We are not alone..

[turbanator]

Meanwhile, a Cardiff pensioner says he also saw something "peculiar with lots of flashing lights" on the same day.



Damn Torchwood!

[Bantam]

.

[purple vonny]

As an aetheist, it makes more sense to believe in alien life form than it does to believe in a nebulous deity. I'm still waiting here with the kettle on in case one drops down into the garden.

[chrisch]

Originally Posted by Adrian Kelland

...
Wouldn't it be sad if we were the most intelligent life in the universe.

Ade, I've been to Tescos today and I can assure you, based on direct and scientific observation, we are NOT the most intelligent life form in the universe (or even on earth, or even Eastbourne for that matter).

Chris

[Lazlo]

Originally Posted by Bantam

I won't close my mind just because it is written as 'law' - there are already things going on at a quantum level that doesn't obey relativity and doesn't obey the normal rules.

No need for anybody to close their minds. This is Science, not Mathematics. The 'laws' of physics have never been immutable. Much like the other kind of 'laws', they are kept until somebody thinks of something better. This is in contrast to Mathematics, which is unique in that it is the only subject that exists for which you can actually state a truth [1] [2].

Newton's 'laws' were fine as far as they went, until Einstein gave us Relativity. Relativity equations include Newton's and go further. It is a more comprehensive 'law'. The same equations don't work on smaller scales.

As regards the limitation of the speed of light, Relativity predicts that as an object's velocity approaches the speed of light, its mass approaches infinity. So it seems to be impossible to exceed the speed of light. But it may not be necessary to go that fast in order to get somewhere quickly. Space has more than 3 dimensions. If you could manipulate those dimensions, you could take a "short cut" - the wormhole theory. Einstein imagined 4 dimensions, string/brane theory says 11.

[1] Which used to be the position until Godel and his incompleteness theorems. Still, Mathematics commands a level of certainty waaay beyond other disciplines. See here.

[2] I'm discounting religious definitions of 'truth'. Cos that's the way I am.

[Lazlo]

Originally Posted by chrisch

Now look where we are in our galaxy. At the end of one of the arms. A planet in the middle stands a much better chance of having neighbours.

Nearly forgot. According to NASA we're nowhere near the end of an arm. They took a picture to prove it . (Original page here)

[Lazlo]

No discussion about the possibility of extra-terrestrial life is complete without a look at the Hubble Deep Field images. This is my favourite picture ever. It's a tiny slice of the universe - equivalent to looking up at the sky through an "eight foot long soda straw". What you get is galaxies, thousands of them. Everything in this picture, with the exception of three or four sparkling cross-shaped stars, is a galaxy. Each galaxy contains hundreds of thousands of stars. *



Higher resolution here:
HubbleSite - NewsCenter - Hubble's Deepest View Ever of the Universe Unveils Earliest Galaxies (03/09/2004) - Introduction

* Sorry, did I say hundreds of 'thousands' of stars? Meant to say a hundred billion stars. And there's about 100 billion galaxies. Give or take. Link

[fatone]

This police forces helecopter crew just love being in the news.

BBC News | WALES | No charges after helicopter crash

This is them in 2000, apparently the house owner was charged by the police for leaving the landing light on !

[MonkeyPony]

I guess it depends on what you think the universe is.

If the universe is infinate then there will be an infinite number of planets that support life. In fact there will be an infinate number of planets identical to earth and an infinate ammount of monkeyponys typing this right now!

If the universe is finite then its anybodys guess but I'd like to see what happens when you get to the end of it (que any number of hitchikers references)

[Lazlo]

Originally Posted by MonkeyPony

If the universe is infinate then there will be an infinite number of planets that support life. In fact there will be an infinate number of planets identical to earth and an infinate ammount of monkeyponys typing this right now!

If the universe is finite then its anybodys guess but I'd like to see what happens when you get to the end of it (que any number of hitchikers references)

The universe is definitely NOT infinite, at least not with current thinking. It has an age, and telescopes can now look "back in time" to nearly that age. Beyond that there can't logically be anything. So, essentially, you just use the picture above, extrapolate a little, and start counting. That gives you a figure around 100 billion, or something at the same order of magnitude.