Re: SETI
- From: Ilas <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 11:03:15 GMT
"David H." <davidhaapala@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:wJW3g.17053$4L1.11779@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
<uraniumcommittee@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1146092022.404027.213730@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
David H. wrote:
6 million in our galaxy? He's out of his mind. Maybe 5 or 6 in the
entire universe.
Do you have ANY idea how many things have to go 'right' just to get
primates?
It happened at least once, right?
I don't think you realize the numbers we're really dealing with
here:
The numbers of possible places and times that a planet in a given
characteristically described solar system could produce life.
If you think of the billions and billions of stars in our galaxy,
and
then multiply that by the billions of galaxies,
I think you're right, but it's a human thing, it's imcomprehension at
such big numbers. It's why (IMO) so many people are attracted to
creationism, because the numbers are more manageable. We live 80 years,
give or take, so we can imagine 10,000 years; we can't imagine
4,500,000,000 years. It's just a big number, not something our
imagination can deal with.
I was reading the Ancestor's Tale last week, and I got to a point where
Dawkins estimates one rendezvous (as he calls it) as being at the stage
of our 150 million grand parent. I thought I'd see if I could put that in
perspective, so I imagined a 600 page book (not entirely coincidentally;
the Ancestor's Tale is about 600 pages), with about 80 lines per page.
Taking the male line, imagine page one, line one is my father, line two
is my grandfather, line 3 my great-grandfather, line 4....well, you get
the idea. How many books would it take until we get to our 150 million
grand parents? My wife guessed at 500 (oh, the fun we have of an
evening), but if you work it out, it's actually 3,125. So, let's say each
book is about 1.5 inches thick. That would be a pile of books stacked
almost 400 feet, each line in each book being one of our forebears. If I
remember right, that took us back to about 500 million years ago, so
there's still several hundred or even thousand feet of books to go. To
me, it's no wonder "god did it" can be so persuasive.
Likewise, we've evolved to deal with one star, one planet, and lots of
twinkling lights. There are at least 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and
at least 100 billion other galaxies with approximately the same number of
stars, so we have at least
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. Let's start writing those books
again, the Sun on page one, line one, Proxima Centauri line two and so
on. This time (if my maths is right, and it may well not be) we have a
pile of books 4,932,133,838,383 *miles* high. To me, the chances of
intelligent life somewhere out there seem higher when it's put like that.
.
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