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'Search for intelligent aliens near bizarre dimming star has begun'

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Oct 19, 2015.

  1. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    There's a novel by Michel Faber, "The Book of Strange New Things," that ruminates on this.
     
    cyclingwriter2 likes this.
  2. SpeedTchr

    SpeedTchr Well-Known Member

    All a big waste of time and money. But if that's what some folks want to do, have at it. Not gonna find anything, but keep looking, by all means.
     
  3. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    How do you figure?

    Just some quick googling says 160 billion alien planets may exist in the Milky Way galaxy. That figures 1.6 planets per star. Of course our solar system has nine planets. Fuck yeah, Pluto. Still a planet.

    160 Billion Alien Planets May Exist in Our Milky Way Galaxy

    The conservative estimate is that one hundred billion galaxies exist in the universe.

    So the math works out to 1.6e+22 possible planets.

    If my math is right, and I hope Google's math is right, that's 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible planets in the universe.

    I think the odds of 1 planet out of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 having intelligent life seems a little unpossible.
     
  4. schiezainc

    schiezainc Well-Known Member

    SpeedTchr on exploring new ways to deliver music to people (Circa 1995): "Guys, I don't know why you're bothering with trying to fit songs on a disc thing. I mean, CDs? Who the hell wants to waste time and money researching that when we have these perfectly serviceable cassettes right here. Don't be lazy. You want to hear another song on the album? Fast forward like the rest of us."
     
  5. SFIND

    SFIND Well-Known Member

    We can't understand Dolphins, but we can hear them click. Obviously we couldn't understand an alien broadcast. The point is trying to find a signal that can be determined to be artifical, not that we decode it.

    And encryption doesn't really explain it, unless an advanced society wants to hide itself and prevent any decetable signal from leaving their planet.
     
  6. SFIND

    SFIND Well-Known Member

    Again, I don't necessarily think we're alone, but I think intelligent life is very, very rare. I can't remember what program, but I saw something on Science channel that made mention of this.

    Rare Earth hypothesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
     
  7. bigpern23

    bigpern23 Well-Known Member

    Yeah, I mean, why bother trying to broaden our understanding of the universe? Nothing good ever came out of that.
     
    SFIND likes this.
  8. SpeedTchr

    SpeedTchr Well-Known Member

    Yeah, well, I though the first moon landing was cool when I was a kid, but after that I haven't seen the point of spending gillions of dollars exploring space when we haven't even figured out our planet yet. Yes, I get it, everything wonderful we have now is because of the space program, yada yada yada.

    Your faith impresses me.
     
  9. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Just wait until a pro sports team decides to sign an alien. Imagine an NBA team with a 10-foot tall alien, or an NFL team with a 1,000-pound running back.
     
  10. SFIND

    SFIND Well-Known Member

    They're already at it.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/vatican-observatory-alien-jesus_55bf8ae3e4b0d4f33a03586a

    Marc Kaufman -- The religious questions raised by aliens

    From the last story:

     
  11. bigpern23

    bigpern23 Well-Known Member

    [​IMG]
     
  12. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    Got it in my head you have a rather ill-informed understanding of "the fundamental principals of their doctrine" ...
     
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