How many grains of sand are in just one cubic foot?
How many grains of sand are in just one cubic foot?
Yeah france wrote:
"Absolutely zero idea" is not correct. You are suggesting that there may be a uniform distribution [0 life, billions]. Conditional probability. Probability of life on another planet and there are billions of other stars given that there is at least one planet with life (us). Given so many stars, there must be many planets at the right distance from their Star to support life. Given our existence, we know that the probability of life is >0. There may be no other life but I would say we have a good idea that there is other life.
As has been explained far too many times to recount, the fact of our existence says absolutely nothing about the probability of intelligent life having arisen elsewhere in the universe. Arguments to the contrary always rely upon subjective nonsense such as "given so many stars..." and appeal to large numbers.
The problem is, of course, determining that a number is "large" is entirely subjective. Is 10^23 a large number of stars? Well, it is if you think that intelligent life will arise in one of every 10^10. On the other hand, it is very small indeed if you think that life will arise in one out of every 10^100. Choosing between the 10^10 and the 10^100 scenario is nothing more than a wild assed guess at this time, given the current state of our understanding. This will likely not always be the case but it most certainly is today.
So, sorry, but indeed we have absolutely zero idea.
Uhhhhh wrote:
How many grains of sand are in just one cubic foot?
One does not need to know the answer to recognize that the answer is readily attainable for one so disposed.
Who is Ton Cruise?
Ton Cruise wrote:
Who is Ton Cruise?
Apparently you are.
Identity issues?
Chipotler wrote:
Yeah we really do have no idea at this stage, but I bet we will have a much better idea in 50 years. .
We landed on the moon over 40 years ago and have done little since. Fifty years from now space exploration will probably be completely dead.
Uhhhhh wrote:
How many grains of sand are in just one cubic foot?
1,728 times the number in just one cubic inch
there's at least 8,560 stars in the universe -- that's a crazy amount
But how many grains of sand can be held in a hand or a hat?
cheesy freshman wrote:
The light from the stars is merely the reflection of the earth's sand in your eyes. Until I saw your eyes I truly did not understand the beauty of the universe. Wanna get out of here?
/thread
Logical Man wrote:
As has been explained far too many times to recount, the fact of our existence says absolutely nothing about the probability of intelligent life having arisen elsewhere in the universe. Arguments to the contrary always rely upon subjective nonsense such as "given so many stars..." and appeal to large numbers.
The problem is, of course, determining that a number is "large" is entirely subjective. Is 10^23 a large number of stars? Well, it is if you think that intelligent life will arise in one of every 10^10. On the other hand, it is very small indeed if you think that life will arise in one out of every 10^100. Choosing between the 10^10 and the 10^100 scenario is nothing more than a wild assed guess at this time, given the current state of our understanding. This will likely not always be the case but it most certainly is today.
So, sorry, but indeed we have absolutely zero idea.
I'm with you, LM.
"I'm often asked the question, 'Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelligence?' I give the standard arguments -- there are a lot of places out there, and use the word *billions*, and so on. And then I say it would be astonishing to me if there weren't extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as yet no compelling evidence for it. And then I'm asked, 'Yeah, but what do you really think?' I say, 'I just told you what I really think.' 'Yeah, but what's your gut feeling?' But I try not to think with my gut. Really, it's okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in. - Carl Sagan
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A separate question, even if there *be* other intelligent life, is whether mankind would happen to encounter it and ever deal with it directly. Given that most mammalian species on our planet don't seem to last very many millions of years, and that the distances between our solar system and any other stars that might harbor life are, well, astronomical--I think the odds are that humans will never encounter an intelligent extraterrestrial species. Possible? Maybe, but it seems unlikely.
I'm just guessing, though.
There may be an infinite number of stars and planets.
But God only chose to put life on one of them.
End of story
tiger tiger burning bright wrote:
Logical Man wrote:As has been explained far too many times to recount, the fact of our existence says absolutely nothing about the probability of intelligent life having arisen elsewhere in the universe. Arguments to the contrary always rely upon subjective nonsense such as "given so many stars..." and appeal to large numbers.
The problem is, of course, determining that a number is "large" is entirely subjective. Is 10^23 a large number of stars? Well, it is if you think that intelligent life will arise in one of every 10^10. On the other hand, it is very small indeed if you think that life will arise in one out of every 10^100. Choosing between the 10^10 and the 10^100 scenario is nothing more than a wild assed guess at this time, given the current state of our understanding. This will likely not always be the case but it most certainly is today.
