Is there another Big Bang in our future? (George Will column

[Tomblvd]

THE DEPARTMENT of Transportation deals with the movement of things, which is important. The Department of Agriculture deals with food, which is vital. However, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration deals with the origin, nature and meaning, if any, of the universe. Attention should be paid.



Space lost its hold on America's imagination after the last lunar expedition in 1972. But the really exciting research had just begun, with the 1965 discovery that the universe is permeated with background radiation which confirmed that a Big Bang had indeed set what are now distant galaxies flying apart.



A famous aphorism holds that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. It is remarkably so because of advances in particle physics and mathematics. And because of magnificent telescopes, like the Hubble, which is now 11 years old and due to cease functioning in 2010. Operating above the filter of Earth's atmosphere, it "sees" the past by capturing for analysis light emitted from events perhaps ? we cannot be sure how fast the universe is expanding ? 12 billion years ago.



Read the rest of the article (while it remains) here (http://www.unionleader.com/articles_show.html?article=9833).
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Thought I'd use this interesting article from Will for my glorious return to BA (hey Phil, did you ever finish "Dark Moon"?)





<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tomblvd on 2002-03-24 07:48 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tomblvd on 2002-03-24 08:50 ]</font>

[Donnie B.]

Hi, Tom,

Phil's rules prohibit extensive quoting of copyrighted material, which I assume is the case with this article.

If the article is available on line, you should provide a link to it, rather than cut/paste.

Nice to see Will supporting space exploration, even though I rarely agree with him otherwise.

[Kaptain K]

If the article is available on line, you should provide a link to it, rather than cut/paste.
He did!

Read the rest of the article (while it remains) here.
_________________
When all is said and done - sit down and shut up!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kaptain K on 2002-03-24 13:57 ]</font>

[Phobos]

Another big bang in the future ?

If we assume that we continue to examine and recreate in the laboratory conditions as they were in the early universe then I suppose the answer is probably YES.

Although the big bang created by an overly efficient experiment might not be what you had in mind !

Jeff

[Donnie B.]

On 2002-03-24 13:55, Kaptain K wrote:

If the article is available on line, you should provide a link to it, rather than cut/paste.
He did!

Not when I first saw the post at 8:45 this morning... /phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[SiriMurthy]

[SiriMurthy]

There is a lot of stuff in the universe — the estimated number of stars is 10 followed by 22 zeros. But as to whether there are other planets with life like Earth's, Rees says the chance of two similar ecologies is less than the chance of two randomly typing monkeys producing the same Shakespearean play.

(edited...) Hmm, my quotes didn't work the first time!! - /phpBB/images/smiles/icon_confused.gif sirimurthy

I quote this part from the original article (see the first post). In my opinion the probability of this happening are very very near zero.

But what about Drake's equation - can it be explained with respect to the above? Is the author above saying that the possibility/probability of existance of "intelligent" life elsewhere in the universe is very near zero and that we are (I hate to state it as definitive) alone in this universe?

This bothers me a bit. Life on Earth may be an accident (quoting Carl Sagan in one of his books), but I don't believe that it is such a rare accident that we are all alone - because, well, hey we are here and we are able to think!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SiriMurthy on 2002-03-25 12:37 ]</font>

[Azpod]

Having read both Rare Earth (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0387987010/qid=1017087545/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_3_1/102-0657717-4944901) and Life Everywhere (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465015638/ref=pd_bxgy_text_2/102-0657717-4944901), I can see how there is a lot of room for disagreement in the field of astrobiology.

Yes, is we reran the Earth's history, chances are our biosphere would be radically different than it is today, but that doesn't mean that intelligent life couldn't still evolve. Simply put, there are a lot of stars out there. But that doesn't mean that there is a lot of intelligent life out there. It may be entirely possible that we are the only intelligent species in the entire universe. And aside from bioengineered species, AI species and offshoots from humans forming new species, it is also possible that we are the only intelligent species that will ever exist in the universe.

It is also possible that every few star systems with a stable planetary configuration and a planet in the habitable zone of the system will have life, and that life will evolve into intelligent life given enough time. If that is the case, our universe may look like a scene from "Star Wars" with odd creatures from every world doing buisness with each other. The only reason they aren't doing buisness with us is because we don't have anything to offer them... yet.

Reality is probably somewhere between the two extremes. I am leaning towards the idea that intelligent life is rare, and that faster than light travel is impossible. If both of these facts are true, then there are probably only a handful of starfaring species and few if any have actually bumped into each other's vast interstellar empires. If that is the case, humanity may build an interstellar empire of our own and it will be a few hundred million years, if not longer, to bump into our nearest neighbor.

By then, of course, humanity would have undergone changes of its own, and the species that exists now may only be a distant memory.

_________________
Lobster sticks to magnet. (http://www.solarisdx.net/features/1lm.html)
That is all.

--Azpod... Formerly known as James Justin

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Azpod on 2002-03-25 13:41 ]</font>