Our Universe is too vast for even the most imaginative sci-fi

[ScienceRocks]

Yet, we spend a shit ton on our military because you know defense... lol...A asteroid could do more damage then 90% of our enemies ever could.

 

[westwall]

Yet, we spend a shit ton on our military because you know defense... lol...A asteroid could do more damage then 90% of our enemies ever could.

And far, far more than the so called global warming too. I would love for 50% of the military budget to be diverted to the space program and a viable asteroid defense system developed because THAT is a true civilization ender. Not the AGW bullshit that has been pushed for the last 35 years.

 

[Old Rocks]

Exactly. And how it expands the horizons for those of us that remember our first science fiction book, and when the stars became something more than points of light in the sky.

In 1913 modern astrophysicists began to discover what stars really were and what they contained.

In 1945 the first detonation of an A-bomb gave the first clue as to what stars really were.

Now we know. We have known all this all our lifetimes.

There are few people here born before 1945 and none before 1913.

Well, this old boy was born before 1945. And the reference to 'points of light in the sky' was subjective to a 12 year old boy.

Maybe your grandfather was lying to you.

By 1913 that ancient idea of "points in the sky" was pretty much debunked already.

Damn, you are being dense. The referance to points of light in the sky was, as stated, the subjective view of a 12 year old boy. Up to that point they were not of interest to me. After that, I read all I could on them.

 

[Old Rocks]

Our Universe is too vast for even the most imaginative sci-fi | Aeon Ideas

The US astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson once said: ‘The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.’ Similarly, the wonders of the Universe are under no obligation to make it easy for science-fiction writers to tell stories about them. The Universe is mostly empty space, and the distances between stars in galaxies, and between galaxies in the Universe, are incomprehensibly vast on human scales. Capturing the true scale of the Universe, while somehow tying it to human endeavours and emotions, is a daunting challenge for any science-fiction writer. Olaf Stapledon took up that challenge in his novel Star Maker (1937), in which the stars and nebulae, and cosmos as a whole, are conscious. While we are humbled by our tiny size relative to the cosmos, our brains can none the less comprehend, to some extent, just how large the Universe we inhabit is. This is hopeful, since, as the astrobiologist Caleb Scharf of Columbia University has said: ‘In a finite world, a cosmic perspective isn’t a luxury, it is a necessity.’

Conveying this to the public is the real challenge faced by astronomers and science-fiction writers alike.

And to think us, this tiny little animal on one small planet is so smart. How many others are there? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands DS? Millions?

Postmodern Science Is Degenerate Wishful Thinking

It could easily be zero. The odds were almost impossible for life to appear on Earth. So we won the Powerball lottery and may be the only ones.

Given the fact that life appeared here on earth almost as soon as it was cool enough for life to exist, I would guess that life is a natural result of the laws of chemistry and physics, and is common in the universe.

 

[Old Rocks]

Our Universe is too vast for even the most imaginative sci-fi | Aeon Ideas

The US astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson once said: ‘The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.’ Similarly, the wonders of the Universe are under no obligation to make it easy for science-fiction writers to tell stories about them. The Universe is mostly empty space, and the distances between stars in galaxies, and between galaxies in the Universe, are incomprehensibly vast on human scales. Capturing the true scale of the Universe, while somehow tying it to human endeavours and emotions, is a daunting challenge for any science-fiction writer. Olaf Stapledon took up that challenge in his novel Star Maker (1937), in which the stars and nebulae, and cosmos as a whole, are conscious. While we are humbled by our tiny size relative to the cosmos, our brains can none the less comprehend, to some extent, just how large the Universe we inhabit is. This is hopeful, since, as the astrobiologist Caleb Scharf of Columbia University has said: ‘In a finite world, a cosmic perspective isn’t a luxury, it is a necessity.’

Conveying this to the public is the real challenge faced by astronomers and science-fiction writers alike.

And to think us, this tiny little animal on one small planet is so smart. How many others are there? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands DS? Millions?

