Post: #51

(12-19-2015 12:31 PM)aSimpNamedBrokeback Wrote:  

(12-19-2015 10:01 AM)dodecahedron Wrote:  We will colonize the milky way in a few million years, which is nothing in the grand scheme of the universe. Its not a matter of if but when this will happen. My guess in the next couple of hundred years. Both Super AI and Fusion are probably less than 100 years away.

The "Wait Calculation" says we're about 1,100 years away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wait_Calculation

Theres also the Fermi Paradox,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
The Fermi paradox — or Fermi's paradox — is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, such as in the Drake equation, and the lack of evidence for such civilizations.[1] The basic points of the argument, made by physicists Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) and Michael H. Hart (born 1932), are:

The Sun is a typical star, and there are billions of stars in the galaxy that are billions of years older.[2][3]
With high probability, some of these stars will have Earth-like planets,[4][5] and if the earth is typical, some might develop intelligent life.
Some of these civilizations might develop interstellar travel, a step the Earth is investigating now.
Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the Milky Way galaxy could be completely traversed in about a million years.[6]

In regular speak "Where the fuck are the aliens? They should have been here by now".

Quote:We dont need to beat light speed or even get close to it. Once AI and Fusion are in full force, we will most likely send out ships to outer space and colonize the galaxy. Ships would carry various samples of plant, animal and human life. AI could also alter DNA to make it/us suitable for any specific planet, even if conditions are not similar to Earth. Ships could also further replicate themselves along the way (machine develops machine)

Fun Facts. The Helios 2 is the fastest space craft man has created, it traveled at 157,000mph! The closet star to Earth is Alpha Centauri A,B and Proxima Centauri, a triple star system which is about 4 Light years away from the sun. At 157,000mph it would take Helios 2 19,000 years to reach them.

Here's an interesting video explaining all of it.

So you say a thousand years until machines set out, I say a few hundred. Doesnt matter, even if its a few thousand years from now. It will happen, unless we wipe ourselves out before then. Unlikely imo, as there already people living in outer space now, cant even imagine how its going to be 1-2 centuries from now, probably small colonies on mars, moon and such.

A few million years and the whole galaxy is colonized by machines.

Any way, my point was we could be the Aliens, we could be the first to colonize the galaxy and spread carbon based life, and they wouldnt even know it.

Post: #52

(12-19-2015 01:47 PM)dodecahedron Wrote:  A few million years and the whole galaxy is colonized by machines.

   

Here's our galaxy, we orbit a random star in a quiet part of it. A few million years is probably less than a second if you could look at its total life. What you're saying is going happen should have already happened multiple times over, that's the Fermi Paradox.

Post: #53

(12-19-2015 02:09 PM)aSimpNamedBrokeback Wrote:  

(12-19-2015 01:47 PM)dodecahedron Wrote:  A few million years and the whole galaxy is colonized by machines.

Here's our galaxy, we orbit a random star in a quiet part of it. A few million years is probably less than a second if you could look at its total life. What you're saying is going happen should have already happened multiple times over, that's the Fermi Paradox.

Assumption that there is intelligent life elsewhere. Thats fantasy right now, best to stick to facts.

Your little paradox there doesnt stick right now, as it doesnt apply to us.

Post: #54

It's entirely possible that aliens are actually operating under a Star Trek style prime directive not to fuck with our planet. The Fermi paradox suggesting that aliens should colonize the shit out of us might be solved with the observation that among humans, smarter people tend to be more ethical while criminals are generally one or two standard deviations below the mean in IQ. A violent civilization of evil aliens is either going to reform or destroy itself before it achieves interstellar travel, in fact one reason for there being a prime directive might be to deny humanity access to technology it isn't competent to use at present. I mean, imagine if our present governments could actually read people's thoughts accurately, build sapient robots to police civil unrest, or drag asteroids to drop them on countries as a much more destructive alternative to nuclear weapons.

Post: #55

Some 'scientific' speculation:

# of Stars in the universe
There are estimated to be 400 billion stars in the milky way galaxy. Based on the famous hubble deep field image, astronomers were able to come up with a rough estimate for the number of galaxies in the known universe.

By taking the arc-length of the image, and extrapolating to the rest of the night sky, they estimate that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies. So a conservative estimate for the number of star systems in the universe is:

4E11 x 1Ex11 = 4E22 or 40000000000000000000000 stars.

Drake equation, habitability
Because the estimated number of stars is so large, the chance of other life existing in the universe seems likely even if life requires exceedingly rare conditions. The fact is, we don't know how rare life is until we have data on other planets. Kepler is providing an insight into the rarity of larger planets around other stars, and suggests planets around star systems are the norm. With the discovery of arsenic based lifeforms, it may be possible that life can take on many forms in many different environments.

