[img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img] Wow, that is cool! Shame that they could, at the very most, only be microscopic cells :( . But at least there's a chance that there's life in our solar system: no matter how small [img]smile.gif[/img]

still dubious. life is out there, but i dont think its sharing our solar system. maybe though.

"One lifeform's deadly radiation may be another lifeform's lunch"
-David Grinspoon, South West Research Institute in Colorado


And one lifeform's deadly acid may be another life form's blood.....
http://members.aol.com/alienshive/a2pic6.jpg

YIKES!!!! :D ;)

You know that for certain do you? Do you have proof?

I am agnostic regarding extra terrestrial lifeforms. As a theist, I don't believe we're
"alone" in the universe, so there is no necessity to believe in aliens to stave of lonliness or the like.

Howver you seemed quite certain? I just don't have the faith for that. [img]smile.gif[/img]

in each star/planet system there is a ring around the star wherein a planet may contain life. some planetary systems contain no planets in this ring, others as many as three. while the average of zero and three is 1.5, we'll round out and say the average number of planets in the life ring of a planetary system is 1.

now, there are millions of stars in our galaxy. lets just assume that 1 million of those several have that average 1 planet. this accounts for any stars that dont have planets, and doubly accounts for those that don't have any in the life ring. that makes one million habitable planets in our galaxy alone.

now, we know there are at least a million galaxies out there, and thats just what we've managed to see so far... keeping in mind that we've only recorded a little over 15% of the sky, the rest is hidden by solar polution.

lets assume for a second, though, that some of the galaxies have zero habitable planets, and that the most have 1 million habitable planets... this is fairly reasonable, as our galaxy is a fairly middle sized galaxy. we take then, for an average view, and assuming that there are only 1 million galaxies in the universe, only consideration for 500,000 of these galaxies.

we have now formed a good equation for determining the minimum number of planets capable of supporting multi cellular lifeforms. that is: planets per system * systems per galaxy * galaxies

this works out to be 1*1,000,000*500,000 = 500,000,000,000. even with a 1 in a billion odds that multicellular life will form on any planet, that leaves a strong possibility of 500 planets (minimum) which will have multicelular life. even expanding that number to one in ten billion leaves 50 planets which are going to have life. that is why physicists recognize the fact that we are not alone... its not based on a "feeling of loneliness" as yorick would like to state, but on a statistical probability which shows there is a strong probability.

finally, i note that my estimates are rather low, there are more planets and galaxies than i noted, so these numbers are off on the low side.

Nice probability travel but still no sign of ANY intelligent life form in all of the universe ...

i never insinuated that any life out there would be intelligent... merely that SOME multicellular form of life would exist out there. i just don't think its actually on venus, since venus is outside of the life ring and thats a pretty big factor in the probability.

Well... if there is any balance in the universe, then, to make up for this one, there's gotta be at least one planet with inteligent life forms [img]smile.gif[/img]

What about the Dolphins?

They can't build radio transmitters [img]smile.gif[/img]
The only extra terrestrial life our species will ever have any hope of finding will have to have the necessary technology to send a signal out into space that we might intercept and decipher.

Well, unless of course they have the technology to be smart about it and NOT send signals but rather wait to *receive* them. I mean, we all know how history has tended to treat the "discoverers" as opposed to those who are discovered. ;)

True, but either way, they're intelligent, we meet. Whether we benefit or not is irrelevant [img]smile.gif[/img]

um, its not likely that we're ever going to meet intelligent life... that would be, um, very unprobable

If we meet intelligent life, we couldnt comunicate with them.
For example, can you comunicate with a butterfly?
No, so we know a lot of about them.
How will we comunicate with alien creatures even if we would know a bit?
I think the alien life exists (as cells) but like us... this is unprobable.

Shaide

Haven't you heard? Europeans are from Venus, and Americans are from Mars ;)

shade, assuming the life form was intelligent, it would have to have some language whether spoken or ESP. now, assuming that it didnt harm us with mental waves by trying to merely communicate with us, we would eventually discover some means of translating languages. sorry mathemeticians, math would not be it. most likely it would be through image/word association.

tens/hundreds of thousands of years from now doesn't necessarily constitute 'never' [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 05-31-2004, 08:08 PM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]

Actually, over 200 billion, last count. Assuming 1 per, that's over 50 billion planets within a given distance capable of supporting life.

So Yorick, the numbers for this galaxy alone are in our favor. In fact, the nearest star to our own (Alpha Centauri, subject, central element and locale of one of the best turn-based strategy games ever made: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri) may have planets capable of supporting life, with a little effort. It isn't so hard when you crunch the numbers.

Quite honestly, I don't believe in the prospect to suit my desire to not be alone. I've felt quite alone for a long time, and I wouldn't be capable of communicating with these creatures, intelligent or not, and they live and die in the same infinite and cold universe I do. The blackness turns over, and we are alone, to paraphrase Rorschach. Though there is something instantly comforting about that. No purpose, no delusions, just existence. Exist for existence's sake. That's fine enough. To live for the sake of living is one of the few acts to be done in such a fashion that I can truly admire.

[ 05-31-2004, 08:51 PM: Message edited by: Oblivion437 ]

There's a lot of truth in this statement. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I'd go further and try to outline Appollonian/Dyonisian paradigms as first laid out by Nietszche, but why muck with a good summary.

[ 06-01-2004, 01:03 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

Easy now with the numbers, children. Do you know how many BINARY systems there are in our galaxy ALONE? A stable, terrestrial, life-supporting planet is not likely to occur in one of those. Besides which, life can only occur after the planet has completely solidified, and since not all solar systems are the same age...beyond all that, you forget about cosmic catastrophies...They DO happen. Comets and asteriods (as well as moons and even other planets) do collide with planets. Your so-called low estimation is only low because of the infinities at work...the in-galaxy guess is terribly high.

well, then i guess out of 20 billion systems in the galaxy, to assume 100 million (0.5%) have potentially life supporting planets is a safe guess.