Zingu
18th December 2004, 01:06
I was looking into the alien threads, and I started typing about the development of civilization, so I decided to make it its own topic! I used quotes from other threads as well, interesting read.
Technological civilization (radio) is less than 100 years old.
That suggests that 0.00003 percent of all planets will have intelligent life.
And only 1 out of every 480,000,000 planets will have intelligent technological life.
That's the bad news. The good news is that planets are common as...well, dirt. Our galaxy probably has a couple of billion or more. Most are lifeless--too hot, too cold, no atmosphere, wrong kind of atmosphere, etc.
A few will be "lucky".
I think what we'll ultimately discover is that intelligent life with technological civilization is very rare...maybe only a half-dozen or a dozen varieties per galaxy.
I disagree (sort of)
I will post this again:
Our galaxy for example, contains about 200 billion stars. Lets make a crude and conservative estimate; lets say 10% of the stars are yellow stars like the sun, that 10% of this 10% has planets orbiting around them, that 10% has 10% earthlike planets, that 10% has 10% which has earthlike atmospheres and life forms growing on them, and 10% of that is intelligent life. so thats about 1 millionth of 200 billion stars;
thats 200,000 alien civilizations within our galaxy
Also in recent research by a computer simulation of the birth of planets, that many planets at the similar size of earth are easy to evolve out of rocky cores, masses coalesced between 80% to 130% were found with planets that were. This will increase probability
It also turns out that without a planet like Jupiter in orbit , it makes it 1,000 times more likely for a comet to smash into a planet making life destroying impact every 100,000 years or so. This is decrease the number a bit.
So, with probabilty, it favors the existance of many civilizations. Now here is the strange part, with a 10 billion old galaxy, there has been much time for other civilizations born before us to develop and so shouldn't these civilizations be emitting electromagnetic radiation that we can detect?
No radiation detected yet!
It might be because we can only detect the probability and when these planets attain such a level of development. Take this example:
Our solar system is about 4.5 billion years old, life started here on earth 4 to 5 billion years ago, only within the past million years has intelligent life developed on this planet, only in the past decades have we developed radio stations capable of sending radio waves into outer space.
But, 1 million years of the scale of billions is only an instant in comparison. So it is reasonable to say that many civilizations have rose, fell and perished before our ancestors even left the forests on earth.
Maybe there is sentient life out there. What then? Do we become friends with them, trading cultures, languages, goods and services?
No, if a advanced civilization found us, I think their first impulse would be to ignore us. To them, seeing such an inferior civilization, it would be like finding an ant pile,
would you stop, present yourself, demand to see the leader of the ants, present them with wonderous and advanced technology past their comprehesion, wave trinkets in front of their eyes?
Or keep walking on ignoring them?
Technological civilization (radio) is less than 100 years old.
True, but you have to take one thing into account, civilization has rised exponentially. Today we have 200 horsepowered engines, but the enegry avaible to a single human was far less during the most part of our history. Most of the time it was the power of our own hands, one eigth of horsepower. Humans roamed the earth has hunter gatherers. In terms on energy this has only changed within the last 100,000 years.
Within the past 10,000 years, the energy output has doubled, the invention of hand tools at the end of the Ice Age, which retarded human development for thousands of years.
Soon the discovery of arigculture lead to agarian life and then came the division of labor; this is were the transistion to slave society began. Now, one person could control the labour power of hundreds of slaves, enegry output had multiplied dramatically, soon rulers could command slaves to erect giant fortresses with the use of pulleys and cranes, soon giant cities arose from forests.
In energy terms of view 99.9% of our existance, our technological level has been only one step above animals. It has only been in the past few hundred years that humans have more than 1 horsepower avaible to them.
This changed with the industrial revolution, Newton's laws made it possible to reduce mechanics to a set of well defined equations, steam powered machines made it possible for humans to command tens to hundreds of horsepower, soon steamships introduced widespread international trade.
It took over 10,000 years for humanity to produce the modern face of Europe, with steam driven machines America industrialized within a century.
By the nineteeth century, Maxwell's mastery of electromagnetics set off a revolution of energy power. It made electrification of factories and cities possible, now steam machines would taken over by power dynamos.
Within the past 50 years the discovery of nuclear force has increased the power avaible to a single human by a factor of a million, we have increased the enegry power to us by a millionfold within 50 years, while it took before hundreds of years to increase horsepower.
For only .01% of our existance we have drastically increased our enegry levels far beyond animals. In just a few centuries we have released the forces of electromagnetism and nuclear power.
