Aliens...silly SETI

[fugjostle]

Originally Posted by passingphantom

and the grandfather's theory of time-travelling is also an example.
whatever you would do travelling back in the past (even just the simple fact of being there) could geopartise our future and anihilate us...

Aye, its actually called the "Grandfather Paradox" and it goes:

"Suppose you travelled back in time and killed your biological grandfather before he met your grandmother. Then you would never have been conceived, so you could not have traveled back in time after all. In that case, your grandfather would still be alive and you would have been conceived, allowing you to travel back in time and kill your grandfather, and so on."

Thats a head masher if ever there was one

[fugjostle]

My own thoughts are that we will never have the answers we want. Pretty soon we will be extinct as a species and in the lifetime of the planet we would have been a little itch on the back of its neck for a second or two that went as fast as it came. We are so insignifcant its almost funny.

I don't think there's any spiritual answers but I'm all for living your life to a set of morals and guides laid down by these ways of thinking. They will also provide a set of answers if thats what you need.

I kinda agree with Grad in that I don't think we have the ability to understand and see the world as it may really exist. One day my experiment to turn me into a hyper dimensional being may meet with some success but until then "you live, you die... get a helmet"

I also came across a reference to the "worm hole" thing I posted earlier in the thread, which you may or not find interesting. Highly charged particles from deep space collide with atoms in the upper atmosphere (all the time) and create muons. Muons have a lifetime of 2.2ms and if the muon travels at the speeds close to that of light then in its lifetime it will travel a max of 660 meters. Here's where it gets weird, the muons can be measured reaching ground level, thats a couple of miles travelled and not 660 meters. The reason for this is time travel, or more acurately time dilation. Mad as fook tbh but applying Einstein's theory of relatively predicts the amount of time dilation and therefore predicts the distance travelled. This prediction is consistent with experimental measurements i.e. its not just theorectical but provable !?!? In other words, these little feckers actually manage to slow down time from our relative viewpoint, time exists as 2.2ms for them but we see them lasting several milli-seconds.

[ilovepiano]

There's a very odd experiment that seems to suggest that it is possible to send information faster than light.

Two devices sending individual photons (I think) one through the air and the other through a solid block of something (I forget what). The ones going through the solid object arrive at the destination quicker than the ones going through nothing, meaning that they are travelling faster than light.

The explanation for this is quantum tunneling, which is based around the uncertanty principle - i.e. you never know where something is, and there's a slim chance it could be in two places at once. This experiment appears to confirm the theory.

[doolz]

good topic

even if other life forms exist due to the size and age of the universe and the constricting speed of light teh chances of contacting any other lifeforms are ultra slim

if you wanna read up on how amazing and complicated life and the unverse is

try these

richard dawkins - ancestors tale
richard dawkins - blind watchmaker (infact all his books are great)
lisa randall - warped passages
roger penrose - the emperors new mind
michio kaku - parallel worlds


i love piano
it is possible to know the state of 2 photons light years apart but it can never be used to transmit useable data
einstien called this spooky action at a distance

for those of you that dont want to read you could try bittorent sites for great audio books about physics etc


also some great stuff to listen to here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/



int spacey stuff brilliant

[doolz]

Originally Posted by Ed

There's a book about Buddhism and science knocking about, I'll have a rootle around for you. An awful lot of what of what is explained in the old texts is proving to be correct scientifically.

Like you Lozzie I find my scientific logical mind needs to quantify and qualify what the whacked out religious types say. Northern Minx teases me about this all the time, cos she'll come out with something whacky, and I'll make her explain the logic to it (which makes her laugh and drives her mad at the same time!!) I think this is healthy, stops you ending up manipulated or in a cult. Having said that, its worth remembering what Albert Einstein said on this:

"The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge."

and

"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."

and

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

and

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited.
Imagination encircles the world."

God love ya Albert!

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

personally i dont believe in any higher being but albert rules

[Ed]

Originally Posted by Lozzie

that blags my head! I call those moments "affirmation of faith" they just let me know im on the right track! I love them!

Thats my understanding too. I love it when that happens. Serendipity, but I like the phrase 'affirmation of faith' too

I also like MC Conrad who shouts 'Now you are locked into the mystic groove'.

[Ed]

Originally Posted by doolz

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

personally i dont believe in any higher being but albert rules

Excellent. Love that Doolz, thanks.

[bucky]

Originally Posted by Lozzie

I don't think you could go back in time ever! There is only now...the absolute second ur sat in. Thats the only reality there is...the past is just a thought you have in ur head NOW.
Maybe infinity is only the now? and isnt a really long thing we all think???its just a moment???? Soz, thats just shredded my noodle aswell! woohoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!:confused :

That sentence doesn't make sense. Infinity isn't a noun.

It's just a word to describe anything that goes on for ever whether it be numerically or what ever ...

[ilovepiano]

If anyone wants the .pdf file of Stephen Hawking - A Brief History Of Time, then let me know and I'll wing it over on MSN

[passingphantom]

but what is the now anyway?
what is the present...
An infinite division of a second (milli-second, micro-second, nano-second and whatever smaller part of time) ahead is the future, and the same thing backward is the past....
So, can we really grasp what the present is?

And what is infinity?
A very small word to grasp a concept that is impossible to embrace... Infinity means that there is no begining, no end...
Is it possible for the human mind to ever imagine a thing like that...
is infinity inhert?

[Miss C]

Lol, there are thousands & thousands of sites on stuff like this if you want to read up on proper theories derived from yeeeears & yeeeeears of brain power & expertise of people who know their shit....Jeeves is your man. You're better off researching whats already been found out so you can develop informed opinions, although it is fun to ponder sometimes I suppose

[ilovepiano]

RE: infinity. Just imagine the biggest maddest number you can possibly imagine. A number so big that you think it can't get any bigger. Then add another zero. Repeat.

Or another way. Take a measurement and half it. Then half it again. Then keep on halving it. Forever.

[amymars]

here is the solution to all problems.

I am the centre of the universe, and this is all in my head.

No but seriously.....

I can't comprehend how frigging aeroplanes take off when you go on holiday, space has always fascinated me but frightened me too. This is why I took philosophy and not science, you can talk and talk and there is no pressure to come up with any concrete answers

[lilsonzbroEd]

Originally Posted by lozzie

Time can only be measured from the place and the units that apply to that planet, or that space. For example, on earth, time is a devision of units it takes to get round the earth...365 days, 52 weeks, etc etc etc. SO, time...if ur following this model, on Pluto is completely different.
Somthing can only be measured if it has a beginning.

Actually lauren 1 Second is

well actually I will just quote this book:

"Since 1983, the metre has been defined internationally as the legnth of the path travelled by light in a vacuum during 1/299,792,548th of a second. Importantly a second is in turn efined as the duration of 9.192.631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom"



Heavy stuff but I do have to say everything is scaled upwards

A year used to be 10 months (DEC ember) and a month (MOON th) 28 days, like the cycle of a moon transition.

And remember a year is 1/4 of a day off so thats why we have leap years.

Time has been scaled up according to how long a day is (How long it takes the earth to spin) and how long a year is (how long it takes the earth to orbit the sun) but I don't know how it's split.

How weird is it that we do go round the sun every year

Really fast

weird


Also

How can light be the fastest thing

Theres got to be something faster

Like a mini moto




This is by Ed btw (your bro haha looking for that porn tape of Lea to put on a myspace bulletin)

[Lozzie]

Originally Posted by ilovepiano

RE: infinity. Just imagine the biggest maddest number you can possibly imagine. A number so big that you think it can't get any bigger. Then add another zero. Repeat.

Or another way. Take a measurement and half it. Then half it again. Then keep on halving it. Forever.

OR just scrap the idea of numbers or amounts all together!!!! This is where we can't grasp it...


You are sat there now. And that is everything that has ever existed as far as you're concerened...you have no proof otherwise...The moment ur in, is the only one u can be sure of...so you might as well enjoy it! I try to remember that, when my shit is going down...



I love to do the mental gymnastics, like the sort displayed on here. It gives me joy, to be able to get my head out of the expected, and be an indevidual in my thoughts.


But I always come back to the same conclusion...just live my life, and don't clutter it with silly questions, that really, are insignificant.