Seeding of life throughout the universe
Assuming our current understanding of evolutionary theory is true, life may be relatively common in the universe. Here is how it would unfold:
1) Early stars form, create heavy elements through fusion and supernovas
2) Heavy elements are dispersed into other proto solar systems and coalesce into proto planets in the accretion disc. Earth like planets form.
3) Water, volcanism, solar light, asteroid collisions, tidal forces combine to form complex chemical reactions, producing organic chemistry. Amino acids and RNA-like molecules may spur life formation.
3a) Interstellar asteroids/comets may bring frozen amino acids or spores from another star system. Conversely, they may collide with an earth like planet, and fling debris with amino acids into space. These molecules have been observed to hold up well against freezing, high radiation vaccuums, and could be flung into interstellar space through a gravitational 'slingshot' with a star or large planet.

Intelligent life
The formation of intelligent life may be rare. As far as I understand, on our planet there were rare events which occurred before life became increasingly complex. Life remained in a simple steady state for billions of years until environmental events caused major disruptions. Who knows what the chances of them happening on other planets are.

An example is the formation of cyanobacteria which produced an oxygen rich environment, creating the cambrian explosion which allowed for more complex organisms to flourish. Up to this point, organic life was exceedingly simple and tiny.

Keep in mind modern humans are only a few hundred thousands years old. The Cambrian explosion occurred hundreds of millions of years ago, so the thought that intelligent life popped up as soon as possible seems very unlikely to me. Mammals only flourished after a major extinction event, and intelligent mammals much later. Intelligence isn't always the most beneficial tool in the evolutionary/reproductive toolbox, and may be exceedingly rare in the universe.

Interstellar travel
Even if hyperintelligent life were to form, the obstacles to interstellar flight are tremendous. The vehicle would have to be incredibly powerful, be able to protect against the horrible radiation environment of intergalactic space, be able to sustain the crew for the duration of the trip (100 years? millenia? 10,000 years+?).

You could argue that the ship could gradually accelerate, reach a halfway point to the destination, then gradually decelerate. This might make travel at speeds approaching light speed feasible, but then you have to worry about the Oort cloud. There's a huge debris field surrounding the outer solar system. Any craft wishing to travel into interstellar space would have to detect and avoid these objects. That would require deceleration and maneuvering, significantly decreasing the maximum safe speed the vehicle could travel.

The only possible reason I could envisage an advanced civilization putting that many resources into such an endeavor would be to escape a dying star system.

Post: #56

(12-21-2015 04:36 PM)thoughtgypsy Wrote:  You could argue that the ship could gradually accelerate, reach a halfway point to the destination, then gradually decelerate. This might make travel at speeds approaching light speed feasible, but then you have to worry about the Oort cloud. There's a huge debris field surrounding the outer solar system. Any craft wishing to travel into interstellar space would have to detect and avoid these objects. That would require deceleration and maneuvering, significantly decreasing the maximum safe speed the vehicle could travel.

It's actually pretty unlikely to intercept anything in either the asteroid belt or the Oort cloud, there is a LOT of space in between objects out there. You can also use a laser to ionize debris in your path and deflect it with a magnetic field, since maneuvering at relativistic speeds would be impossible.

Post: #57

(12-21-2015 06:12 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  You can also use a laser to ionize debris in your path and deflect it with a magnetic field, since maneuvering at relativistic speeds would be impossible.

If you were traveling at the speed of light I don't think a laser or anything would be able to be projected in front of you.

Post: #58

Post: #59

(12-21-2015 07:05 PM)aSimpNamedBrokeback Wrote:  

(12-21-2015 06:12 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  You can also use a laser to ionize debris in your path and deflect it with a magnetic field, since maneuvering at relativistic speeds would be impossible.

If you were traveling at the speed of light I don't think a laser or anything would be able to be projected in front of you.

You wouldn't be traveling at the speed of light because the ship has mass. You can theoretically travel closer and closer to it, but it would require exponentially more energy as you approach it. If I remember correctly, one of the paradoxes of relativity is that even if you're traveling at 99% the speed of light, if you were to "fire" a laser, it would still travel away from you at the speed of light, not the 1% faster you may expect.

Either way, we're currently only able to produce manned craft that can reach 0.004% the speed of light. This discussion of near-light vehicle technology is way too premature, albeit interesting.

Post: #60

(12-21-2015 07:31 PM)thoughtgypsy Wrote:  

(12-21-2015 07:05 PM)aSimpNamedBrokeback Wrote:  

(12-21-2015 06:12 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  You can also use a laser to ionize debris in your path and deflect it with a magnetic field, since maneuvering at relativistic speeds would be impossible.

If you were traveling at the speed of light I don't think a laser or anything would be able to be projected in front of you.

You wouldn't be traveling at the speed of light because the ship has mass. You can theoretically travel closer and closer to it, but it would require exponentially more energy as you approach it. If I remember correctly, one of the paradoxes of relativity is that even if you're traveling at 99% the speed of light, if you were to "fire" a laser, it would still travel away from you at the speed of light, not the 1% faster you may expect.

Either way, we're currently only able to produce manned craft that can reach 0.004% the speed of light. This discussion of near-light vehicle technology is way too premature, albeit interesting.

The speed of the laser beam is relative to the reference frame of your ship, so it still exits your laser gun at c. Then all the time slowing and lorentz contraction thingamajiggers make sure everything works out for other observers. Sorry, it's been while since I took Modern Physics.