Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

[Flex Mentallo]

It is estimated to be over 13 billion years old.

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The visible Universe is estimated to contain 200 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars.

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The universe is growing in size by about 7 percent every billion years. The further away from us, the faster an object is receding.

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

It is about 46 billion light years in radius.

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

If the solar system were the size of a nickel, the Earth would be a speck of dust on it's surface.

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The nearest star system to ours would then be two football fields away.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Only 5% of the Universe is comprised of ordinary matter. 95% is hypothetically comprised of dark matter and dark energy that we cannot observe by the means used to observe ordinary matter.

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

In 2012 a ‘finger’ of the Universe’s dark-matter skeleton, which ultimately dictates where galaxies form, was observed for the first time.Visible stars and galaxies trace a pattern across the sky known as the cosmic web, which was originally etched out by dark matter.

 

Edited May 28, 2014 by Flex Mentallo

[Flex Mentallo]

Multiple universes have been hypothesized in cosmology, physics, astronomy, religion, philosophy, transpersonal psychology and fiction, particularly in science fiction and fantasy. In these contexts, parallel universes are also called "alternative universes", "quantum universes", "interpenetrating dimensions", "parallel dimensions", "parallel worlds", "alternative realities", "alternative timelines", and "dimensional planes," among others.

 

The multiverse hypothesis is a source of disagreement within the physics community.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

"What are the chances that we will encounter some alien form of life, as we explore the galaxy. If the argument about the time scale for the appearance of life on Earth is correct, there ought to be many other stars, whose planets have life on them. Some of these stellar systems could have formed 5 billion years before the Earth. So why is the galaxy not crawling with self designing mechanical or biological life forms? Why hasn't the Earth been visited, and even colonised. I discount suggestions that UFO's contain beings from outer space. I think any visits by aliens, would be much more obvious, and probably also, much more unpleasant.

 

"What is the explanation of why we have not been visited? One possibility is that the argument, about the appearance of life on Earth, is wrong. Maybe the probability of life spontaneously appearing is so low, that Earth is the only planet in the galaxy, or in the observable universe, in which it happened. Another possibility is that there was a reasonable probability of forming self reproducing systems, like cells, but that most of these forms of life did not evolve intelligence. We are used to thinking of intelligent life, as an inevitable consequence of evolution. But the Anthropic Principle should warn us to be wary of such arguments. It is more likely that evolution is a random process, with intelligence as only one of a large number of possible outcomes. It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value. Bacteria, and other single cell organisms, will live on, if all other life on Earth is wiped out by our actions. There is support for the view that intelligence, was an unlikely development for life on Earth, from the chronology of evolution. It took a very long time, two and a half billion years, to go from single cells to multi-cell beings, which are a necessary precursor to intelligence. This is a good fraction of the total time available, before the Sun blows up. So it would be consistent with the hypothesis, that the probability for life to develop intelligence, is low. In this case, we might expect to find many other life forms in the galaxy, but we are unlikely to find intelligent life. Another way, in which life could fail to develop to an intelligent stage, would be if an asteroid or comet were to collide with the planet. We have just observed the collision of a comet, Schumacher-Levi, with Jupiter. It produced a series of enormous fireballs. It is thought the collision of a rather smaller body with the Earth, about 70 million years ago, was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. A few small early mammals survived, but anything as large as a human, would have almost certainly been wiped out. It is difficult to say how often such collisions occur, but a reasonable guess might be every twenty million years, on average. If this figure is correct, it would mean that intelligent life on Earth has developed only because of the lucky chance that there have been no major collisions in the last 70 million years. Other planets in the galaxy, on which life has developed, may not have had a long enough collision free period to evolve intelligent beings.

 

"A third possibility is that there is a reasonable probability for life to form, and to evolve to intelligent beings, in the external transmission phase. But at that point, the system becomes unstable, and the intelligent life destroys itself. This would be a very pessimistic conclusion. I very much hope it isn't true. I prefer a fourth possibility: there are other forms of intelligent life out there, but that we have been overlooked. There used to be a project called SETI, the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. It involved scanning the radio frequencies, to see if we could pick up signals from alien civilisations. I thought this project was worth supporting, though it was cancelled due to a lack of funds. But we should have been wary of answering back, until we have develop a bit further. Meeting a more advanced civilisation, at our present stage, might be a bit like the original inhabitants of America meeting Columbus. I don't think they were better off for it."

Stephen Hawking

 

[Flex Mentallo]

"Where is everyone?"

Enrico Fermi

 

Given the size and longevity of the universe, alien civilizations should have colonized the galaxies long ago. Yet there is no evidence to support it. This is Fermi's paradox.

 

Herbert York recollects that Fermi made a series of rapid calculations using estimated figures. "He followed up with a series of calculations on the probability of earthlike planets, the probability of life given an earth, the probability of humans given life, the likely rise and duration of high technology, and so on. He concluded on the basis of such calculations that we ought to have been visited long ago and many times over."

 

Frank Drake formulated the Drake equation in 1961, a decade after Fermi, in an attempt to find a systematic means to evaluate the numerous probabilities involved in the existence of alien life. He factored in the rate of star formation in the galaxy; the fraction of stars with planets and the number per star that are habitable; the fraction of those planets which develop life, the fraction of intelligent life, and the further fraction of detectable technological intelligent life; and finally the length of time such civilizations are detectable. He came to the highly speculative conclusion that there ought to be at least 10,000 advanced civilizations in our galaxy alone.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Of course, they may already be here.

 

[Pat Calhoun]

"I too have wondered a lot of how religion will atempt to adapt to another sentient life form being discovered. Not only would there be "competing" religions of mankind, but of any religions of the other species as well! Or would it cause all but the most devout to doubt? Maybe it would cause the opposite effect and result in those claiming it was divine proof of a God (probably their own of course). It is such an interesting idea." eman13

 

 

Edited May 28, 2014 by pcalhoun

[Flex Mentallo]

Giordano Bruno, an Italian Dominican friar, proposed that the Sun was just another star moving in space, and claimed as well that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds, identified as planets orbiting other stars. In 1600 The Inquisition found him guilty of heresy, and he was burned at the stake in Rome's Campo de' Fiori.

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

But the Roman Catholic Church has moved on. Here is the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory, speaking in 2013:

 

"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere? Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God's creative freedom."

 

 

 

 

Edited May 28, 2014 by Flex Mentallo

[Flex Mentallo]

The Dalai Lama believes that religion alone is insufficient to address the dilemmas of the modern world. He believes we must develop a "secular ethics" that blends science with spirituality.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

“That is at bottom the only courage that is demanded of us: to have courage for the most strange, the most singular and the most inexplicable that we may encounter. That mankind has in this sense been cowardly has done life endless harm; the experiences that are called "visions," the whole so-called "spirit-world," death, all those things that are so closely akin to us, have by daily parrying been so crowded out of life that the senses with which we could have grasped them are atrophied. To say nothing of God.”

Rainer Maria Rilke

 

[Pat Calhoun]

Rilke - Sonnets to Orpheus (Mitchell tr)

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The Silence

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

“Changing times require new myths, and since our times are changing so very rapidly, the myth-making function can't keep up. As a result, we are practically myth-less… Myth is humanity's attempt to grasp the reason and the purpose for existence. Speaking in a language of metaphor and symbol, it creates vivid worlds and beings that… provide answers to our fundamental questions about the true nature of the world.”

Stacy Esch