Dawkins. There's a lot of information in there about this topic.  

 

What about The God Theory?


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Quote: Well think of the

Quote:
Well think of the probability this way: Say a planet with life is like winning the lottery. Improbable.

Once an event has happened, the posterior probability of it having happened is always 100%.

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Cpt_pineapple

Cpt_pineapple wrote:
 

What about The God Theory?

 I haven't read it. Have you?

I did notice that it mentioned zero point fields in the title. Interesting, so god is now demoted to a system in no energy and zero point photons amble around waiting to be caught by an electromagnetic fluctuation in a vacuum.

There you go. There's your testable hypothesis. Let's find a vacuum with no energy, no temperature???, and no influx of material and ask it why we're here.

This just gets lamer and lamer, but I'll read the book if you will and then we can talk about it.

If we refute the use of the word 'theory' in his book then you're going to e-mail him with me. right? 

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Oh yeah. Quick question,

Oh yeah. Quick question, Cpt.

What happens to energy when it enters a zero point field? 

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I love this topic so I'm

I love this topic so I'm going to take a kick at it despite coming late to the discussion. 

Cpt_pineapple wrote:
First off there is no evidence of life just an "Earth-like" Planet that could theoretically sustain life.

We can't even say that yet. All we know is that the planet is probably not a gas giant and probably has a surface temperature averaging between 0 and 40 degrees C. There are a million other factors that could make it totally unsuitable for life, for instance, if the surface is molten lava. 

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

Hear me out. There are people that I'm sure you dismiss the claims of alien abductions/sightings etc... Now this got me to thinking, wouldn't it be irrational to assume that we're alone in the universe so to speak? With all the galaxies and stars and the like I feel it would be extremely improbable that there isn't a single planet in the universe besides us that can sustain and does sustain life.

These are two highly different questions. Given the information we have, it is certain that there is life elsewhere in the universe. No other inductive conclusion is possible without adding speculative factors for which we have no evidence. On the other hand, it is equally certain that no aliens have visited us. Look at the following facts:

1. Lightspeed is the maximum speed you can travel in this universe. Going faster than lightspeed requires factors that are speculative at best.

2. Given that lightspeed is the speed limit, evidence of the existence of our civilization has only travelled as far as the oldest microwave transmissions that are powerful enough to leave our atmosphere.  That's a sphere with a radius of about 50 light-years. Again, without assuming speculative technology for which we have no evidence, this represents the maximum distance at which we could be detected.

3. A 50 light-year radius encompasses about 37 stars. 37. Even if there were an alien civilization on 1 out of 100 stars, we would still have around a 2 in 3 chance of not being within range to be detected. Given the likely conditions around most of the stars we see, the ratio of civilizations to stars is probably at least 1 in a million, or possibly much lower. In other words, the chances we have been detected are miniscule.

4. Even if, through some incredible twist of fate, we have been detected, the problem of a visit is at least equally unlikely. Using current technology, if the whole planet pooled resources, we might be able to cobble together a nuclear-powered space ship that could accelerate to near-light speed over several decades. If it hit anything, even a speck of dust, at these speeds, it would be totally destroyed. 

5. The journey, even to the nearest stars, would take decades at least. Unless the aliens were already on the very closest stars (2-5 lightyears away) there has not been time for the trip since the earliest possible time they could have detected our civilization. Repeated trips by different ships with live crews, as described by UFO afficianados, is vanishingly unlikely.

There remains, of course, the fact that in addition to it being certain that there are many civilizations across the galaxy, it is also certain that many of these civilizations are significantly older than our own. Given what we have observed about our own technological progress, we can induce that these civlizations probably have technology far in advance of our own. However, we can also observe that despite our progress, we have never found ways to violate the laws of physics as we have known them for centuries. There is simply no reason to assume that even a very advanced alien race could travel faster than light to visit us or detect our presence.

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

Now this is the part that got me thinking. We may never know. Not in my generation, not in the one after that and so on. But aye there's the rub, we have no evidence for or against aliens and probably never will.

