Ongoing important Science news thread

[underGRADFlame]

[Fuzz]

And you'd be wrong there, too since nothing in my statement reflects that. Anyway, not worth discussing this anymore.

[Kybosh]

Originally Posted by peter12

I'm not entirely sure we should be looking for extraterrestrial life. What if they end up being like us?

OOOooooOOOOoooOOOOOOHHhhhh

[OutOfTheCube]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

Okay, I'll tell you you don't understand probability instead.

But the 0.014 is not the 'probability of civilizations being in the milky way galaxy', it's the 'total number of civilizations in the milky way galaxy'. It is factually (at least) 1 -- so the pessimistic numbers must be incorrect.

[GreatWhiteEbola]

Originally Posted by polak

I'm going to see if I can convince my friends to go for a tour of the LHC. It says they do them. Turns out I'll be 45 minutes away from it this summer so I hope I can check it out.

I just returned from the tour of the LHC/ CERN/ Atlas control Room...some tips; they have 12 spots open for tour group for any time allotted, these spots open 14 days prior to the scheduled tour. I wasn't able to get in this group despite my due diligence. They open up 12 more spots for a specific tour time 3 days prior to the tour. I was able to get the one open spot, despite again diligently monitoring the booking page. I was able to get my fiance into the group despite having only one spot available, as I use a wheelchair and she was my attendant...

TL;DR It was pure luck that I got a open tour spot for CERN...

[2Stonedbirds]

The idea of extraterrestrial life is fascinating, and I'm all for exploring space, but we don't even know what is in our oceans. Would love to see the same amount of resources and capital being put into exploring our waters.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube

But the 0.014 is not the 'probability of civilizations being in the milky way galaxy', it's the 'total number of civilizations in the milky way galaxy'. It is factually (at least) 1 -- so the pessimistic numbers must be incorrect.

Except it's all based on probability, that's what I'm saying. It's not stated as a probability, but it certainly implies one, especially since the entire equation is based on a the probabilities of various outcomes.
I know what the table says, but what it actually means a little different.

That 0.014 means that based on the inputs and the number of stars in our galaxy, that the low end implies that only 1 in 71 galaxies our size should have a civilization. The fact that we are here doesn't mean that the the numbers are wrong, means that the bookends are that we are one of 140,000 civilizations in our galaxy, or our galaxy was the 1/71 where a civilization popped up.

These bounds are that on the low end there will be 1 civilization for every 7.1 trillion stars, or 140,000 for every 100 billion.


They've arbitrarily picked a region of space of ~100 billion stars and applied probabilities to it to come up with the 0.014-140,000 boundaries.

The fact that we are here doesn't change the fact that it's possible that on the low end we are the only civilization in the nearest 71 galaxies.
Sure those numbers could be wrong, but we can't be sure of that based on the fact that we are here.

To look at it another way, you said that the low end must be wrong, which is really implying that the inputs are wrong. That is similar to telling someone who has won the lottery that their chance was 100% because they won it. The fact that an event happened doesn't change the probability that it WAS GOING to happen.

Hell even if the low end of those numbers is correct it's possible that there are a ton of civilizations in the Milky Way, or if the high numbers are correct that we are still the only ones around because sometimes unlikely things happen, especially in something the size of the universe.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by 2Stonedbirds

The idea of extraterrestrial life is fascinating, and I'm all for exploring space, but we don't even know what is in our oceans. Would love to see the same amount of resources and capital being put into exploring our waters.

We don't know every species of ocean life but we are fairly sure what type of life is down there, because of satellites we now have mapped every square km of the worlds ocean floors.

Space is more exciting IMO.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

Except it's all based on probability, that's what I'm saying. It's not stated as a probability, but it certainly implies one, especially since the entire equation is based on a the probabilities of various outcomes.
I know what the table says, but what it actually means a little different.

That 0.014 means that based on the inputs and the number of stars in our galaxy, that the low end implies that only 1 in 71 galaxies our size should have a civilization. The fact that we are here doesn't mean that the the numbers are wrong, means that the bookends are that we are one of 140,000 civilizations in our galaxy, or our galaxy was the 1/71 where a civilization popped up.

These bounds are that on the low end there will be 1 civilization for every 7.1 trillion stars, or 140,000 for every 100 billion.


