Proof aliens exist?

In a book im reading entitled "A short history of nearly everything" it touches upon an equasion developed by a professor named Frank Drake. His equasion works with the average distance between stars, which is 20 million million miles.

"If you divide the number of stars in a selected portion of the universe by the number of stars that are likely to have planetary systems; divide that number by the number of planetary systems that could theoretically support life; divide that by the number on which life, having arisen, advances to a state of intelligence; and so on. With an average of 100 - 400 billion stars in a galaxy, the number shrinks colossally, but eventually runs into the millions....with millions of civilizations the average distance between any of these two civilizations is reckoned to be at least two hundred light-years." Exert from book

I was wondering what your guys take on this is? Is this good evidence or should it just be thrown out?

*ducks from possible flaming*

Originally posted by Nephilim__
In a book im reading entitled "A short history of nearly everything" it touches upon an equasion developed by a professor named Frank Drake. His equasion works with the average distance between stars, which is 20 million million miles.

"If you divide the number of stars in a selected portion of the universe by the number of stars that are likely to have planetary systems; divide that number by the number of planetary systems that could theoretically support life; divide that by the number on which life, having arisen, advances to a state of intelligence; and so on. With an average of 100 - 400 billion stars in a galaxy, the number shrinks colossally, but eventually runs into the millions....with millions of civilizations the average distance between any of these two civilizations is reckoned to be at least two hundred light-years." Exert from book

I was wondering what your guys take on this is? Is this good evidence or should it just be thrown out?

*ducks from possible flaming*

Kind of lame, he was on the right track and then fell off toward the middle.

i personally believe that 'aliens' must exist. there are too many stars, which have the possiblility of planets going round them, like that excerpt says, not to be anymore forms of life

what makes us so special anyway as to be the only living thing in the whole universe?

...the distance is reckoned to be at least 200 light years. It means for a start that even if these beings know we are here and are somehow able to see us in thier telescopes, they;re watching light that left Earth 200 years ago. So they're not seeing you and me. They're watching the French Revolution and Thomas Jefferson and people in silk stockings and powdered wigs... Also from the book

i guess that its the same thing as you can still see a start even if its already died.... its light is still reaching us...wierd to think about though

Originally posted by EvilSpallacus
i personally believe that 'aliens' must exist. there are too many stars, which have the possiblility of planets going round them, like that excerpt says, not to be anymore forms of life
what makes us so special anyway as to be the only living thing in the whole universe?

I'm with him

Cheers,
Grey Pilgrim

Examples of that kind of theory are numerous. Carl Sagan also estimated it in some way. I don't have his numbers right here and now, but his conclusions about life are the same: everywhere, obviously. At some point though, he expressed his doubts about the facts that some of them are visiting us, even if he stated that it was very likely in the '60's.

Mathematically, if indeed the universe is infinite, considering that the probability that life evolves is not 0 (WE are the proof), it must exist on a non negligible level. A bit further away, it must be everywhere, even sparsely distributed, since the universe is infinite.

I don't think it is infinite, but it would be a shame to a lot of sciences to deny existence of life elsewhere. Therefore, we nearly have a proof. It is there, somewhere.

Originally posted by Nephilim__
"...divide that number by the number of planetary systems that could theoretically support life;

There's the rub, it's difficult to say that if a star has a planet, what are the chances of it having life?

Look at the sun, worked out to 1 in 9 (which is good for us).

But *all* sorts of things need to be in place for intelligent life to take form, the temperature has to be constant, you can't have fakked up orbits such that it's freezing half the year and boiling the next.

So the equation is neat but it's hard to guess the right values to plug in....

According to recent numbers, we have so far discovered 120 (about) planets orbiting stars, and 1 planet not orbiting anything that we know of... We only started discovering planets a mere 10 years ago. At the same rate, when I'm 80 we'll be close to 1000 planets. With already a few planets similar to earth, around similar stars, at that time we might just have 50 earth twins...

Visit www.obspm.fr... or www.astro.uiuc.edu... for more info.