Wrong. We have strong evidence (namely, our own existence) from which we can induce the overwhelming probability that there are aliens at least somewhere in the universe. 

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

But in a universe so big, is the absence of evidence evidence of absence? You can probably see where I'm going with this is the absence of evidence of God such evidence for absence? You may laugh and scoff at the alien abductioners or UFO sightings, but does that mean there is no alien live in our galaxy let alone Universe? So you debunk creationism, old Earth believers etc... is that really enough proof of God's absence?

You will see from my above argument that it is perfectly reasonable to scoff UFO kooks while being totally convinced that there is life elsewhere in the universe.  

The difference between aliens and God is that aliens can be logically induced from the available evidence, while God cannot. We have reasoned that since life exists here, it could also exist in other places with similar conditions and, given the size of the universe, there are almost certainly places where such conditions persist. We have never observed anything that looks or acts like the being depicted in theist god-claims. In fact, for the god-claims to be true, there would have to be serious flaws in our understanding of the world, which doesn't seem likely given that we are able to live in the world using that understanding. Aliens fit easily into what we have observed and what we know. God requires a total rejection of all human logic and science.

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

And also, this has got to make you wonder. If the planet is sutiable for life, it doesn't mean it contains life. Have you wondered with all the planets we detected, few have had these conditions for life, so why us? Why does Earth have life?

There could be planets with alien civilizations as advanced as our own in every single star system we have ever looked at, and we would never know. With present technology, we would not be able to detect ourselves even if we were only as far away as Proxima Centauri. There could be life teeming all over Europa, in our own solar system, and we would not know because we haven't looked closely enough. Hell, there could still be underground life on Mars. We simply do not have enough data to make any statements about the "specialness" of Earth relative to the rest of the galaxy.

Even if it turns out that Earth is one in a billion, or a trillion, it means nothing with regards to the question of God. If Earth were not suitable for life, we wouldn't be here asking the question. The one requires the other. Odds are irrelevant because there is no circumstances under which we could be living on a planet unsuitable for life. You can't be amazed that something impossible hasn't happened. That's why it's impossible. 

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Quote: I haven't read

Quote:

 I haven't read it. Have you?

No, but I ordered it. It wasn't in the book store LOL atheist conspiracy!!! I'm currently reading "Parallel Worlds' By Dr.Michio Kaku.

I'm not that far in, but it's a rip-roaring good read.

Quote:
 

I did notice that it mentioned zero point fields in the title. Interesting, so god is now demoted to a system in no energy and zero point photons amble around waiting to be caught by an electromagnetic fluctuation in a vacuum.

Don't judge a book by it's cover.

Quote:

There you go. There's your testable hypothesis. Let's find a vacuum with no energy, no temperature???, and no influx of material and ask it why we're here.

Try HIS hypothesis, but maybe.

Quote:
 

This just gets lamer and lamer, but I'll read the book if you will and then we can talk about it.

The guy is a Ph.D astrophysist. Don't judge a book by it's cover. He may provide proof.

Quote:

If we refute the use of the word 'theory' in his book then you're going to e-mail him with me. right? 

What kind of e-mail?

Quote:

Oh yeah. Quick question, Cpt.

What happens to energy when it enters a zero point field? 

zero point energy is the groundstate of an atom. If for example I stimulate an helium atom with energy, the electrons go to a higher energy state. I take away said energy, they go back to zero energy state or ground state emitting photons. This is how a helium laser works.

So then energy gets expelled in another form.

That was what you were asking right?

 

[Edit:Fixed quote tags...again ]


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First, until there is

First, until there is evidence there is no reason to believe. Second: The idea of aliens passes the law of falsifiability. There is now way to prove god. You can prove that aliens do or do not exist if you have the means to gather enough evidence.

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Tilberian wrote: I love

Tilberian wrote:

I love this topic so I'm going to take a kick at it despite coming late to the discussion.

Cpt_pineapple wrote:
First off there is no evidence of life just an "Earth-like" Planet that could theoretically sustain life.

