Posted on 08/18/2010 11:43:50 AM PDT by LibWhacker
No. Let's all hide.
INDEED.
THX THX.
Remember, for someone that advanced -- billions of years more advanced than us -- we cannot conceive of their capabilities.
I believe the speed of light is the speed limit in our universe, just as Einstein said it was. But already, never mind billions of years from now, physicists are proposing ways around it.
Maybe they could travel here through the multiverse, or tunnel their way through a wormhole, or inflate a bubble of space around their ship and arrive here in a fraction of a second.
I've been meaning to read "The Killing Star." Ever read it? Heard it's pretty good. It's about the Earth getting clobbered by a non-explosive missle traveling at 99.99% the speed of light (think Rods of God on steroids) lobbed at us by a hostile alien civilization. The kinetic energy was so great that it sterilizes, or nearly sterilizes, the planet.
“but the timescales of civilizations are miniscule”
The time scales of our civilizations have been miniscule, at least so far. But how can we know how long non-terrestrial civilizations, if there are any, last?
Freegards
I’ve heard that explanation and have always had a little trouble believing that not one truly advanced intelligent civilization had enough foresight to anticipate and avoid its own destruction.
I’m hoping the unbelievably long chain of improbable events that led to the successful evolution of man is itself so improbable that not one in a billion galaxies has a civilization as advanced as ours. That ought to put any super-advanced ones far, far away from us.
Not sure the “they” you are referring to, the atheists or the Christians. Back then it was the Christians who kept education alive and universities flourishing. Without them there would have been no halls of higher learning. Back then education and God weren’t mutually exclusive.
They already know about us and have been here for years.
But that was my point. In the 500 or so million years of life on Earth, there have been anywhere from 5 to 20 extinction events. And we live in a very dull part of the galaxy, so most of our events are local—objects whose origins are within our solar system got us.
Yet sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. That is, any life form will likely have to deal with such extinctions. Add to that good old fashioned natural selection, which means that a form of life either finds a “perfect niche” and stops evolving, or it evolves itself out of business, and is replaced by something better, depending on what better means for their circumstances, and it is highly unlikely that *any* form of life will be around for a billion years.
And, even though we might imagine faster than light travel, so far there has been not the slightest hint that such a thing is possible. Not at the macro or quantum scale.
And, I might add, that even if Earth screams its fool head off, anything we might do is still restricted by the speed of light. So if there are aliens out there, they have no idea that we exist.
About 51,500 results (0.27 seconds)
“Send More Chuck Berry.”
Anyone ping you yet?
This is old stale territory anyway. The Pope has already apologized for these sins. The mistake is fully recognized by the Church as having been a mistake and geniuses like Hawking can wonder about, and worry about, possible calamities without snide ******** in the Church questioning his faith. And us real Christians are very grateful for it.
These people say we will be graduating soon.
http://www.robertreckmeyer.com/light-energy-dna-activation.html
Yes.
but thanks much.
Your welcome, Quix.
We're like paramecia here who are referring back to our very limited understanding of the laws of physics and finally deciding that, no, there is NOTHING, NO WEAPON AT ALL, that humans could possibly have that they could use against us.
I'm not as confident as you are that creatures billions of years more advanced than us would have no way of getting to us and destroying us if they so desired.
As far as no species (on earth) ever lasting a billion years, that rule of thumb may not apply to advanced species that have engineered themselves into some highly optimized form and spread out over vast regions of space and time.
WELL PUT, IMHO.
THX.
Too late.
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