So you are saying there are unknown forces outside the Standard Model? you should be up for a Nobel.
WE LIVE ON A PLANET: YES, this is pool related
- Thread starter SpiderWebComm
- Start date
So you are saying there are unknown forces outside the Standard Model? you should be up for a Nobel.
A post on AZ leads to a Nobel prize. Maybe that will revive pool.
I would venture a guess that there are millions, if not billions, of life forms in the known Universe, but we will never meet any of them! The vastness of the Universe is beyond our comprehension, and any other life forms, no matter how advanced, will still be too primitive to negotiate the vastness of it all.
There ain't no shortcuts to get around from galaxy to galaxy, no matter what someone tells you. An anti-gravity vehicle might get you from Earth to Mars a lot faster (maybe in weeks instead of months), but getting to a nearby galaxy would still take years, many years!
P.S. Check out the movie "Passengers." It's fascinating and very well done.
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They seem to be standing behind a model of the Earth.
I suppose the chairs represent the ice walls at the edges.
I think guessing at the possibility of other life forms in the universe is very analogous to guessing about the existence of God. There is no actual "proof" for either thusfar available to us, but many compelling reasons to believe in either. The reasons mostly seem to revolve around the principle of extrapolation, an activity that human minds seem well suited for.
As such, there is another analogy here. Some argue against the existence of God because they wouldn't have done things the same way..."therefore" God couldn't have done them. It is an astonishingly arrogant and ignorant argument. If there is a God, then we are likely incapable of contemplating the infinitude of all creation and how it hangs together. Similarly, we know what little we know, but really have no clue what possibilities lie behind the veil of our current state of knowledge. Big technological advancements can seem impossible and magical to those who never saw anything like them before. What the limits of space/time travel are are very very unknown to us. I'm sure if you asked someone 1000 years ago what the fastest people will ever be able to go, they would have had no ability to even conceive of a rocket propelling something like the space shuttle to 16k plus mph. Likewise it may be entirely possible that we will one day be able to traverse inter galactic distances the same as the ocean today. Who knows.
That all said, I love new things to watch and will check out that movie. It sounds a bit familiar, so I may have already saw it and just don't recognize it by name. Thanks for the recommendation though!
Edit: I watched the movie. I liked it! Definitely some interesting ideas. Thanks for the recommendation!
KMRUNOUT
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I think I posted this once before but I love it as a way to wrap your head around how big just our own galaxy is:
Imagine the sun is the size of a pollen spore. The nearest star (speck of pollen) is a mile away. The Milky Way galaxy would be twice the size of the Pacific Ocean. Oh, and don't forget there are hundreds of billions of galaxies out there, most of them millions of light years away from each other.
I recall Isaac Asimov reducing the universe to an atomic scale....
...he said that it would still be a good example of a vacuum.
Even if we could transform ourselves to something as insubstantial as light, it would still
millions of years to reach some of the stars.
...and if we could clean up our act on this planet we might not feel the need to leave.
We often hear that the nearest star to our Sun (Alpha Proxima) is "only" 4.25 light years away. Our fastest spacecraft to date would take more than 18 thousand years to reach there - to reach there today it would have needed to leave Earth in the year 16,500 BC, about when humans began populating North America.
If the Milky Way was reduced to the size of the USA (3,000 mi across), then our Solar System would fit in your hand (about 7.5" across).
The size of the universe (if such a thing even makes sense) is literally unimaginable for our pea brains.
pj
chgo
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Unless you're M. Eberle then its "plane-ly" visible.
And on the other end of the scale, if you blew up an atom to the size of the Earth, the nucleus would be the size of an orange and the electrons would be rotating on the outer edges of the planet. The exact description is given in the movie Mindwalk, that I also highly recommend to those who want to learn the make up of all matter and get an entertaining Physics lesson. It's a very thought provoking film.
The vastness of space is mirrored in the vastness of our smallest structures, the atoms. In a human body there are also many billions of atoms. We are their Universe!
I've always been fascinated by the similarities between the atomic scale and the universe scale. I wonder if there are more "mirror" scales even smaller or larger...? Maybe an infinite number - a fractal universe?
pj <- mirrors all the way down
chgo
You poor little muggles are tools of the Select Ones. The "universe" is only 10,000 miles across and 4000 miles high. Just ask Max. A decent amateur rocket can get to the "stars" in an hour but you don't even try because you think it is impossible.
Bob <-- former Select One, but mostly deprogrammed now
lolUnless you're M. Eberle then its "plane-ly" visible.
Poor Max gets lots of flack for his cosmological "theories". I've met him, and think he's a great guy - but he's not a real strong reasoner.
pj
chgo
If the info hasn't been wiped from your memory, can you tell us why the Select Ones don't travel to the "stars"?
pj <- probly don't want us muggles tagging along all the time
chgo
It's not the tagging along part. It's just that keeping the muggles from figuring things out keeps them busy. If that gets to be any worse, it will be a bad time to be a muggle.
Bob <-- hoping he doesn't have to pick a side
I've always been fascinated by the similarities between the atomic scale and the universe scale. I wonder if there are more "mirror" scales even smaller or larger...? Maybe an infinite number - a fractal universe?
pj <- mirrors all the way down
chgo
There you go! Circles inside of circles inside of circles and on and on!
If you do need to choose, remember that "where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."It's not the tagging along part. It's just that keeping the muggles from figuring things out keeps them busy. If that gets to be any worse, it will be a bad time to be a muggle.
Bob <-- hoping he doesn't have to pick a side
pj <- blissed out
chgo