Postmodern Science Is Degenerate Wishful Thinking

It could easily be zero. The odds were almost impossible for life to appear on Earth. So we won the Powerball lottery and may be the only ones.

Statistically unlikely but because we're too stupid to know you side with the belief we are alone?

Nerd Fantasies

If all you have is the pushy self-pleasing NA$A lie that Earth-like planets are likely to have life, I take the other side by default. I only read about the real odds in a book by someone who was trying to push a different quack theory. Life needed 2 to the 200,000th power of events to form but did it on Earth with only 2 to the 200th power.

Really? Sounds to me as if someone were talking out of their asshole. How could they possibly know what the odds were of abiogenisis?

 

[miketx]

Our Universe is too vast for even the most imaginative sci-fi | Aeon Ideas

The US astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson once said: ‘The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.’ Similarly, the wonders of the Universe are under no obligation to make it easy for science-fiction writers to tell stories about them. The Universe is mostly empty space, and the distances between stars in galaxies, and between galaxies in the Universe, are incomprehensibly vast on human scales. Capturing the true scale of the Universe, while somehow tying it to human endeavours and emotions, is a daunting challenge for any science-fiction writer. Olaf Stapledon took up that challenge in his novel Star Maker (1937), in which the stars and nebulae, and cosmos as a whole, are conscious. While we are humbled by our tiny size relative to the cosmos, our brains can none the less comprehend, to some extent, just how large the Universe we inhabit is. This is hopeful, since, as the astrobiologist Caleb Scharf of Columbia University has said: ‘In a finite world, a cosmic perspective isn’t a luxury, it is a necessity.’

Conveying this to the public is the real challenge faced by astronomers and science-fiction writers alike.

I laughed my ass off a while back. There was a report about possible signals indicating an intelligence may be trying to contact us here on Earth. The article claimed the signals were originating outside our galaxy in a galaxy that was like 50,000,000 light years distant. People were commenting on it like it was serious and that they wondered if they were friendly. If it's a signal it's 50 million fucking years old!

 

[sealybobo]

Our Universe is too vast for even the most imaginative sci-fi | Aeon Ideas

The US astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson once said: ‘The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.’ Similarly, the wonders of the Universe are under no obligation to make it easy for science-fiction writers to tell stories about them. The Universe is mostly empty space, and the distances between stars in galaxies, and between galaxies in the Universe, are incomprehensibly vast on human scales. Capturing the true scale of the Universe, while somehow tying it to human endeavours and emotions, is a daunting challenge for any science-fiction writer. Olaf Stapledon took up that challenge in his novel Star Maker (1937), in which the stars and nebulae, and cosmos as a whole, are conscious. While we are humbled by our tiny size relative to the cosmos, our brains can none the less comprehend, to some extent, just how large the Universe we inhabit is. This is hopeful, since, as the astrobiologist Caleb Scharf of Columbia University has said: ‘In a finite world, a cosmic perspective isn’t a luxury, it is a necessity.’

Conveying this to the public is the real challenge faced by astronomers and science-fiction writers alike.

And to think us, this tiny little animal on one small planet is so smart. How many others are there? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands DS? Millions?

Postmodern Science Is Degenerate Wishful Thinking

It could easily be zero. The odds were almost impossible for life to appear on Earth. So we won the Powerball lottery and may be the only ones.

Given the fact that life appeared here on earth almost as soon as it was cool enough for life to exist, I would guess that life is a natural result of the laws of chemistry and physics, and is common in the universe.

Here's another example of how hard all this is to grasp. Let's say we look at a star and see no life around it. Who's to say their wasn't life surrounding them 5 billion years ago? Or that it won't 5 billion years from now? And when they look at our sun will there or was their any life surrounding our star 5 billion years ago? If it was it was on Mars or venus

 

[miketx]

Venus plenty hot.

 

[sealybobo]

Venus plenty hot.

Now it is. But not 3 billion years ago. There may have been life on Venus 3 billion years ago.

Was Venus once habitable? - CNN.com

We know that life began on earth at least 3.5 billion years ago because that is the age of the oldest rocks with fossil evidence of life on earth.

 

[westwall]

Venus plenty hot.

Now it is. But not 3 billion years ago. There may have been life on Venus 3 billion years ago.

Was Venus once habitable? - CNN.com

We know that life began on earth at least 3.5 billion years ago because that is the age of the oldest rocks with fossil evidence of life on earth.

What a farce that group has become. They completely ignored the fact that Venus has an atmosphere many orders of magnitude denser than our own and made up almost entirely of CO2. Where oh where did all of that CO2 come from? It didn't magically appear from cow farts. That's the problem with these idiots and those who read their "studies", they ignore well known scientific principles and inject huge doses of fiction to generate their very tall tales.

 

[Mindful]

 

[IsaacNewton]

The premise of the thread is false. The human imagination has no limits. The OP's mind may, but other minds do not. OP you don't need to project your own limitations out onto other people. The majority of humans have an average imagination, this is why great artists, writers, and film makers are so revered. It isn't common and what they create is awesome to most.

 

[Mindful]

Was Isaac Newton scolding me?

 

[sealybobo]

What I find amazing and hard to grasp is that our dot and the next dot closest to it would take us 80,000 years in the fastest ship we can make at the moment. 81,000 years. This picture makes things look close.

 

[sealybobo]

The premise of the thread is false. The human imagination has no limits. The OP's mind may, but other minds do not. OP you don't need to project your own limitations out onto other people. The majority of humans have an average imagination, this is why great artists, writers, and film makers are so revered. It isn't common and what they create is awesome to most.

How about people who think so small that they don't realize there's probably life around every star. Now some will say we know there's no life around most stars but that's wrong. Even if there isn't life around that star now that doesn't mean there wasn't 5 million years ago or there wont be in 5 million years. It's just our time. One day our planet will die. Some think there was life on Venus or Mars at one time.

Maybe eventually life happens around most stars. Some sooner some later.

The secret is to build a ship or ships made from the iron and steel from the meteor belt and be able to live on it in space regardless of what happens to earth. Can we make a planet size spaceship?

 

[miketx]

What I find amazing and hard to grasp is that our dot and the next dot closest to it would take us 80,000 years in the fastest ship we can make at the moment. 81,000 years. This picture makes things look close.

One of the problems with that scenario is that we can't build any thing that will last more than 10 years without maintenance. Imagine being in a vessel and going somewhere that there was no way to fix anything, get parts, or anything!

 

[Mindful]

I wonder why we were created with such short life spans.

 

[sealybobo]

What I find amazing and hard to grasp is that our dot and the next dot closest to it would take us 80,000 years in the fastest ship we can make at the moment. 81,000 years. This picture makes things look close.

One of the problems with that scenario is that we can't build any thing that will last more than 10 years without maintenance. Imagine being in a vessel and going somewhere that there was no way to fix anything, get parts, or anything!

Make it so big that it can be repaired. Make it in sections so one section can be rebuilt at a time

 

[sealybobo]

I wonder why we were created with such short life spans.

Atrophy. Hey, lucky you aren't a dog. People say they wish they had a dogs life but they forget dogs only get 15 years give or take.

That's life. But knowing other living things live longer than us it makes you wonder if we are some gods chosen creature. Other animals are able to withstand extreme temperatures. Some are faster, see better, hear better, are stronger, smell better. We just happen to be the brightest creature on this planet and we aren't even that smart.

The good news is we are getting smarter and living longer

 

[ScienceRocks]

I wonder why we were created with such short life spans.

Atrophy. Hey, lucky you aren't a dog. People say they wish they had a dogs life but they forget dogs only get 15 years give or take.

That's life. But knowing other living things live longer than us it makes you wonder if we are some gods chosen creature. Other animals are able to withstand extreme temperatures. Some are faster, see better, hear better, are stronger, smell better. We just happen to be the brightest creature on this planet and we aren't even that smart.

The good news is we are getting smarter and living longer

And we're the greatest because we can think, dream and explore. Liberterians and extreme conservatives would make us no better then the apes in the trees of africa.