60 Billion Reasons there is life in our Galaxy

see4

Well-Known Member
That is not my intention. I think there probably is life out there. Probably intelligent life. I don't think you can say it's a "statistical fact" though, because honestly the only evidence for life so far seems to be on earth.
I may have misspoke when using the term statistical fact, maybe I should have used statistical probability. I am also basing my statement on the idea that the scientific community at large believes that life did not originate on Earth, rather it was carried here by an asteroid or as the Earth was formed. And therefore can conclude with some certainty, however small a percentage, that there must be other life out there.
 

guy incognito

Well-Known Member
Your logic is flawed. A light wave is a light wave is a light wave. No matter how large the source. Based on your logic, you say that radiation deteriorates to the point of zero. Meaning, the wave of light, even when unobstructed will eventually vanish. This is simply not true. And a simple example can show that. Scientists can view the radiation from from about 14.3 billion years ago. Then, based on your understanding of inverse law, we should not be able to see that, or any other radiation beyond 70 light years away. ( I realize you are using 70 light years as an example, and this is not the finite number )
I never said it deteriorates to zero, I said it reduces in intensity according to the inverse square law. At some point it will be undetectable.

with 70 light years as the radius, the light sphere has a surface area of 61,575 square light years. with 5.87849981 × 10[SUP]12[/SUP] miles per light year that means the surface area of the sphere is 2.13 * 10[SUP]30 [/SUP]square miles. The intensity of any signal you send will be stretched out over 2.13 * 10[SUP]30 [/SUP]square miles. That is 2,130,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 square miles. That is why there are entire galaxies of 200 billion stars that cannot be seen with the naked eye on earth.
 

guy incognito

Well-Known Member
I may have misspoke when using the term statistical fact, maybe I should have used statistical probability. I am also basing my statement on the idea that the scientific community at large believes that life did not originate on Earth, rather it was carried here by an asteroid or as the Earth was formed. And therefore can conclude with some certainty, however small a percentage, that there must be other life out there.
I wasn't aware that the scientific community believes in panspermia. It's an interesting theory, but I haven't seen any real evidence.
 

see4

Well-Known Member
I never said it deteriorates to zero, I said it reduces in intensity according to the inverse square law. At some point it will be undetectable.

with 70 light years as the radius, the light sphere has a surface area of 61,575 square light years. with 5.87849981 × 10[SUP]12[/SUP] miles per light year that means the surface area of the sphere is 2.13 * 10[SUP]30 [/SUP]square miles. The intensity of any signal you send will be stretched out over 2.13 * 10[SUP]30 [/SUP]square miles. That is 2,130,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 square miles. That is why there are entire galaxies of 200 billion stars that cannot be seen with the naked eye on earth.
To be clear, I am arguing radio waves, electromagnetic radiation, not sound waves. I am stating that electromagnetic radiation travels until it is either scattered or absorbed. Therefore, if a radio wave travels through space without being absorbed or scattered, it will travel indefinitely.

Your naked eye contention is just false. Stand in a desert, a flat desert, and look to the horizon. The naked eye only sees the reflected light that has not been obstructed, and therefore, usually can only see about 2 to 20 miles out. That, however, does not mean the light information has deteriorated in the distance to be unrecognizable, that just means the reflected light has been obstructed, scattered or absorbed.

An unobstructed radio wave, will travel indefinitely in space.

Just curious. If what you are saying is true, and supported by the scientific community, why are cosmologists hopeful on the idea that if there is intelligent life out there, they hope the life will pick up our signals and be able to interpret our message and send something back? Based on what you are saying, all scientists who think this are wrong. And I find that hard to believe.
 

see4

Well-Known Member
I wasn't aware that the scientific community believes in panspermia. It's an interesting theory, but I haven't seen any real evidence.
Yes. The scientific community, amongst cosmologists, support the theory that life did not necessarily begin on Earth, rather that microbial life was brought here.
 

guy incognito

Well-Known Member
To be clear, I am arguing radio waves, electromagnetic radiation, not sound waves. I am stating that electromagnetic radiation travels until it is either scattered or absorbed. Therefore, if a radio wave travels through space without being absorbed or scattered, it will travel indefinitely.

Your naked eye contention is just false. Stand in a desert, a flat desert, and look to the horizon. The naked eye only sees the reflected light that has not been obstructed, and therefore, usually can only see about 2 to 20 miles out. That, however, does not mean the light information has deteriorated in the distance to be unrecognizable, that just means the reflected light has been obstructed, scattered or absorbed.

An unobstructed radio wave, will travel indefinitely in space.

Just curious. If what you are saying is true, and supported by the scientific community, why are cosmologists hopeful on the idea that if there is intelligent life out there, they hope the life will pick up our signals and be able to interpret our message and send something back? Based on what you are saying, all scientists who think this are wrong. And I find that hard to believe.
You are scattering the signal though. The signal will propagate at the speed of light in a sphere radiating away from the source. The intensity of the signal (or light) will be directly proportional to the area of the sphere. At 70 light years that signal is spread out over 2.13 * 10[SUP]30 [/SUP]square miles. The signal must be dispersed over that area because you should be able to receive the signal from 70 light years away in all directions.

We aren't talking about 2 or 20 miles. We are talking unfathomable distances. Your brain can't comprehend the numbers we are talking about. You have to rely on the math.
 

guy incognito

Well-Known Member
Do you argue that electromagnetic radiation does not bend to gravity?
Gravity warps space which can then bend EM. The specific example I was talking about was your grow light. The gravity gradient is totally negligible when discussing the inverse square law as it relates to grow lights.
 

guy incognito

Well-Known Member
Yes. The scientific community, amongst cosmologists, support the theory that life did not necessarily begin on Earth, rather that microbial life was brought here.
How do you support a theory that something didn't necessarily happen? I was under the impression the current consensus was "we don't know". It may have started on earth. It may have started elsewhere and been brought to earth. So far I haven't seen any definitive evidence.
 

Beefbisquit

Well-Known Member
To be clear, I am arguing radio waves, electromagnetic radiation, not sound waves. I am stating that electromagnetic radiation travels until it is either scattered or absorbed. Therefore, if a radio wave travels through space without being absorbed or scattered, it will travel indefinitely.

Your naked eye contention is just false. Stand in a desert, a flat desert, and look to the horizon. The naked eye only sees the reflected light that has not been obstructed, and therefore, usually can only see about 2 to 20 miles out. That, however, does not mean the light information has deteriorated in the distance to be unrecognizable, that just means the reflected light has been obstructed, scattered or absorbed.

An unobstructed radio wave, will travel indefinitely in space.

Just curious. If what you are saying is true, and supported by the scientific community, why are cosmologists hopeful on the idea that if there is intelligent life out there, they hope the life will pick up our signals and be able to interpret our message and send something back? Based on what you are saying, all scientists who think this are wrong. And I find that hard to believe.
Dude, the further you get from the sun the darker it gets because the light the that it emits is less dense per sq meter than when you're close. The photons are getting less 'strong' there's just less of them the further you get a way from the source. The photons would be subjected to radiation and a plethora of other interferences as well. Who knows what's out there.

The light of our sun, if it had a clear path to another inhabited planet, might make it there - but the light isn't concentrated enough make day night, or anything of the sort because of the inverse square law.

Pretend you're shooting a shotgun that the pellets in the birdshot have the ability to travel forever. If you shoot it at a target 10 feet away, 80% of those pellets might hit the target. But how many percent are going to hit it from 1000ft away? Or 1,000,000,000,000 feet away? Even if the pellets can travel forever, they will also spread out infinitely, forever.

If radiation/light didn't get less dense per sq meter the further you got away from it, we'd all probably die from the radioactive materials naturally present in the earth.
 

oldtimer54

Well-Known Member
Ok....I'm gonna simplfy this .........go outside and look up in the sky......you are looking into something that goes forever infinity. Wrap your head around that. I cant even pathom a guess of what might be out there........maybe we were never meant to know whats out there but one thing is for sure it causes a bunch of pot smoking free thinking people to contemplate their existence and to think outside the box and that is never a bad thing..........do I think we are alone hell no can I prove it nope....but thats what makes us who we are.......and only time will tell and apparently there is an abundance of that...............
 

see4

Well-Known Member
Dude, the further you get from the sun the darker it gets because the light the that it emits is less dense per sq meter than when you're close. The photons are getting less 'strong' there's just less of them the further you get a way from the source. The photons would be subjected to radiation and a plethora of other interferences as well. Who knows what's out there.