Basically, the further we progress, the faster we progress. We increase exponentially.
Source: "Hyperspace" by Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist
Technological civilization (radio) is less than 100 years old.
That suggests that 0.00003 percent of all planets will have intelligent life.
And only 1 out of every 480,000,000 planets will have intelligent technological life.
That's the bad news. The good news is that planets are common as...well, dirt. Our galaxy probably has a couple of billion or more. Most are lifeless--too hot, too cold, no atmosphere, wrong kind of atmosphere, etc.
A few will be "lucky".
I think what we'll ultimately discover is that intelligent life with technological civilization is very rare...maybe only a half-dozen or a dozen varieties per galaxy.
I disagree (sort of)
I will post this again:
Our galaxy for example, contains about 200 billion stars. Lets make a crude and conservative estimate; lets say 10% of the stars are yellow stars like the sun, that 10% of this 10% has planets orbiting around them, that 10% has 10% earthlike planets, that 10% has 10% which has earthlike atmospheres and life forms growing on them, and 10% of that is intelligent life. so thats about 1 millionth of 200 billion stars;
thats 200,000 alien civilizations within our galaxy
Also in recent research by a computer simulation of the birth of planets, that many planets at the similar size of earth are easy to evolve out of rocky cores, masses coalesced between 80% to 130% were found with planets that were. This will increase probability
It also turns out that without a planet like Jupiter in orbit , it makes it 1,000 times more likely for a comet to smash into a planet making life destroying impact every 100,000 years or so. This is decrease the number a bit.
So, with probabilty, it favors the existance of many civilizations. Now here is the strange part, with a 10 billion old galaxy, there has been much time for other civilizations born before us to develop and so shouldn't these civilizations be emitting electromagnetic radiation that we can detect?
No radiation detected yet!
It might be because we can only detect the probability and when these planets attain such a level of development. Take this example:
Our solar system is about 4.5 billion years old, life started here on earth 4 to 5 billion years ago, only within the past million years has intelligent life developed on this planet, only in the past decades have we developed radio stations capable of sending radio waves into outer space.
But, 1 million years of the scale of billions is only an instant in comparison. So it is reasonable to say that many civilizations have rose, fell and perished before our ancestors even left the forests on earth.
Maybe there is sentient life out there. What then? Do we become friends with them, trading cultures, languages, goods and services?
No, if a advanced civilization found us, I think their first impulse would be to ignore us. To them, seeing such an inferior civilization, it would be like finding an ant pile,
would you stop, present yourself, demand to see the leader of the ants, present them with wonderous and advanced technology past their comprehesion, wave trinkets in front of their eyes?
Or keep walking on ignoring them?
Technological civilization (radio) is less than 100 years old.
True, but you have to take one thing into account, civilization has rised exponentially. Today we have 200 horsepowered engines, but the enegry avaible to a single human was far less during the most part of our history. Most of the time it was the power of our own hands, one eigth of horsepower. Humans roamed the earth has hunter gatherers. In terms on energy this has only changed within the last 100,000 years.
Within the past 10,000 years, the energy output has doubled, the invention of hand tools at the end of the Ice Age, which retarded human development for thousands of years.
Soon the discovery of arigculture lead to agarian life and then came the division of labor; this is were the transistion to slave society began. Now, one person could control the labour power of hundreds of slaves, enegry output had multiplied dramatically, soon rulers could command slaves to erect giant fortresses with the use of pulleys and cranes, soon giant cities arose from forests.
In energy terms of view 99.9% of our existance, our technological level has been only one step above animals. It has only been in the past few hundred years that humans have more than 1 horsepower avaible to them.
This changed with the industrial revolution, Newton's laws made it possible to reduce mechanics to a set of well defined equations, steam powered machines made it possible for humans to command tens to hundreds of horsepower, soon steamships introduced widespread international trade.
It took over 10,000 years for humanity to produce the modern face of Europe, with steam driven machines America industrialized within a century.
By the nineteeth century, Maxwell's mastery of electromagnetics set off a revolution of energy power. It made electrification of factories and cities possible, now steam machines would taken over by power dynamos.
Within the past 50 years the discovery of nuclear force has increased the power avaible to a single human by a factor of a million, we have increased the enegry power to us by a millionfold within 50 years, while it took before hundreds of years to increase horsepower.
For only .01% of our existance we have drastically increased our enegry levels far beyond animals. In just a few centuries we have released the forces of electromagnetism and nuclear power.
Basically, the further we progress, the faster we progress. We increase exponentially.
Source: "Hyperspace" by Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist