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They are coming to probe us all!!!

Derrel said:
Do you have any other photos to show? I'd like to see more photos.

People who have never seen a UFO will usually laugh and make fun of those who have (you know, people like astronauts and airline pilots, and people who are observant, and so on).
Click to expand...

Ok, all joking aside - Anyone who seriously believes that human beings are the only sentient form of life in the entire universe hasn't considered the math - given the size and scope and the sheer number of habitable worlds out there the notion that life only exists in this one tiny little insignificant spec in the middle of nowhere is ludicrious. However on the flip side of that anyone that seriously believes that we have sentient life from other worlds visiting us on a regular and consistent basis probably hasn't considered the physics. The distances involved are immense, and the only way to travel such distances requires a level of scientific understanding that dwarfs our own to a terrifying degree.

The nearest star to our own little solar system is Proxima Centuri - at roughly 4.5 Light years in distance. The fastest craft we've ever built to date I believe is still the Juno 2, which reached a speed of 25 miles per second. So if we were to send the fastest ship we have to the nearest star in the sky, the journey would take over 3,000 years to complete. The distances were talking about here are so vast, they are mind boggling. Even electronic signals, like radio, which travel at the speed of light - would take over four years to reach Proxima Centuri.

It's fairly safe to assume that a sentient species would only come to investigate if they recieved some indication that there was sentient life here on this planet, from a galactic standpoint we are not exactly centrally located or near anything that would most likely be a huge point of interest for such a species.

That would mean they would have had to have recieved some manner of electromagnetic signal that peaked their curiousity. Since radio has really only been around for roughly 100 years or so, and really the signal strengths involved really only noteworthy for perhaps the last 50 years or so, even assuming that there was a sentient form of being out there that could build vessels to traverse the vast expanse of space the odds are infintismally small that they could have intercepted a radio signal and actually have been close enough to make it here by now.

Even if we were talking about the closest planet to us that we think might be habitable we are looking at 12 light years minimum. Which means that if we assume they actually got a radio signal from us and decided to send a craft to investigate, they would have only gotten the signal a few decades ago, and if their technology was such that say allowed them to build a craft twice as fast as the fasted thing we've ever built - well the craft they would have launced to investigate wouldn't be getting here for another 5 thousand years.
 
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robbins.photo said:
Ok, all joking aside - Anyone who seriously believes that human beings are the only sentient form of life in the entire universe hasn't considered the math ......
Click to expand...



Here's the formula, in case you're interested:

24b31e87c6c617382237ab57357bd539.png
 
480sparky said:
robbins.photo said:
Ok, all joking aside - Anyone who seriously believes that human beings are the only sentient form of life in the entire universe hasn't considered the math ......
Click to expand...



Here's the formula, in case you're interested:

24b31e87c6c617382237ab57357bd539.png
Click to expand...

Well I was really interested.. until somebody asked me to actually do math. Now? Eh, not so much really.. lol
 
everyone knows they are only here for our bacon!!! protect the bacon!!!!
 
The Drake Equation, referenced by Sparky, does not take into account the possibility of life-bearing moons, famously illustrated by the movie Avatar. Furthermore, if civilizations evolve with radio-quiet technology, we'd have real difficulty in picking up signs that they are "out there". If a civilization progresses to the point of being able to construct a Dyson sphere, then we probably have no way of detecting it.

Personally, I'm pretty sure that "they're out there". Lack of contact is probably for the same reasons that some new inhabitants of a neighbourhood may not see their neighbours for a while while the locals size up the newcomers and decide whether they want to really get to know them. We're loud, very self-absorbed, quite destructive, and not particularly bright.
 
pgriz said:
The Drake Equation, referenced by Sparky, does not take into account the possibility of life-bearing moons, famously illustrated by the movie Avatar.
Click to expand...

True, but considering how absolutely awful that movie was, personally I'm not sure if I'd really like that factor in to any equation.. lol

Furthermore, if civilizations evolve with radio-quiet technology, we'd have real difficulty in picking up signs that they are "out there". If a civilization progresses to the point of being able to construct a Dyson sphere, then we probably have no way of detecting it.
Click to expand...

Well my original thought on the subject is that any civilization out there advanced enough to actually be able to get here in an even fairly unreasonable time frame would probably be far more technologically advanced than we are, so odds are good they would detect us long before we detected them.

Personally, I'm pretty sure that "they're out there". Lack of contact is probably for the same reasons that some new inhabitants of a neighbourhood may not see their neighbours for a while while the locals size up the newcomers and decide whether they want to really get to know them. We're loud, very self-absorbed, quite destructive, and not particularly bright.
Click to expand...

I'd agree that there is more than likely far more than one sentient species out there - it seems pretty unlikely, in fact statistically impossible from my point of view that their wouldn't be - but of course considering the physics involved the difficulties in making contact with such a species is daunting to say the least.

Assuming of course that a species was advanced enough to travel such tremendous distances I doubt they'd have much interest in contacting us at the moment either - and of course if they ever did get to screen Avatar first.. well if it were me I'd turn that ship around and head home immediately. Lol
 
The issue with interstellar travel is the time it takes to get places. In our case, and with the speeds we'd be able to put together, any interstellar travel will either be multi-generational, or using some form of suspended animation. However, if the sentient species has the ability to live much longer, say, 10,000 years, then the travel time becomes less of an issue. Fact is, there's much more we don't know - everything we see and sense (normal matter and related photons) makes up less than 5% of the universe, and we don't have a complete handle on the part that we do sense. It wouldn't surprise me if there's some civilization out there that has figured out how to manipulate dark energy and use it. The "ultimate" speed limit applies to travel through space by photons and matter, but does not seem to apply to space-time itself. So, there's a wrinkle that we still have to discover.
 
pgriz said:
The issue with interstellar travel is the time it takes to get places. In our case, and with the speeds we'd be able to put together, any interstellar travel will either be multi-generational, or using some form of suspended animation. However, if the sentient species has the ability to live much longer, say, 10,000 years, then the travel time becomes less of an issue. Fact is, there's much more we don't know - everything we see and sense (normal matter and related photons) makes up less than 5% of the universe, and we don't have a complete handle on the part that we do sense. It wouldn't surprise me if there's some civilization out there that has figured out how to manipulate dark energy and use it. The "ultimate" speed limit applies to travel through space by photons and matter, but does not seem to apply to space-time itself. So, there's a wrinkle that we still have to discover.
Click to expand...

Which is all well and good, but still doesn't really explain why Avatar was that bad of a movie. Yikes. Lol
 
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