Think about what will happen in a million years that we don't know of yet. The human as an intelligent species is a very young being.

How many years did it take for dinosaurs to be born and then die?

Originally posted by Nephilim__
I was wondering what your guys take on this is? Is this good evidence or should it just be thrown out?

That sounds good to me. If it is established that there is a possibility of intelligent life existing elsewhere in the universe, another good question is what would this life exist as? Would it exist as the traditional flesh and bone alien? Or, what this intelligent life form be beyond our own understanding?

Originally posted by senshido

Originally posted by Nephilim__
"...divide that number by the number of planetary systems that could theoretically support life;

There's the rub, it's difficult to say that if a star has a planet, what are the chances of it having life?

Look at the sun, worked out to 1 in 9 (which is good for us).

But *all* sorts of things need to be in place for intelligent life to take form, the temperature has to be constant, you can't have fakked up orbits such that it's freezing half the year and boiling the next.

So the equation is neat but it's hard to guess the right values to plug in....

I totally agree with you on that, but even just thinking about it... with 200 million million miles on average between each star the odds are that somewhere there is life. Also with our constantly expanding universe there could be new possibilities being formed right now?

Another theory: May have been posted already, but could these beings maybe not be from a different planet, but from a different universe all together? It has been speculated that if you travel far enouph into an electron, it contains a universe of its own. And within that universe is another universe and so on... Maybe they found technology to "climb" into our universe??

I certainly don't believe we are alone. The probability is too great, infinite possibilities exist for life elsewhere, if anyone seriously believes that there isn't the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, then their ego has blinded them.

[Edited on 22-4-2004 by Nephilim__]

Originally posted by senshido

Originally posted by Nephilim__
"...divide that number by the number of planetary systems that could theoretically support life;

There's the rub, it's difficult to say that if a star has a planet, what are the chances of it having life?

Look at the sun, worked out to 1 in 9 (which is good for us).

But *all* sorts of things need to be in place for intelligent life to take form, the temperature has to be constant, you can't have fakked up orbits such that it's freezing half the year and boiling the next.

So the equation is neat but it's hard to guess the right values to plug in....

Well, only for life as WE know it.

IN fact, even some life we do know lives in extremely harsh environs, completely alien to us! And that is just on our own planet.

Just because We would find it impossible to survive on most other planets (maybe all other planets) doesnt mean that other intelligent life forms cant evolve there, we only live in the habitable zone because it is the zone our planet is in, another planet may be much closer or further away from the sun and consider that distance to be the "habitable zone".

For all we know, intelligent life forms may live on stars, they may live on gas giants, there may be an intelligent race living on Sol for all we know! Do not expect them to look even vaguely similar to us or the Holywood Graysm though.

Originally posted by triplesod

Just because We would find it impossible to survive on most other planets (maybe all other planets) doesnt mean that other intelligent life forms cant evolve there, we only live in the habitable zone because it is the zone our planet is in, another planet may be much closer or further away from the sun and consider that distance to be the "habitable zone".

Agreed. We can only compare against what we currently understand.
Who knows what is out there?

This site has some things that could be considered proff, just who is asking and who is willing to accept truth: http//:www.s8int.com/giants1html. Let me know what you think.

Originally posted by jhova
This site has some things that could be considered proff, just who is asking and who is willing to accept truth: http//:www.s8int.com/giants1html. Let me know what you think.

Thanks for the link.

I looked around. Definitely some interesting points. But the jury is still out for me.

[Edited on 24-4-2004 by Facefirst]

Originally posted by jhova
This site has some things that could be considered proff, just who is asking and who is willing to accept truth: http//:www.s8int.com/giants1html. Let me know what you think.

I think it doesn't really apply to this topic.

Here's a formula created for a rough estimate of OIL that "could be" out there.

www.setileague.org...

Ufo Sighting found at www.rense.com...

Originally posted by Cardu
Ufo Sighting found at www.rense.com...

My kid has that toy. We painted it black and in the right lighting mine probably looks a bit more authentic.

rough estimate and could be indeed. If if was a fifth, we would all be drunk!