Going to see Professor Brian Cox tonight...

[MolaKule]

Well I think you need to do a little more math. There's about 100-400 billion stars per galaxy. And there's an estimated 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. Due to cosmic inflation, it's possible that the unobservable universe is actually 250-1000 times bigger than the observable universe, measurements are still ongoing. So maybe there's other intelligent life out there, but maybe the speed limit really is the speed of light and those life forms just can't get here. A few other things to keep in mind that I wish the Drake equation had a few other factors like how most stars in the galaxy are red dwarfs and they tend to flare and the radiation wipes out all life. Then how long life has before a meteor wipes out all life or other cosmic disasters...

I think some of you may be referring to the Drake Equation. Here is some background information on Drake from my notes.

The forerunner of SETI was started in 1960 with astronomer Frank Drake who organized Project Ozama, the first organized search for extraterrestrial life, based on the notion that since there are so many solar systems in the Galaxys, the universe must be teeming with life. He also developed a Binary code system to help him decode alien messages. (This begs the question, how did he know aliens communicated using a Binary system)?? He also developed a formula for predicting the number of technological civilizations in the universe: N = R*fp*n*fl*fi**fc*L, where R is the rate of formation of stars, fp is the number of stars with planets, n is the number of earthy-type planets, fl is the fraction of planets where life develops, fi is the fraction where intelligence develops, L is the lifetime of ‘communicating civilizations. Again this begs another question, how can we know what any of these factors are? Answer, we don’t. And SETI has found nothing!

 

[Wolf359]

I think some of you may be referring to the Drake Equation. Here is some background information on Drake from my notes.

The forerunner of SETI was started in 1960 with astronomer Frank Drake who organized Project Ozama, the first organized search for extraterrestrial life, based on the notion that since there are so many solar systems in the Galaxys, the universe must be teeming with life. He also developed a Binary code system to help him decode alien messages. (This begs the question, how did he know aliens communicated using a Binary system)?? He also developed a formula for predicting the number of technological civilizations in the universe: N = R*fp*n*fl*fi**fc*L, where R is the rate of formation of stars, fp is the number of stars with planets, n is the number of earthy-type planets, fl is the fraction of planets where life develops, fi is the fraction where intelligence develops, L is the lifetime of ‘communicating civilizations. Again this begs another question, how can we know what any of these factors are? Answer, we don’t. And SETI has found nothing!

Right, Drake came up with it in the 60s and now since then we know a few new things. Like we've found about 5k exoplanets but none exactly like earth although there are a few in the habitable zone. Maybe you need a specific type of planet with a moon so you have tides, And only about 7-8% of the stars in the Milky way are main sequence G stars. And we're in the outer rim, if you get closer to the center, there's too much radiation. And if you need neutron star collisions sometime in the past, that might not be that common either. Ligo has found many black hole/black hole collisions, but only a few neutron star collisions, the main one was in 2017. I think there was another one not too long afterwards but it doesn't really mention what happened afterwards. A black hole and neutron star collision just ends up with another black hole. But a neutron star and neutron star collision that doesn't result in a black hole will throw off lots of the heavy metals that are present in us and the earth. Someone did state that there's 17 known binary neutron star pairs in the galaxy. Of course there could be have been a lot more in the past and our sun passed through one at one point which led to the current formation of planets. We'll have to wait for the James Webb telescope to find out more about various exoplanets.

And yes, in addition to SETI finding nothing, there's also Dyson's spheres/swarms. Haven't found any of those either in the universe, but I think the way you find them is either notice a star is dimming or that the output of a star you see is way lower than it should be, but nothing like that yet anywhere. At 13.8 billion years, while it's a long time, I think you only have a few billion years where civilization could have started as you may need to wait for later 3rd generation stars and material from neutron stars to have life. And you may have life like dinosaurs, but in a few hundred million years, they didn't develop intelligence.

 

[Wolf359]

Lots of "maybes" ... ask these guys --->

I highly doubt the pinnacle of technology in the Universe belongs to humans on Earth.