The light of our sun, if it had a clear path to another inhabited planet, might make it there - but the light isn't concentrated enough make day night, or anything of the sort because of the inverse square law.

Pretend you're shooting a shotgun that the pellets in the birdshot have the ability to travel forever. If you shoot it at a target 10 feet away, 80% of those pellets might hit the target. But how many percent are going to hit it from 1000ft away? Or 1,000,000,000,000 feet away? Even if the pellets can travel forever, they will also spread out infinitely, forever.

If radiation/light didn't get less dense per sq meter the further you got away from it, we'd all probably die from the radioactive materials naturally present in the earth.
Gravity....
 

see4

Well-Known Member
Dr. Maggie Aderin states, "Detecting a signal like this with lots of background noise would be incredibly hard, but what they would look for is a pattern in the signals to show that they were not naturally occurring."

This is what I have been saying. I'm too lazy to go look this shit up and site resources. I leave that up to you.
 

see4

Well-Known Member
The following quotes come from SETI researchers.

"Some of our radars are easily detectable quite far, hundreds of light-years, into space, if the aliens wish to try, and if they're in the beam," says Seth Shostak, an astronomer at Seti.
"Of course, no one more than about 50-70 light years away will have yet heard from us, but I figure that our earliest broadcasts are washing over about one new star system each day. So the potential audience is growing."
 

Balzac89

Undercover Mod
Even if there is life. What is it bacteria on a distant planet. Or a species that is 100's of millions of years more advanced than us.

Why would they want anything to do with us. We as a species have a very uncertain future. If we have one at all.

Dinosaurs were here far longer than we have been and they never advanced. So who's to say we aren't the only "intelligent" species.

It was by a slim chance that our species came to exist.
 

guy incognito

Well-Known Member
The following quotes come from SETI researchers.

"Some of our radars are easily detectable quite far, hundreds of light-years, into space, if the aliens wish to try, and if they're in the beam," says Seth Shostak, an astronomer at Seti.
"Of course, no one more than about 50-70 light years away will have yet heard from us, but I figure that our earliest broadcasts are washing over about one new star system each day. So the potential audience is growing."
SETI has never discovered a single signal. And depending on how concentrated you make the beam, this is true. You can focus it like a laser so that at the 70 light year mark it has only dispersed to the area of 1 square mile, and the signal would be very very strong. However that would only be covering 1 square mile out of the 2.13 * 10[SUP]30 [/SUP]possible square miles of the surface area of the 70 light year sphere, so the odds of anyone hearing your signal is approaching 0 regardless of how strong it is. The more area you let your signal cover, the less intense it will become. Even at a half sphere I have a hard time believing we could send out a powerful enough signal to be detected hundreds of light years away.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
Yes. The scientific community, amongst cosmologists, support the theory that life did not necessarily begin on Earth, rather that microbial life was brought here.
A very few cosmologists propose this as a hypothesis. For it to be theory there would have to be something observable/testable. This borders on metaphysics imo.

ceterum censeo we should not try to attract extrasolar attention. We should put on a convincing Potemkin-village radio play of total catastrophe ... and then armor and stealth our civilizations. "Nothing to see here." It is more likely to me that anyone out there would be unaligned with our interests. cn
 

Beefbisquit

Well-Known Member


Maybe this will help.....

If the radio broadcast starts at the centre point, it's easy to see from this illustration, how the radio waves get less dense the further they get away from the point of origin.

All of the particles that hit the specified area of the first sphere (1 unit), would hit 4 units at twice the distance. Every time you double the distance, the density of the radio waves gets less, and less.

How far away from a radio tower do you have to be before you start getting too far away to receive a signal? Now imagne being 70 light years away and trying to turn into your local radio station. Even if there was absolutely no interference of any kind, the amount of square 'units' it would require to capture all of the original radio waves that passed through the single 'unit' would be so insanely large it would cover vast areas of the galaxy.
All of the radio waves emitted from earth spread out the further away they get.

Likewise, the individual ions from light don't get 'weaker', but it's the density of them that makes 'brightness' measurable.
 
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