We can't even say that yet. All we know is that the planet is probably not a gas giant and probably has a surface temperature averaging between 0 and 40 degrees C. There are a million other factors that could make it totally unsuitable for life, for instance, if the surface is molten lava.

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

Hear me out. There are people that I'm sure you dismiss the claims of alien abductions/sightings etc... Now this got me to thinking, wouldn't it be irrational to assume that we're alone in the universe so to speak? With all the galaxies and stars and the like I feel it would be extremely improbable that there isn't a single planet in the universe besides us that can sustain and does sustain life.

These are two highly different questions. Given the information we have, it is certain that there is life elsewhere in the universe. No other inductive conclusion is possible without adding speculative factors for which we have no evidence. On the other hand, it is equally certain that no aliens have visited us. Look at the following facts:

1. Lightspeed is the maximum speed you can travel in this universe. Going faster than lightspeed requires factors that are speculative at best.

2. Given that lightspeed is the speed limit, evidence of the existence of our civilization has only travelled as far as the oldest microwave transmissions that are powerful enough to leave our atmosphere. That's a sphere with a radius of about 50 light-years. Again, without assuming speculative technology for which we have no evidence, this represents the maximum distance at which we could be detected.

3. A 50 light-year radius encompasses about 37 stars. 37. Even if there were an alien civilization on 1 out of 100 stars, we would still have around a 2 in 3 chance of not being within range to be detected. Given the likely conditions around most of the stars we see, the ratio of civilizations to stars is probably at least 1 in a million, or possibly much lower. In other words, the chances we have been detected are miniscule.

4. Even if, through some incredible twist of fate, we have been detected, the problem of a visit is at least equally unlikely. Using current technology, if the whole planet pooled resources, we might be able to cobble together a nuclear-powered space ship that could accelerate to near-light speed over several decades. If it hit anything, even a speck of dust, at these speeds, it would be totally destroyed.

5. The journey, even to the nearest stars, would take decades at least. Unless the aliens were already on the very closest stars (2-5 lightyears away) there has not been time for the trip since the earliest possible time they could have detected our civilization. Repeated trips by different ships with live crews, as described by UFO afficianados, is vanishingly unlikely.

There remains, of course, the fact that in addition to it being certain that there are many civilizations across the galaxy, it is also certain that many of these civilizations are significantly older than our own. Given what we have observed about our own technological progress, we can induce that these civlizations probably have technology far in advance of our own. However, we can also observe that despite our progress, we have never found ways to violate the laws of physics as we have known them for centuries. There is simply no reason to assume that even a very advanced alien race could travel faster than light to visit us or detect our presence.

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

Now this is the part that got me thinking. We may never know. Not in my generation, not in the one after that and so on. But aye there's the rub, we have no evidence for or against aliens and probably never will.

Wrong. We have strong evidence (namely, our own existence) from which we can induce the overwhelming probability that there are aliens at least somewhere in the universe.

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

But in a universe so big, is the absence of evidence evidence of absence? You can probably see where I'm going with this is the absence of evidence of God such evidence for absence? You may laugh and scoff at the alien abductioners or UFO sightings, but does that mean there is no alien live in our galaxy let alone Universe? So you debunk creationism, old Earth believers etc... is that really enough proof of God's absence?

You will see from my above argument that it is perfectly reasonable to scoff UFO kooks while being totally convinced that there is life elsewhere in the universe.

The difference between aliens and God is that aliens can be logically induced from the available evidence, while God cannot. We have reasoned that since life exists here, it could also exist in other places with similar conditions and, given the size of the universe, there are almost certainly places where such conditions persist. We have never observed anything that looks or acts like the being depicted in theist god-claims. In fact, for the god-claims to be true, there would have to be serious flaws in our understanding of the world, which doesn't seem likely given that we are able to live in the world using that understanding. Aliens fit easily into what we have observed and what we know. God requires a total rejection of all human logic and science.

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

And also, this has got to make you wonder. If the planet is sutiable for life, it doesn't mean it contains life. Have you wondered with all the planets we detected, few have had these conditions for life, so why us? Why does Earth have life?

There could be planets with alien civilizations as advanced as our own in every single star system we have ever looked at, and we would never know. With present technology, we would not be able to detect ourselves even if we were only as far away as Proxima Centauri. There could be life teeming all over Europa, in our own solar system, and we would not know because we haven't looked closely enough. Hell, there could still be underground life on Mars. We simply do not have enough data to make any statements about the "specialness" of Earth relative to the rest of the galaxy.

Even if it turns out that Earth is one in a billion, or a trillion, it means nothing with regards to the question of God. If Earth were not suitable for life, we wouldn't be here asking the question. The one requires the other. Odds are irrelevant because there is no circumstances under which we could be living on a planet unsuitable for life. You can't be amazed that something impossible hasn't happened. That's why it's impossible.

 In reality Eiestein was wrong about light being the fastest thing in the universe, and that nothing could succeed it. They have finally been able to measure the speed of gravity, which is so fast they can not give an exact answer but is between 2 - 35 times faster then light. 

The problem with us ever going faster then light is simple. In a "complete" vacuum of space there is still material. Not going into vacuum energy and eternal self consistency, there is still at the lowest point of vacuum there are a few hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter at 10 fPa (10−16 torr). Of course it is seen at this low level of density to be frictionless out in space, which allows all material to move at such great speeds, however when an object like a spaceship were to move at the speed of light, friction is now in contact with it at such a great force, it would rip any man made object apart. Other then that, being able to not hit a stray asteroid would be a feat in it's own.

 

 

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James Cizuz wrote:    In

James Cizuz wrote:

 

 In reality Eiestein was wrong about light being the fastest thing in the universe, and that nothing could succeed it. They have finally been able to measure the speed of gravity, which is so fast they can not give an exact answer but is between 2 - 35 times faster then light. 

The problem with us ever going faster then light is simple. In a "complete" vacuum of space there is still material. Not going into vacuum energy and eternal self consistency, there is still at the lowest point of vacuum there are a few hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter at 10 fPa (10−16 torr). Of course it is seen at this low level of density to be frictionless out in space, which allows all material to move at such great speeds, however when an object like a spaceship were to move at the speed of light, friction is now in contact with it at such a great force, it would rip any man made object apart. Other then that, being able to not hit a stray asteroid would be a feat in it's own.

 

 

 

Actually, the speed of light is a limit due to time/length/mass interaction.

 

Say I travel at high speeds the momentum p

 

p=mv

 

is now

p=mv/SQRT(1-v^2/c^2)

 

as v->c, m->infinity.

Time diliation: as v->c t->0

Length: as v->c length->0

 

So you would be infinite mass, frozen in time and everything will have a length of 0. A clear condradiciton.

 


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James Cizuz wrote: In

James Cizuz wrote:

In reality Eiestein was wrong about light being the fastest thing in the universe, and that nothing could succeed it. They have finally been able to measure the speed of gravity, which is so fast they can not give an exact answer but is between 2 - 35 times faster then light.

Can you post a link to this study? Everything I can find refers to a 2003 experiment that showed gravity travels at light speed, but then there's a bunch of controversy about that experiment.  As far as I can tell from my reading (and I'm no physicist) gravity should not be able to propogate any faster than light.

 

 

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There are a number of

There are a number of theories as to how we could perhaps travel faster than light without actually travelling faster than light in a way that would subject you to relativity. There are no known mechanisms by which to accomplish it, but it is theoretically possible all the same.

The whole intelligent life question is a massive one. Whenever I've done some in depth thought about the subject I tend to come up with the same result: Life is probably a lot more common than people think, and a lot more varied. Considering it took 4.5 billion years for humans to become the dominant life form(yet didn't necessarily have to), civilizations across the universe will be in far different stages of technology than others. Somewhere there's an industrial revolution going on, and somewhere else "people" are crafting their first wheel. Somewhere else "people" are teleporting distances of millions of light years in the span of an instant. And in yet another place you've got "people" harnessing fire for the first time. Considering it's effectively a fluke that humans became the dominant intelligent life form on earth(and how well we get along with each other and other life forms here), there's probably been trillions of species that got close only to be wiped out by natural phenomena or self destruction. Too bad for us if we'd come into power 65 million years ago.

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Tilberian wrote: James

Tilberian wrote:
James Cizuz wrote:

In reality Eiestein was wrong about light being the fastest thing in the universe, and that nothing could succeed it. They have finally been able to measure the speed of gravity, which is so fast they can not give an exact answer but is between 2 - 35 times faster then light.

Can you post a link to this study? Everything I can find refers to a 2003 experiment that showed gravity travels at light speed, but then there's a bunch of controversy about that experiment. As far as I can tell from my reading (and I'm no physicist) gravity should not be able to propogate any faster than light.

 

 

That was the test I was talking about, that test is still on-going also as they are still trying to figure it out. Physicists of the brane-world theories had the biggest objection due to the fact they think gravity infact moves slower then light, however travels through extra dimensions to appear faster then light. The real estimates are 80% to 160% the speed of light. The oldest estimates were 2-35 times which were revised. The others who have had a problem with the findings were the people who closely follow general relativity.

 

Also does anyone know the results of NASA as they claim to have finally proven general relativity first half and are working on the second half? 

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Quote: Actually, the speed

Quote:

Actually, the speed of light is a limit due to time/length/mass interaction.

 

Say I travel at high speeds the momentum p

 

p=mv

 

is now

p=mv/SQRT(1-v^2/c^2)

 

as v->c, m->infinity.

Time diliation: as v->c t->0

Length: as v->c length->0

 

So you would be infinite mass, frozen in time and everything will have a length of 0. A clear condradiciton.

Unfortunately, Cpt_pineapple, taking the reference the beam of light that directly unites the very top of your head with the center of the sun, you are ALREADY travelling at light speed relative to it. So applying your logic, relative to one photon in that beam of light you are frozen in time and have an infinite mass.

If you go towards a street light post at night, then the photons that that light bulb emanates travel at speed c from their starting point, and you travel at speed v (let's say 2-3 miles per hour) towards the street light post. So your speed relative to the photons is actually c+v, which is greater than c.

I posted another question regarding c as the maximum possible speed, but nobody bothered to answer it:

If we have two parallel vacuum tubes, each has a LED at one end, but opposite ends to one another, when the LEDs are switched on, what will be the speed of a photon in one of the tubes, relative to a photon in the other tube?

Similarly, I asked another question which remained unanswered:

We might not be able to go up to light speed, but we might be able to go to a bit faster than half the light speed. So if we have two vehicles, going in opposite directions to one another, at the speed of (c/2)+1 relative to their starting point, what will the speed of each vehicle be relative to the other?

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Rigor_OMortis

Rigor_OMortis wrote:

 

Unfortunately, Cpt_pineapple, taking the reference the beam of light that directly unites the very top of your head with the center of the sun, you are ALREADY travelling at light speed relative to it. So applying your logic, relative to one photon in that beam of light you are frozen in time and have an infinite mass.

If you go towards a street light post at night, then the photons that that light bulb emanates travel at speed c from their starting point, and you travel at speed v (let's say 2-3 miles per hour) towards the street light post. So your speed relative to the photons is actually c+v, which is greater than c.

I posted another question regarding c as the maximum possible speed, but nobody bothered to answer it:

If we have two parallel vacuum tubes, each has a LED at one end, but opposite ends to one another, when the LEDs are switched on, what will be the speed of a photon in one of the tubes, relative to a photon in the other tube?

Similarly, I asked another question which remained unanswered:

We might not be able to go up to light speed, but we might be able to go to a bit faster than half the light speed. So if we have two vehicles, going in opposite directions to one another, at the speed of (c/2)+1 relative to their starting point, what will the speed of each vehicle be relative to the other?

