Is there life elsewhere in the Universe??

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#996087 28-Feb-2014 09:40

Buzz Bumble:
They are already planning and training for a manned mission to Mars, but it may or may not actually ever happen.

Project Orion was a plan for an interstellar space ship formulated in the 60's ... with nuclear bombs as fuel.

There is a long way from plan to actual working thing. But like I said I wouldn't count a motivated human race out of anything.

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#996090 28-Feb-2014 09:41

Klipspringer:
joker97:

No new matter can be formed

You wrong there. Matter is formed all the time. If this was not the case the universe would not be expanding.

Couldn't it just be the space between matter that is expanding?

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#996092 28-Feb-2014 09:42

Buzz Bumble:
Geektastic: On a rested note: if the universe is expanding, into what is it expanding? i.e. if you imagine the universe to be a balloon slowly inflating inside a box, what is the box?

Why is the balloon in a box?? If you inflate the ballooon outside in the garden, then there is no box or boundary - only iwhat is nside the balloon and what is outside the balloon, the only of difference is the material of the ballon itself.

It has to be.

Here is a question. Did darkness (nothing) always exist? And then the universe occupied its space? Or is darkness something that was created?

For the ones that believe in a higher power, a God, did God create darkness? Nowhere is that mentioned anywhere. It therefore maybe was always there?

What is darkness? What is nothing? Maybe thats the box? Is nothing something we can't see? Is dark matter and dark energy nothing?

Try explain this darkness to a blind man thats never seen before. I think thats where it can get really interesting.

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#996110 28-Feb-2014 09:47

bazzer:
Klipspringer:
joker97:

No new matter can be formed

You wrong there. Matter is formed all the time. If this was not the case the universe would not be expanding.

Couldn't it just be the space between matter that is expanding?

That's what we see.

But matter is made of particles (which are 99.9% empty space by the way) which are held together by the strong nuclear force suspended in the weak nuclear field. It is possible that these field in which particles exist particles would be prone to expansion. Hence you get ever so miniscluly slightly larger over millions of years. If you lives that long.

I guess matter could be created but the total energy should remain the same... unless there is something theoretical physicists haven't account for ... which is plausible

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#996117 28-Feb-2014 09:52

Klipspringer:
joker97:

No new matter can be formed

You wrong there. Matter is formed all the time. If this was not the case the universe would not be expanding.

There's no "new" matter. All matter is here since the beginning of times when it was heavily dense before it started expanding.

New matter creation would contradict the Conservation Laws.

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#996119 28-Feb-2014 09:54

Klipspringer:
Geektastic: On a rested note: if the universe is expanding, into what is it expanding? i.e. if you imagine the universe to be a balloon slowly inflating inside a box, what is the box?

And considering that dark energy and dark matter form about 95% of the total universe, is invisible, has mass, does not emmit or absorb light, but has energy. And yet its energy affects our universe and plays a big part in its structure. Dark matter and dark energy has a gravitational effect on planets, particles, stars, and who knows what else here on earth. It holds the universe together. Yet we can't see it, but we know its there..I think its fair to say that the universe as we know and see it is not the universe we think it is. We only see and know 5% of what it really is.

The aliens may be sitting right next to us.

It get worse.
The zero energy hypothesis (for which the maths based on observation correlates - well I can't do the maths or observation myself easily - so I have to have some faith that the modern wizards have got such things more-or-less correct) suggests that the sum total of everything in the universe (all the mass - minus all the gravitational potential energy of that mass separated by distance) totals nothing. So the universe didn't need to come from anything (except perhaps an anomaly in "something" or "nothing" as the case may be). In the case of the universe collapsing under the force of it's own gravity, despite putting on a hell of a show while it was happening, the smaller it became, the less of everything there would be, until in the end - there would be nothing left - not a black hole, no time, no physical dimensions, nada, zip, not even a grin.

Anyway - back to LGM. Extrapolation based on observation (of numbers of stars, galaxies, exoplanets observed in our "neighbourhood") suggests 11 billion stars in the Milky Way could/should have "goldilocks zone" planets, multiplied by 100 billion (estimated number of other galaxies) and it's a hell of a big number. Allow for a mistake, and allow for the suggestions by the OP that certain "other" factors are necessary for abiogenisis, and even if the estimates are out by several orders of magnitude, it's still a very big number, and IMO inconceivable that life hasn't formed and evolved elsewhere.

I dispute the OP's pessimism - as he's made the mistake to assume that because life probably began in a certain way here, then it could only begin elsewhere in near identical conditions. IMO that's a corruption of the strong anthropic principle - which even taken to the extreme (god-bothering excluded) doesn't preclude limitless numbers of other observers spread across the universe coming to the same conclusion - that because of the "butterfly effect" on a grand scale, the universe must have formed and evolved in exactly the way it did, as if there had been even the tiniest bit of difference, then we wouldn't be here to observe it (and then to the extremely egocentric view that the universe did form in exactly the way it did - just so that we could be here).