They've arbitrarily picked a region of space and applied probabilities to it to come up with the 0.014-140,000 boundaries.

The fact that we are here doesn't change the fact that it's possible that on the low end we are the only civilization in the nearest 71 galaxies.
Sure those numbers could be wrong, but we can't be sure of that based on the fact that we are here.

Yo must be a teacher's worst nightmare. "I know what the words say, but what they are implying is different!" Yes, we all get it. We know how probability works.

They also didn't arbitrarily pick, they very clearly, without ambiguity say "total number of civilizations in the Milky Way right now = 0.014" as the low probability. Not a galaxy similar to the Milky Way, not 1 billion years ago. Right now.

Obviously the chart is wrong, in that the number should be 1, or the text should say "a Galaxy similar to the Milky Way" or probably most accurately, "probability of a technologically advanced civilization in a Galaxy similar to the Milky Way existing right now". But it doesn't, so I'm right.

[2Stonedbirds]

Originally Posted by T@T

We don't know every species of ocean life but we are fairly sure what type of life is down there, because of satellites we now have mapped every square km of the worlds ocean floors.

Space is more exciting IMO.

Space IS much more exciting, I just question if the answers we are looking for above us may lay beneath us.

We may think we have a pretty good idea of what's down there, but have explored less than 5% of the planets waters. We really have no clue.

I'm not trying to say one is more important than the other, or that humanity cannot do both, but as you say, exploring space is a much more enticing objective.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by T@T

We don't know every species of ocean life but we are fairly sure what type of life is down there, because of satellites we now have mapped every square km of the worlds ocean floors.

Space is more exciting IMO.

Not true.

Many times, the satellite maps cannot display volcanic craters, underwater channels or shipwrecks. That is why we map. Only about 5% of the world’s seafloor has been mapped in some detail. Since the ocean occupies roughly 70% of the Earth’s surface, this leaves approximately 65% of the Earth (excluding dry land) unexplored. That is quite a lot of Earth left to explore!

http://schmidtocean.org/cruise-log-p...ady-mapped-it/

Sea floor is not really mapped by satellites, it's mapped by ships passing over taking soundings. You can see what is mapped here:

http://maps.ngdc.noaa.gov/viewers/geophysics/

Zoom in, you will see it is a very narrow line for each track, and the mapping reflects that.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Yo must be a teacher's worst nightmare. "I know what the words say, but what they are implying is different!" Yes, we all get it. We know how probability works.

They also didn't arbitrarily pick, they very clearly, without ambiguity say "total number of civilizations in the Milky Way right now = 0.014" as the low probability. Not a galaxy similar to the Milky Way, not 1 billion years ago. Right now.

Obviously the chart is wrong, in that the number should be 1, or the text should say "a Galaxy similar to the Milky Way" or probably most accurately, "probability of a technologically advanced civilization in a Galaxy similar to the Milky Way existing right now". But it doesn't, so I'm right.

Well you clearly don't know what arbitrary means, or how probability works, so no, you are not right.

[Fuzz]

I was right the first time, it is like talking to a brick wall.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Well, you've said you're right twice now without any further explanation, I guess I'll have to concede this one.

[Fuzz]

What do you mean without any further explanation? Can you read? Try reading. It's all right there in my posts.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Yeah, saying, "Nope, we are here, so it's 1, I'm right, and I don't need to think about the underlying meaning of the numbers that are being presented" is a pretty strong argument. Congrats you win!

[Fuzz]

Nevermind, not worth the headache.

[Thor]

Well speaking of oceans, the word that NASA plans to explore Europa's ocean will be extremely exciting. I think this will be the first time we find life outside of our world, even if its just bacterial scale, something is going to be there, hopefully lol.

https://www.nasa.gov/europa

[polak]

Originally Posted by Thor

Well speaking of oceans, the word that NASA plans to explore Europa's ocean will be extremely exciting. I think this will be the first time we find life outside of our world, even if its just bacterial scale, something is going to be there, hopefully lol.

https://www.nasa.gov/europa

I don't think a probe is in the cards though.

[troutman]

“All these worlds are yours, except Europa.
Attempt no landing there.
Use them together. Use them in peace.”