 

Actually, c is constant in all frames. If I'm travelling on a spaceship at 0.9c or standing still, I will measure c as c.

 

The answer is c. Both LEDs will travel at the speed of light.

 

As for you other question, you need the relative velocity formula.

 

v(rel)=v(2)-v(1)/1-((v(2)v(1))/c^2)


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Quote: Actually, c is

Quote:

Actually, c is constant in all frames. If I'm travelling on a spaceship at 0.9c or standing still, I will measure c as c.

 

The answer is c. Both LEDs will travel at the speed of light.

 

As for you other question, you need the relative velocity formula.

 

v(rel)=v(2)-v(1)/1-((v(2)v(1))/c^2)

 

We'll unfortunately have to wait until we can shoot some measuring devices at precisely the speed of light to answer my LED dillema.

And we'll also have to wait until we figure out a way to measure events from a non-inertial frame. If this has been done, someone please give me a link.

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Rigor_OMortis

Rigor_OMortis wrote:

 

We'll unfortunately have to wait until we can shoot some measuring devices at precisely the speed of light to answer my LED dillema.

And we'll also have to wait until we figure out a way to measure events from a non-inertial frame. If this has been done, someone please give me a link.

 

You'll be waiting a long time for those devices since you can't go as fast as light. Remember what I said about length contraction and time diliation? Those come from the fact that the speed of light (Which cannot be exceeded) is the same for all frames of reference.

Oh, did I mention you cannot travel at the speed of light?


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Considering I know it's

Considering I know it's theoretically possible, I'm going to have to ask you to prove it.

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Vastet wrote: Considering

Vastet wrote:

Considering I know it's theoretically possible, I'm going to have to ask you to prove it.

 

Me? The equations proof it.

As for the theortically possible part, you're getting into string theory and such, that 'warping space' part where you APPEAR to be moving faster than light when you're actually not.

 

CERN accelerator can only hit about 99% of c.


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If I can get to Pluto faster

If I can get to Pluto faster than the light from Sol, then I travelled faster than light. Sticking out tongue

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Funny, because a photon is

Funny, because a photon is just a tiny bit of matter, which makes up light. Since you "proved" any object moving at light speed will be of infinite mass, frozen in time. Then why are photons not infinite mass, and frozen in time? A photon is an object also.

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James Cizuz wrote: Funny,

James Cizuz wrote:

Funny, because a photon is just a tiny bit of matter, which makes up light. Since you "proved" any object moving at light speed will be of infinite mass, frozen in time. Then why are photons not infinite mass, and frozen in time? A photon is an object also.

 

A photon has both wave properties (Younge's double slit) and particle properties (Refraction). It is a 'packet' of energy if you will.

 

Those are valid formulas.

 


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Photons can go the speed of

Photons can go the speed of light (the speed of photons, right? Since light IS photons) because they have zero mass. Accelerating them to the speed of light therefore does not add mass since there was none to begin with.

The idea of FTL travel through wormholes is not necessarily related to String Theory. The idea was bron following Einstein's Relativity theory, called an Einstein-Rosen bridge. As mentioned this is not actually FTL travel.

Roger Penrose proved mathematically that, in Relativity theory, a black hole collapses to an infinitely dense, infinitely small mass virtually instantaneously. In order for this to be true, The diamter of the collapsing object would have to be shrinking at many times the speed of light, up to the speed of light times infinity. Since the collapsing object is matter, this is clearly a case of matter moving at much greater than the speed of light. Here's the problem: Einstein wasn't right. This is well known. I put it this way to shock, but Einstein being wrong is well known and not really a shock. Einstein's equations are mathematacal idealizations that, while extremely precise (up to nine decimals of accuracy), are not PERFECTLY precise. Something is missing from Relativity theory. The most obvious way we know this is it cannot be reconciled with quantum theory.

The problem of black holes being infinitely dense and infinitely small is yet another that string theory purports to solve. A black hole cannot be smaller than a string, so there would be an absolute limit to the shrinkage and therefor density of a black hole.