Of course it would be great if evidence of (past) life could be found on Mars. But that still probably wouldn't be strong evidence to support the hypothesis that life should have formed elsewhere in the universe, as it would also be strong evidence for the panspermia hypothesis - and that although abiogenisis may have happened on Mars - Earth just got infected.

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#996123 28-Feb-2014 09:58

joker97:
bazzer:
Klipspringer:
joker97:

No new matter can be formed

You wrong there. Matter is formed all the time. If this was not the case the universe would not be expanding.

Couldn't it just be the space between matter that is expanding?

That's what we see.

But matter is made of particles (which are 99.9% empty space by the way) which are held together by the strong nuclear force suspended in the weak nuclear field. It is possible that these field in which particles exist particles would be prone to expansion. Hence you get ever so miniscluly slightly larger over millions of years. If you lives that long.

I guess matter could be created but the total energy should remain the same... unless there is something theoretical physicists haven't account for ... which is plausible

Well using the famous formula, E=mc2, Therefore M=E/C2. Or is Einstein wrong?

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#996124 28-Feb-2014 09:58

freitasm: There's no "new" matter. All matter is here since the beginning of times when it was heavily dense before it started expanding.

New matter creation would contradict the Conservation Laws.

I don't know if you should talk quite so confidently about it. There's always the chance that we just don't understand things 100% yet and this simplification just allows us to explain our current understanding.

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#996125 28-Feb-2014 09:59

freitasm:
Klipspringer:
joker97:

No new matter can be formed

You wrong there. Matter is formed all the time. If this was not the case the universe would not be expanding.

There's no "new" matter. All matter is here since the beginning of times when it was heavily dense before it started expanding.

New matter creation would contradict the Conservation Laws.

What about Einsteins law? hmmm now it gets interesting. Surely you can get mass from energy? Or does it only work the one way round?

bazzer

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#996129 28-Feb-2014 10:02

Klipspringer: Well using the famous formula, E=mc2, Therefore M=E/C2. Or is Einstein wrong?

Or c = (e/m)^0.5

What's your point?

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#996130 28-Feb-2014 10:03

Klipspringer:
freitasm:
Klipspringer:
joker97:

No new matter can be formed

You wrong there. Matter is formed all the time. If this was not the case the universe would not be expanding.

There's no "new" matter. All matter is here since the beginning of times when it was heavily dense before it started expanding.

New matter creation would contradict the Conservation Laws.

What about Einsteins law? hmmm now it gets interesting. Surely you can get mass from energy? Or does it only work the one way round? If so, Einstein was wrong.

They are equivalent (as per the formula you posted above), which means they are balanced - one unit moved from one side to the other of the equation. There's no new "units".

Klipspringer

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#996133 28-Feb-2014 10:04

bazzer:
Klipspringer: Well using the famous formula, E=mc2, Therefore M=E/C2. Or is Einstein wrong?

Or c = (e/m)^0.5

What's your point?

Mass from energy?

bazzer

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#996134 28-Feb-2014 10:06

Klipspringer:
freitasm:
Klipspringer:
joker97:

No new matter can be formed

You wrong there. Matter is formed all the time. If this was not the case the universe would not be expanding.

There's no "new" matter. All matter is here since the beginning of times when it was heavily dense before it started expanding.

New matter creation would contradict the Conservation Laws.

What about Einsteins law? hmmm now it gets interesting. Surely you can get mass from energy? Or does it only work the one way round? If so, Einstein was wrong.

Energy isn't stuff per se, it is the thing that all stuff has.

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#996138 28-Feb-2014 10:08

"I dispute the OP's pessimism - as he's made the mistake to assume that because life probably began in a certain way here, then it could only begin elsewhere in near identical conditions. "

I dont think I said or implied that. Creation of life simplistically, is water, electricity, that creates aminos, the building blocks of life. I expect that anywhere, elsewhere in the universe, where the elements are the same, that carbon based life can be created as it was here. Our earth has a wide range of conditions, so a planet that was much cooler, or much hotter, or toxic, can hold life, we have that here. I believe that to create carbon based life, you do need the same raw conditions, they dont have to be identical to ours. What alien life may look like will depend on the planets features. If it was harsh, these may never get past primitive organisms, if it was less harsh, I cannot see why evolution cannot progress.

Klipspringer

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#996143 28-Feb-2014 10:09

bazzer:
Klipspringer:
freitasm:
Klipspringer:
joker97:

No new matter can be formed

You wrong there. Matter is formed all the time. If this was not the case the universe would not be expanding.

There's no "new" matter. All matter is here since the beginning of times when it was heavily dense before it started expanding.

New matter creation would contradict the Conservation Laws.

What about Einsteins law? hmmm now it gets interesting. Surely you can get mass from energy? Or does it only work the one way round? If so, Einstein was wrong.

Energy isn't stuff per se, it is the thing that all stuff has.

I agree. But it sure is questionable. What came first, matter or energy? Surely energy initiated the big bang?

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