Yeah, it's all maybes until you have actual proof. You seem to like believing in aliens, but there's no proof of them only assumptions and maybe going the other way.

As there's no proof to the contrary of us not being the pinnacle, kinda hard to definitively say we are not.

The aliens probably won't have some magic anti gravity machine. Get a bunch of mass together and you have gravity. There's no antigravity and no negative gravity in any equation. Gravity is so slight that in certain equations like the standard model, it doesn't even come into play. Antimatter came about because Paul Dirac realized in his equations that a negative number would also work and they weren't discovered until years later. Gravitational waves were theorized by Einstein over a hundred years ago before Ligo became functional. No theory for antigravity currently exists although sometimes you get the theory after experimental results. So far no experiments showing anything for anti gravity. But maybe when we get the grand unified theory it will all make sense. But we've been working on that since Einstein was alive and it might be a while longer yet. My guess is that we will have working Fusion before we have a grand unified theory if ever.

 

[stormgol]

G type stars might not even be the optimal star type for life developpment in the galaxy or universe anyways. K type stars are longer lived, more stable and more abundant than G type stars. still, there is more data needed to understand them more.

K-type main-sequence star - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Warstud]

They will most likely find us (might already have) before we find them. Mankind isn't very far from the point the monkeys touched the black monolith.

Nothing wrong with believing in Aliens. I think they have been here for along time monitoring us for some reason. I don't think alien abductions and UFO sightings are some made up story to make money.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Yeah, it's all maybes until you have actual proof. You seem to like believing in aliens, but there's no proof of them only assumptions and maybe going the other way.

As there's no proof to the contrary of us not being the pinnacle, kinda hard to definitively say we are not.

The aliens probably won't have some magic anti gravity machine. Get a bunch of mass together and you have gravity. There's no antigravity and no negative gravity in any equation. Gravity is so slight that in certain equations like the standard model, it doesn't even come into play. Antimatter came about because Paul Dirac realized in his equations that a negative number would also work and they weren't discovered until years later. Gravitational waves were theorized by Einstein over a hundred years ago before Ligo became functional. No theory for antigravity currently exists although sometimes you get the theory after experimental results. So far no experiments showing anything for anti gravity. But maybe when we get the grand unified theory it will all make sense. But we've been working on that since Einstein was alive and it might be a while longer yet. My guess is that we will have working Fusion before we have a grand unified theory if ever.

There have been plenty of unexplained UFO sightings and incidents, and if UFOs are real then what they physically do in flight would have to lead one to think that there must be some kind of technology used that is unknown to man, who only just 120 years ago learned how to make a machine fly in the atmosphere for a few hundred feet. Modern man was around 250,000+ years ago when he started making tools, etc (after the monkeys touched the monolith, lol), so his discovery and use of real technology is a very minuscule slice of that 250K time period (0.05%)

Even though Einstein was as super genius it doesn't mean nobody else will ever discover things that nobody else ever has.

 

[Wolf359]

Nothing wrong with believing in Aliens. I think they have been here for along time monitoring us for some reason. I don't think alien abductions and UFO sightings are some made up story to make money.

You realize that 5% of the population has some kind of mental illness right? And that's just an estimate, some go as high as 46% during a lifetime. Just because it's not about making money doesn't mean it's true. Some people believed in blue mice and pink elephants too, but that was from being drunk.

Still no actual hard evidence. I am basically withholding judgement until I see some real evidence. Otherwise you just have unexplained phenomenon that calls for more investigation not jumping to conclusions (aliens). I use Occam's razor liberally and I like to keep it sharp.

5 Surprising Mental Health Statistics - Mental Health First Aid

Mental health and substance use challenges can take many forms. There’s depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, addiction and the list goes on. Some of these challenges are more visible and you might recognize them immediately. Others can be harder to see when you’re not looking for them. But, they...

www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org

 

[ZeeOSix]

I use Occam's razor liberally and I like to keep it sharp.