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kmisho wrote: Photons can

kmisho wrote:

Photons can go the speed of light (the speed of photons, right? Since light IS photons) because they have zero mass. Accelerating them to the speed of light therefore does not add mass since there was none to begin with.

The idea of FTL travel through wormholes is not necessarily related to String Theory. The idea was bron following Einstein's Relativity theory, called an Einstein-Rosen bridge. As mentioned this is not actually FTL travel.

Roger Penrose proved mathematically that, in Relativity theory, a black hole collapses to an infinitely dense, infinitely small mass virtually instantaneously. In order for this to be true, The diamter of the collapsing object would have to be shrinking at many times the speed of light, up to the speed of light times infinity. Since the collapsing object is matter, this is clearly a case of matter moving at much greater than the speed of light. Here's the problem: Einstein wasn't right. This is well known. I put it this way to shock, but Einstein being wrong is well known and not really a shock. Einstein's equations are mathematacal idealizations that, while extremely precise (up to nine decimals of accuracy), are not PERFECTLY precise. Something is missing from Relativity theory. The most obvious way we know this is it cannot be reconciled with quantum theory.

The problem of black holes being infinitely dense and infinitely small is yet another that string theory purports to solve. A black hole cannot be smaller than a string, so there would be an absolute limit to the shrinkage and therefor density of a black hole.

Just like to point out a photon does have a mass. It is much less then an electron, but still has a mass. Something massless does not exist. 

"When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness.... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever.... I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it." ~H.L. Mencken

Thank god i'm a atheist!


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I do not believe we are

I do not believe we are alone in the Universe in terms of life. Even in our own solar system there may be other planets/moons that are or were able to support life. As a planet able to bear intelligent life perhaps we are more rare, and of course it is only extremely recently that this planet has bourne a species so influential as human beings.


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James Cizuz wrote:   Just

James Cizuz wrote:

 

Just like to point out a photon does have a mass. It is much less then an electron, but still has a mass. Something massless does not exist. 

 

Your thinking about relative mass. i.e how much mass would it have if it did based on properties and energy. I would give you the formula, but I lost my Modern Physics book.


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All we need to do is find a

All we need to do is find a way to convert mass into energy and we'll be flying past light in no time. The faster we go the more energy we'll have, making "infinate" energy attainable. Or we could find a way to nullify the effects of mass, or mass itself and make light speed cost less energy than a light bulb. Or perhaps make anti-mass, making faster than light travel an energy producer. Oh the possibilities...

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Vastet wrote: All we need

Vastet wrote:

All we need to do is find a way to convert mass into energy and we'll be flying past light in no time. The faster we go the more energy we'll have, making "infinate" energy attainable. Or we could find a way to nullify the effects of mass, or mass itself and make light speed cost less energy than a light bulb. Or perhaps make anti-mass, making faster than light travel an energy producer. Oh the possibilities...

 

Matter anti-matter reactions convert mass to energy.

 

E=mc^2. Look familar? You can't have infinite energy.


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Vastet wrote: All we need

Vastet wrote:
All we need to do is find a way to convert mass into energy and we'll be flying past light in no time. The faster we go the more energy we'll have, making "infinate" energy attainable. Or we could find a way to nullify the effects of mass, or mass itself and make light speed cost less energy than a light bulb. Or perhaps make anti-mass, making faster than light travel an energy producer. Oh the possibilities...

 I'm not normally confused.


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Cpt_pineapple

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

Vastet wrote:

All we need to do is find a way to convert mass into energy and we'll be flying past light in no time. The faster we go the more energy we'll have, making "infinate" energy attainable. Or we could find a way to nullify the effects of mass, or mass itself and make light speed cost less energy than a light bulb. Or perhaps make anti-mass, making faster than light travel an energy producer. Oh the possibilities...

 

Matter anti-matter reactions convert mass to energy.

 

E=mc^2. Look familar? You can't have infinite energy.

I put the term infinate in quotation marks in case you didn't notice that. But I can very easily show you how E=mc2 proves me right. If m = infinate, then E = infinate.

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