the universe

[Aadam]

Some scientists say that when the universe gets to its maximum size, it will collapse in on itself (sort of like a Big Crunch). When the universe gets to the size of a pinhead, it will expand again, in a "Big Bounce". So really, there never was such thing as nothing; before this universe, was another universe and so on ie. they come in cycles.

But when did it start bouncing? It must have come from something, or started from something. It couldn't have been there and continue to be ad infinitum could it?

Without getting too deep, as things stand the only planet we have discovered which has life is the earth and it is absolutely oozing with it at every corner of the globe no matter how extreme the environment.

With the universe being so vast it is easy to speculate that life is always going to be an inevitable symptom of a habitable world.

However we can't say that for sure because we don't understand what life is, where it came from, how it came into existence or what its purpose is (or if it has one).

So really, according to current knowledge, despite knowing that are more planets in the universe than grains of sand on earth, the earth could well be the only planet in the entire universe that has life.

Not strickly true. We understand the basic building blocks for life to exist and the key elements required. However, the miracle that another planet has all of these in a sustainable atmosphere with the correct temperature is a long shot.

Given the size of the universe I think it's moronic to suggest that life outside of Earth doesn't exist (not saying that's your view point, just carrying on my ramblings) even if it is in the early forms of prokaryotes or eukaryotes.

 

[Silk]

I think its much more ludicrous to suggest that we are the only planet with life on it

It seems to me that, even if the conditions required for life to exist have to be just right, given the vastness of the universe there must be billions of other planets where those conditions are met. Some will undoubtedly harbour civilisations more advanced than us. But scientific opinion on this still seems to be divided. We just don't know for sure.

Plenty of life at the AMEX though!

 

[Lady Whistledown]

One thing I can never get my head round is what is beyond the universe? Whats it sitting in? Are there other universes and where does it all end? All a bit too much to cope with

EXACTLY. Similarly, atoms are made of protons and electrons and neutrons and stuff. But what are the protons, electrons & neutrons made of?

Mind blowing.

 

[simmo]

Have been watching the Wonders of the Universe and have been trying to get me head round how big it actually is. Apparently it would take 100 billion light years to travel from one side to the other whilst if that isn't complicated enough why then am I thinking how long would it take to drive across whilst keeping within the 70mph speed limit.

But what you are talking about is only the VISIBLE universe.

I have seen another program that has stated that the VISIBLE universe is only a fraction of the actual universe. i.e if you could travel instantaneously to the edge of our visible universe, you will see another group of galaxies etc not visible from earth at all, because there has not been enough time since the big bang for the light from these to reach us yet.

In that program a number of scientists gave there views as to how big this non visible universe was and one said it was 1X10 (to the power 43) 1 followed by 43 zero's larger than the visible universe.

One other thing, some scientists also believe we live in a multiverse, with many universe's. As this article hints at.

BBC News - theory suggested by microwave background

 

[Aadam]

But what you are talking about is only the VISIBLE universe.

I have seen another program that has stated that the VISIBLE universe is only a fraction of the actual universe. i.e if you could travel instantaneously to the edge of our visible universe, you will see another group of galaxies etc not visible from earth at all, because there has not been enough time since the big bang for the light from these to reach us yet.

In that program a number of scientists gave there views as to how big this non visible universe was and one said it was 1X10 (to the power 43) 1 followed by 43 zero's larger than the visible universe.

I just got a shiver reading this. Just goes to show, no matter how shit life seemed at times, it really is amazing. I'm just sad I won't be around long enough to understand it.

 

[Mr Burns]

despite knowing that are more planets in the universe than grains of sand on earth, .

Not true. Can't remember where I saw it, it might have been a QI question, but there are the same amount of Stars in the universe as a very long beach (10 niles if I remember)has grains of sand.

However they reackon the universe will end in 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 years. Give or take a few months.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

and how can the mere act of reproducing cause very specific and useful changes in a species?

I may be being unkind, but from that sentence you don't appear to understand Darwinian evolution. It does not produce "specific" and "useful" changes, there are many thousands of genetic mutations, the vast majority of which are not "useful" and don't remain. The ones that are "useful" (that term is a bit misleading) are kept within the gene pool. They are in no way specific, the ones that remain are advantageous to the organism, mostly in reproduction.

 

[Bold Seagull]

I may be being unkind, but from that sentence you don't appear to understand Darwinian evolution. It does not produce "specific" and "useful" changes, there are many thousands of genetic mutations, the vast majority of which are not "useful" and don't remain. The ones that are "useful" (that term is a bit misleading) are kept within the gene pool. They are in no way specific, the ones that remain are advantageous to the organism, mostly in reproduction.

I think MK may well be looking to lead this discussion down another path....

 

[Mr Burns]

A scene from the film Contact blew my mind.

In our Galaxy alone there are over 200 billion stars.

If one out of every million of them had planets

If one out of every million of them had life on the planets

If one out of every million of them had intelligent life, then there would be millions of civiliations out there.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

I think MK may well be looking to lead this discussion down another path....

He can. I'm not going to follow him.

 

[Mr Burns]

ANother mind blower, our nearest neighbouring star is 4.5 light years away. My understanding is you would have to travel 4.5 years at 56,000,000 mph to reach it. It is just one of 200 BILLION stars, and out galaxy is one of 200 billion galaxies.... cool or what

 

[MattBackHome]

I'm just sad I won't be around long enough to understand it.