Sometimes Occam's razor will cut you bad.

 

[Wolf359]

Sometimes Occam's razor will cut you bad.

It's just a basic principle to follow. People that jump to aliens for everything are the ones really making the leap.

 

[ZeeOSix]

It's just a basic principle to follow. People that jump to aliens for everything are the ones really making the leap.

Obviously the majority of UFO sightings are explainable, but many are not. And there have been many sighting incidents that were seen by many people at the same time - by what I would consider "sane" people, like at military bases, airline pilots, police, etc. Did it so happen that a dozen or more mentally ill people just happened to all bump into each other at the same time and witness the same thing? Hummm ... what are those odds? And how do you explain some of the abduction incidents over the years and what's relieved under hypnosis regression? All those people are mentally ill and fabricating the same basic thing in their minds? Always blaming "mental illness" for unexplained things is making a pretty big leap too.

 

[Warstud]

Still no actual hard evidence. I am basically withholding judgement until I see some real evidence.

People are going to believe what they want to believe and there's no convincing them otherwise..... no matter the evidence. Just Google famous people that have seen UFO's. Did they have a Mental Illness ?

 

[MolaKule]

"...And how do you explain some of the abduction incidents over the years and what's relieved under hypnosis regression?"

Here is my explanation:

There have been many cases of alleged abduction by aliens, ‘out-of-body-experiences’ and probing, or the Classic Abduction Syndrome. Many people really believe they have experienced one of more of the three activities. Many alleged abductees have been placed under Hypnosis and two things stands out: 1) Missing “Time Lines” is an aspect to the strongest clue that these experiences have been induced hypnotically, and 2) ‘triggers’ and ‘anchors’ where the person, under hypnosis was given a suggestion and then was sent back to a false memory to recount that false memory.

30 Anchoring - Cognitive Behavior

cognitivebehaviormanagement.com

Much UAP phenomena have been satisfactorily explained using the sciences of physics (plasmas such as ball lightning), atmospheric chemistry and meteorology (clouds and ice crystal formation), and astrophysics (meteors, auroras, space debris, and planetary alignments). But many of the UAP phenomena have yet to be explained. The problem with determining the source of much of this phenomena is the lack of quality and reputation of eyewitness accounts, sensors not designed for detecting UAPs, hysteria, unfounded presuppositions, baseless inferences, and a desire for fame and wealth.

 

[Wolf359]

Obviously the majority of UFO sightings are explainable, but many are not. And there have been many sighting incidents that were seen by many people at the same time - by what I would consider "sane" people, like at military bases, airline pilots, police, etc. Did it so happen that a dozen or more mentally ill people just happened to all bump into each other at the same time and witness the same thing? Hummm ... what are those odds? And how do you explain some of the abduction incidents over the years and what's relieved under hypnosis regression? All those people are mentally ill and fabricating the same basic thing in their minds? Always blaming "mental illness" for unexplained things is making a pretty big leap too.

Here's the main problem. You want an explanation or some reason or meaning. Sometime there isn't one. It can remain under investigation for a long time. Sometimes there just isn't enough evidence for any kind of solid conclusion. So I'm fine with the status of unknown.

So what's the answer? Don't know. What's so hard about that?

Some possible reasonable explanations might be mental illness and other causes but not the only one. Ever watch a magic show? Ever wonder how they do it? Do you know? If not, does that mean it's real magic or aliens? Probably not.

Basically I'm not required to explain it, people who claim to have the answer need to back it up with proof. Never claimed I had the answer, just skeptical overall.

 

[Wolf359]

People are going to believe what they want to believe and there's no convincing them otherwise..... no matter the evidence. Just Google famous people that have seen UFO's. Did they have a Mental Illness ?

Who knows what the real answer is. Like I said, it's unknown. That's the whole point of the U in UFO, still unidentified. Who knows that the details of famous people have seen and done. Not dismissing them and not saying they're all saints, but many of them drink and do drugs, doesn't mean they have mental illness but you can have hallucinations from many causes.

