Post by Hideous Dwarf on Aug 27, 2008 8:01:47 GMT
Is there anybody out there?
Well, no there isn't!
That seems to wrap that up nicely - but I suppose I'd better try to justify that bold statement. So here goes:
SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life people, have been trying to communicate with the little green men for donkey's years and they haven't had a squeak. Why? Because there's nobody there.
Of course, I can't prove it, but I think extra-terrestrial intelligent life is statistically about as likely as Tony Blair turning out to be the second coming of Jesus. (His opinion in this doesn't count.) So let me try to convince you, and maybe someone will take up the debate in these pages.
The Big Bang - if indeed there ever was a Big Bang - occurred some 13 odd billion years ago, an impossible number to imagine. So let us try to simplify it by setting out the evolution of the universe as though it had happened over a single year with the Big Bang banging in the first nano-second of January 1 and 'now' being the last nano-second of December 31. It's all cobblers of course, unless you are one of those religious eccentrics who reckons all life began last Tuesday week, but it does put the evolution of life, the universe and everything into some sort of recognisable perspective.
So, after the Big Bang not much happens for a while. All matter is whizzing outwards, beginning as gas and evolving through particles to pebbles and eventually into planets, stars and such. Earth doesn't pop up until August 15th, just 4½ months ago as we look back over our evolutionary 'year'. On September 15th we get a few bacteria, the first signs of life, and photosynthesis begins on September 16th. We then get a couple of months (or 2½ billion years in real time) while the plants get themselves organised and very little happens in the creepy crawly world until December. Crustaceans appear on December 10th, molluscs on the 15th and the first vertibrate flexes it's spine on the 16th.
Hallelujah... just a fortnight to go to New Year and we've got bones!
The first insects start buzzing on the 17th, reptiles on the 20th, and the first mammals don't make an appearance until Christmas Eve. (Happy Christmas, Guys) With birds arriving on Boxing Day and primates on the 29th at 10pm it's almost new year already and the dinosaurs will still be with us for at least another hour. So let's skip past Australopithecus (31st, about 9pm) and all those other slopy headed guys and get ready to welcome we homo sapiens... at 44 seconds to midnight on New Year's Eve. And Christ was born in Bethlehem 5 seconds ago. Got the picture?
The SETI Institute was founded in 1984, but if we reckon that man has evolved to the point when he can listen to the skies in the last 50 years, we have been listening for 0.125 of a second in our 'evolutionary year'. I think that's about 1/315.5 millionth of the time since the beginning of the universe. Ain't much is it? We didn't even arrive on Earth until 17,000 years ago and we have only just become clever enough to communicate with anyone out there who might want to communicate with us.
And the point? If there is anyone out there advanced enough to hear our radio messages and return them they would have to have reached precisely the same evolutionary level as we have.
Not roughly; precisely!
Because in terms of our evolutionary year, if they are 2 days behind us they are still swinging in the trees eating bananas... 3 hours behind and they're bashing their women folk on the coconut with a club and chasing woolly mammoths... 1 second behind and they're wearing silly wigs, having their Gunpowder Plot and communicating by horse messenger.
If they are just a fortnight ahead of us, then we are to them as the insects are to us. And if they are only 1 second more advanced than we are we can be pretty certain they are already here!
Well, no there isn't!
That seems to wrap that up nicely - but I suppose I'd better try to justify that bold statement. So here goes:
SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life people, have been trying to communicate with the little green men for donkey's years and they haven't had a squeak. Why? Because there's nobody there.
Of course, I can't prove it, but I think extra-terrestrial intelligent life is statistically about as likely as Tony Blair turning out to be the second coming of Jesus. (His opinion in this doesn't count.) So let me try to convince you, and maybe someone will take up the debate in these pages.
The Big Bang - if indeed there ever was a Big Bang - occurred some 13 odd billion years ago, an impossible number to imagine. So let us try to simplify it by setting out the evolution of the universe as though it had happened over a single year with the Big Bang banging in the first nano-second of January 1 and 'now' being the last nano-second of December 31. It's all cobblers of course, unless you are one of those religious eccentrics who reckons all life began last Tuesday week, but it does put the evolution of life, the universe and everything into some sort of recognisable perspective.
So, after the Big Bang not much happens for a while. All matter is whizzing outwards, beginning as gas and evolving through particles to pebbles and eventually into planets, stars and such. Earth doesn't pop up until August 15th, just 4½ months ago as we look back over our evolutionary 'year'. On September 15th we get a few bacteria, the first signs of life, and photosynthesis begins on September 16th. We then get a couple of months (or 2½ billion years in real time) while the plants get themselves organised and very little happens in the creepy crawly world until December. Crustaceans appear on December 10th, molluscs on the 15th and the first vertibrate flexes it's spine on the 16th.
Hallelujah... just a fortnight to go to New Year and we've got bones!
The first insects start buzzing on the 17th, reptiles on the 20th, and the first mammals don't make an appearance until Christmas Eve. (Happy Christmas, Guys) With birds arriving on Boxing Day and primates on the 29th at 10pm it's almost new year already and the dinosaurs will still be with us for at least another hour. So let's skip past Australopithecus (31st, about 9pm) and all those other slopy headed guys and get ready to welcome we homo sapiens... at 44 seconds to midnight on New Year's Eve. And Christ was born in Bethlehem 5 seconds ago. Got the picture?
The SETI Institute was founded in 1984, but if we reckon that man has evolved to the point when he can listen to the skies in the last 50 years, we have been listening for 0.125 of a second in our 'evolutionary year'. I think that's about 1/315.5 millionth of the time since the beginning of the universe. Ain't much is it? We didn't even arrive on Earth until 17,000 years ago and we have only just become clever enough to communicate with anyone out there who might want to communicate with us.
And the point? If there is anyone out there advanced enough to hear our radio messages and return them they would have to have reached precisely the same evolutionary level as we have.
Not roughly; precisely!
Because in terms of our evolutionary year, if they are 2 days behind us they are still swinging in the trees eating bananas... 3 hours behind and they're bashing their women folk on the coconut with a club and chasing woolly mammoths... 1 second behind and they're wearing silly wigs, having their Gunpowder Plot and communicating by horse messenger.
If they are just a fortnight ahead of us, then we are to them as the insects are to us. And if they are only 1 second more advanced than we are we can be pretty certain they are already here!