You should be glad that you're here and have the sentience to even consider such questions. It's all totally magnificent, mind blowing shit and I reckon the pleasure gained from even considering it all outweighs the solution (whatever that means)

IMO, like.

 

[Silk]

Evolution is a well established theory that should really be considered fact in this day and age, but why does it occur? It clearly has the ability to problem solve any environmental problem by adaptation and development of new sense or physical traits - but why? Why does life evolve so ingeniously and efficiently. Why is survival and evolution programmed into life , and how can the mere act of reproducing cause very specific and useful changes in a species?

Explaining how life came into existence is one thing, how it gained the ability to problem solve and evolve is another.

It has been tried in laboratories to carbon copy a living cell for various reasons. Even though physically the copied cell is exactly the same as the living cell, it is not alive. So what exactly is life? It almost behaves like some sort of abstract energy or force...

Before we can even start to speculate that life "must" be elsewhere due the sheer size of the universe, it would probably be worth considering that maybe - just maybe - life is not just a random (or inevitable) consequence of "the right chemicals and conditions" that were found on early earth. There could well be more to it than that...

I suspect there is more to it. But I don't know what. Nothing to do with people being nailed to trees though.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

Darwinian evolution is incomplete, which is essentially why it is still considered a theory.

One of the biggest problems is that the "random mutations" have never been observed. If it were true, you would find countless useless physical traits in life forms that randomly mutated but have no specific purpose like you suggest - but we don't. There are various "evolutionary scars" such as the human tail and wisdom teeth - but they once had a purpose in previous existences.

How often do you see a lifeform reproduce, only to find it had randomly mutated an extra leg, or perhaps gills, or anything else - Never.

If a life form did develop a "random mutation", more often than not the life form would survive even if the mutation were a hindrance - and so we would be able observe these "random mutations" in every life form on the planet today if it were true.

It is clearly not a case of trial and error. Life evolves to survive in its environment by adaptation - this is very specific and can be seen amongst even the most recent of known life forms. You won't find a single trait in any species on the planet (or all time) that doesn't serve a purpose - doesn't sound very random to me.

Ok, it seems so you don't understand it at all. I'll leave it there, thank you very much. I'm out.

 

[jgmcdee]

But when did it start bouncing? It must have come from something, or started from something. It couldn't have been there and continue to be ad infinitum could it?

Imagine a perfect vacuum. Nothing there at all. Except...

...we can't measure anything totally accurately, and that includes nothing. So although it appears that there is nothing there it's only approximately nothing. In fact there is a continuous stream of particles dropping in and out of existence, and the amount of time they hang around for depends on their energy. So it's possible that the Universe is just a temporary perturbation around 0 and you don't have to worry about the whole "where did it come from?" question.

 

[jgmcdee]

Ok, it seems so you don't understand it at all. I'll leave it there, thank you very much. I'm out.

Have to back up TD here, MK doesn't have the faintest idea what he is on about and is terrifyingly wrong in what he wrote.

 

[kevo]

This site is great and gives you some idea of the sizes we are talking about:

Distances Between Planets- Put Into Scale

One astronimcal unit (93 million miles) is approximately the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

If you represent one au (93m miles) by one inch, then Pluto is 3 feet, 3 inches away (3.6 billion miles). This is just our solar system.

The nearest star (apart from the Sun) would be 4 miles away. According to that site, you'd need a piece of paper the size of the US to map (to the scale of one inch = 93m miles) just some of our 'local' stars.

Then consider there are apx 300 billion stars in the Milky Way, and that the Milky Way is just one of apx 170 billion galaxies in the universe...

To compare the earth to a grain of sand in the Sahara doesn't even come close.

 

[kevo]

...The one thing that is almost without doubt is that there MUST be other forms of life out there, considering there are are around 50,000 billion stars in the universe, many of which will have planetary systems. Some planets will be very similar to Earth, and will be the same distance from their stars to be able to support life forms. I wonder what they are like.........? And I wonder if any of them are far in advance of ours?

 

[Aadam]

You won't find a single trait in any species on the planet that doesn't serve a purpose - doesn't appear very random at all.

Why do men have nipples? Why do we have wisdom teeth?

 

[Silk]

One of the biggest problems is that the "random mutations" have never been observed. If it were true, you would find countless useless physical traits in life forms that randomly mutated but have no specific purpose like you suggest - but we don't. There are various "evolutionary scars" such as the human tail and wisdom teeth - but they once had a purpose in previous existences.

How often do you see a lifeform reproduce, only to find it had randomly mutated an extra leg, or perhaps gills, or anything else - Never.

If a life form did develop a "random mutation", more often than not the life form would survive even if the mutation were a hindrance - and so we would be able observe these "random mutations" in every life form on the planet today if it were true.

It is clearly not a case of trial and error. Life evolves to survive in its environment by adaptation - this is very specific and can be seen amongst even the most recent of known life forms. You won't find a single trait in any species on the planet that doesn't serve a purpose - doesn't appear very random at all.

You appear to be confusing genetic mutations with physical traits here. And no-one has EVER suggested that a complex physical system like GILLS just suddenly sprang into existence as the result of a mutation. You really are on the wrong road here.