Hallucinations

WebMD explains different types of hallucinations, possible causes of hallucinating, and various treatments to manage or stop hallucinations.

www.webmd.com

 

[ZeeOSix]

Here's the main problem. You want an explanation or some reason or meaning. Sometime there isn't one. It can remain under investigation for a long time. Sometimes there just isn't enough evidence for any kind of solid conclusion. So I'm fine with the status of unknown.

So what's the answer? Don't know. What's so hard about that?

Some possible reasonable explanations might be mental illness and other causes but not the only one. Ever watch a magic show? Ever wonder how they do it? Do you know? If not, does that mean it's real magic or aliens? Probably not.

Basically I'm not required to explain it, people who claim to have the answer need to back it up with proof. Never claimed I had the answer, just skeptical overall.

Who said it was the answer? It's a possibility, and just because a smoking gun hasn't been found doesn't mean the answer to not finding hard evidence yet is because everyone is "mentally ill" like you've seem to have concluded. If that's the answer to every unknown to mankind, then I guess every person on Earth is "mentally ill". You're tying to come to some conclusion to the mystery (it's all due to "mental illness" - sure, LoL), which is no more valid than anyone else's theories on the subject at this point.

 

[MolaKule]

The major influence for ET's seems to be the erroneous belief that since alleged biological evolution occurred on the Earth, then by extrapolation, it had to occur everywhere in the universe.

Extrapolation: to project, extend, or expand known data or experience into an area not known or experienced, so as to arrive at a usually conjectural knowledge of the unknown area.

Extrapolation has to be used carefully in the sciences because in many cases, it results in predictions that are more conjectural than the original conjectures used to formulate the beginning hypothesis.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Extrapolation based on what's happened here makes more sense then thinking that Earth is the only planet in the whole Universe with some kind of life, maybe even intelligent life, on it. There is no reason to think it's impossible if the conditions are right for it to happen someplace else like it did here, and maybe even happening 1000s of years before it ever happened here. Discounting that possibility because there is no "smoking gun" makes much less sense then believing it's highly possible based on extrapolation.

 

[Warstud]

Much UAP phenomena have been satisfactorily explained using the sciences of physics (plasmas such as ball lightning), atmospheric chemistry and meteorology (clouds and ice crystal formation), and astrophysics (meteors, auroras, space debris, and planetary alignments). But many of the UAP phenomena have yet to be explained. The problem with determining the source of much of this phenomena is the lack of quality and reputation of eyewitness accounts, sensors not designed for detecting UAPs, hysteria, unfounded presuppositions, baseless inferences, and a desire for fame and wealth.

I would have thought that most Americans would believe in UFO's when the Pentagon came out and acknowledged they exist >>>>>>>

What The Pentagon Has Already Revealed About UFOs

A previous military report claims 11 "near misses," doesn't mention aliens.

www.cnet.com

 

[MolaKule]

I would have thought that most Americans would believe in UFO's when the Pentagon came out and acknowledged they exist...

I agree with Mike West, ""I [am] pleasantly surprised with the report," said blogger Mick West, who has been a prominent debunker of alien spacecraft explanations for UAP, on Twitter at the time. "It seems like a generally accurate assessment of the situation.""

The assessment, however, basically says 'we don't know what the UAP's are but we're studying it.'

My only hope is that physicists, astrophysicists, and aerospace engineers are part of this Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group so some sensical, scientific basis can be incorporated in any future reports.

 

[javacontour]

Enjoy. He's a very interesting guy.

If you get a chance, listen to his guest appearance on the Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast.

Professor Brian Cox, episode #181 of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend on Earwolf

Professor and physicist Brian Cox has no idea how to feel about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Professor Brian Cox sits down with Conan to discuss feeling insignificant at the size of the universe, doing sketch comedy with Stephen Hawking, starting out as a rock musician, and his new show...

www.earwolf.com