So, sorry, but indeed we have absolutely zero idea.
I'm with you, LM.
"I'm often asked the question, 'Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelligence?' I give the standard arguments -- there are a lot of places out there, and use the word *billions*, and so on. And then I say it would be astonishing to me if there weren't extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as yet no compelling evidence for it. And then I'm asked, 'Yeah, but what do you really think?' I say, 'I just told you what I really think.' 'Yeah, but what's your gut feeling?' But I try not to think with my gut. Really, it's okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in. - Carl Sagan
_________________________________________________
A separate question, even if there *be* other intelligent life, is whether mankind would happen to encounter it and ever deal with it directly. Given that most mammalian species on our planet don't seem to last very many millions of years, and that the distances between our solar system and any other stars that might harbor life are, well, astronomical--I think the odds are that humans will never encounter an intelligent extraterrestrial species. Possible? Maybe, but it seems unlikely.
I'm just guessing, though.
And if we did encounter alien life (which we won't), we'd probably be able to communicate with them about as well as we currently communicate with earwigs, bats, slugs and bacteria.
Holy Moses wrote:
There may be an infinite number of stars and planets.
But God only chose to put life on one of them.
End of story
1) Outstanding troll post: great productivity with an equally great economy of words. Well played, sir/ma'am: 6/10.
2) "But God only chose to put life on one of them." Assuming a "God," this is actually entirely plausible. So life on all the *other* planets (that have it) would have simply arisen on its own--also completely plausible.
We have information at hand outside of just making up numbers and calling them large.
We can calculate the probability of a planetary object being at a distance from a star supportive of life additionally necessary solar output and planetary mass. We also know element distribution and know that there is water outside of Earth's orbit.
In addition to quantity of stars, elemental information, existence of water, life could have sprung forward in another time period, ex. 3 billions years after the Inflationary Epoch.
"Absolutely zero idea" means that we have no information whatsoever. It is possible that life does or has existed elsewhere. I believe probable.
Yeah france wrote:
We have information at hand outside of just making up numbers and calling them large.
We can calculate the probability of a planetary object being at a distance from a star supportive of life additionally necessary solar output and planetary mass. We also know element distribution and know that there is water outside of Earth's orbit.
In addition to quantity of stars, elemental information, existence of water, life could have sprung forward in another time period, ex. 3 billions years after the Inflationary Epoch.
"Absolutely zero idea" means that we have no information whatsoever. It is possible that life does or has existed elsewhere. I believe probable.
OK. Show me your calculations that justify the belief that any probability between zero and one is more justifiable than any other.
1) fun fact: at an infinite number of repetitions, the probability of an event occuring must be one or zero.
2) Wikipedia says that sand ranges from. 0625 to 2mm in size. Let's say the average sand grain is 0.5 mm in size and spherical. The most densely you can randomly pack spheres is in such a way that 64% of the volume is occupied. A cubic foot is about 28 million cubic mm. Each sand grain has a volume of 0.0654 mm so a cubic foot of sand has about 428 million grains of sand.
Yeah france wrote:
We have information at hand outside of just making up numbers and calling them large.
We can calculate the probability of a planetary object being at a distance from a star supportive of life additionally necessary solar output and planetary mass. We also know element distribution and know that there is water outside of Earth's orbit.
In addition to quantity of stars, elemental information, existence of water, life could have sprung forward in another time period, ex. 3 billions years after the Inflationary Epoch.
"Absolutely zero idea" means that we have no information whatsoever. It is possible that life does or has existed elsewhere. I believe probable.
Actually, "absolutely zero idea" most definitely does NOT mean we have no information whatsoever.
Consider the following simple case to demonstrate the flaw in your logic. Consider the probability that BOTH event A and event B will occur. We are given that the probability that event A will occur is 1. We are also given that the probability that event B will occur is somewhere between zero and one, inclusive but we have no other information about this probability.
So, we certainly have some information. In fact we have perfect information regarding event A. So that is something. But we have absolutely no idea if both A and B will occur since we have absolutely no idea if B will occur.
That which was claimed has now been demonstrated.
I realize that even the simplest of mathematics can be tricky for some so there is no shame in your confusion.
Thread intermission interlude #1:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk
Thread intermission interlude #2:
Night John Boy wrote:
Thread intermission interlude #1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84PoeynkThread intermission interlude #2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc
Brilliant. Thanks so much for the links!