For all those that don’t know, some time ago a planet was found in the sweet spot. A planet that could possible hold life. It was named Gliese 581D. Everyone got excited, everyone jumped up and down, and then it faded into the back of the internet.

Some time later Nasa reportedly found 55 potential planets in the habitable zone and 5 really really good candidates. Suffice to say, there’s likely a bunch of earth’s out there.

So, was Dvice just milking it when it reported that this one is confirmed to be habitable? Is it true?

In a phrase, how they hell do they know? A computer model. The same bad guys that are going to take over the world in fifty years want us to get on a space ship and travel 20 light years away, find nothing, and come back.

All kidding aside, basically some guys in France ran some computer models and predicted that, yes indeed, Gliese 581d is Habitable. They didn’t look at it, they didn’t analyze the atmosphere, they didn’t do any super special test. They just asked a computer.

Sorry, I don’t think that counts. The only way to really confirm if the planet is habitable is to look at the planet, get some information on atmosphere, etc. How exactly can they tell it has liquid water at all? The model said so? Computer models really only as good as the people that programed them.

My vote is, Dvice jumped the penguin, landed on the next penguin, and impaled their asses on a nice pointy beak. I really hope it hurt Dvice, I really do.

First, a few facts. In the Milky Way galaxy there are around 250 billion stars. The Fermi paradox states that if you do some neat math, 1 in 1 million stars that are rocky worlds, 1 in 1 million of those, etc etc, several times over, there would have to be thousands of intelligent species in the universe. The big question is, where are they all. Current astronomical observations, with newer and newer equipment, tend to suggest that rocky worlds in the habitable zone of solar systems are very very common. We havent’ found any, but what we have found are gas giants that are, according to current solar system development theory, supposed to be very common. And we are finding them every where we look. So if we are finding rare planets, it stands to reason that we’ll be finding a ton of the not so rare kind.

Ok, on to the reasons why we haven’t heard from anyone up there.

The first possibility, we are the first creatures to evolve an develop the technological ability to investigate the universe. We are the first to be able to use a telescope basically. The universe is around 14 billion years old, give or take a few. The earth is around 4 billion years old, give or take a few. We are not new to the universe. I tend to agree with the article here actually. Earth doesn’t seem to be particularly different or unique. We are seem to be randomly thrown into the timescale of the universe. For this to be true, intelligent life capable of making themselves known in the universe must be VERY VERY rare.

The second possibility, there are many species in the universe but they are undetectable to us. This one I have an issue with. The article seems to say that this is not a very likely possibility. The reason it states is why would all advanced civilizations choose to not be visible or choose to advance in such a way as to make them invisible. Well, here’s the issue. Even if there were hundreds of thousands of civilizations in the Milky Way, there are 250 BILLION stars up there! We haven’t looked at every single star yet. We haven’t analyzed every single signal yet. We are really only looking and analyzing radio waves. We sure can’t see sky scrapes out there just yet, though it would be cool one day if we could.  We have only been around broadcasting radio waves for less than 100 years. We could very well have looked at a star recently that is not broadcasting any signals now, but will be in 50 years when they invent radio technology. We actually have had a “WOW” signal once, detected by SETI decades ago. We were not able to detect it again, it was in an empty area of space. A spaceship perhaps? Who knows. The point here is, just because there may be thousands of technologically advanced races up there, doesn’t mean they are all at the same level of technology as we are. They could be eons ahead of us or they could be building their pyramids. In fact, given the amount of stars, and all other factors, it’s hard to believe another race is at the same level as us. Just remember Archimedes. Just a few slick thinking people that would have seen his steam engine, would have turned it into an industrial revolution and we would be two thousand years more technically advanced than we are now.

Their third possibility is there is a cosmic road block and all species eventually die out. Not much you can say on this one. We are the first species we know about to get as far as we have. The next 50 years may say hydrogen reactors in every car and garage bio geneticists that can whip you up a custom made virus in no time. So sure, we may all blow our selves up, but it stands to reason using the same logic as the Fermi paradox that one or two races would get by this “cosmic roadblock” and would likly be actively looking for others to help them get through it. What else would that have to do?

So that’s their logic. I mostly disagree with number 2. Number 3 is their catch all wild card. Number 1 is just silly.

My fourth possibility. There are thousands of aliens up there, we are in a corner of the universe where they have a ‘look don’t contact’ agenda. It would explain the thousands of reputed sightings some from very credible sources. Basically, they know about us, won’t let us see them and are already here waiting for us to get warp speed so Picard can beam into Obama’s oval office and talk to him about a federation.

And the final possibility? It’s the obvious one of course, there really is a God.

The link to the original article is below.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/10/could-a-18-gigayear-technology-gap-exist-a-galaxy-classic.html

It’s long known that philosophers have been debating this topic for many years. Part of this debate is the concept of free will, do we have it or not. I am not going into the philosophical arguments of determinism. That has been widely covered by philosophers and websites of both eastern and western traditions. What I find to be most curious is the astronomical argument in favor of it.

Now, I may be speaking a bit out of school here. I’m not astronomer or philosopher. And whereas the implications of one argument having anything to do with the other are great, I am making no assertions that the two disciplines are in anyway arguing for or against the other’s position.

That said, this is what the astronomers are talking about. It all goes back to the double-slit experiment and a man named John Archibald Wheeler. In a nut shell, after a photon of light passes through a double split, a researcher can change how the particle was detected. You really can’t boil down a scientific theory to one sentence and have it hold water, for an in-depth write up of it look here.

What this has to do with determinism is this. I recently read another article, which I have been desperately trying to find again on the Internet, where two scientists propose a test of this proposition. Again, this is really a growth from an idea from Wheeler. A double slit experiment on an astronomical scale.  Basically, take two very large telescopes and conduct this experiment with light emitted from another star.

The basic argument here is the path of the particle to the telescope is already determined when the light left the star in the first place. It already knew which telescope was going to detect it. It was determined.

Now, I’m sure I’ve gotten some of the above points incorrect. I’m no scientist. I am sure of the end result of the experiments, I am not sure of the exact nature of the experiments. The end result is, if true, the workings of the universe were all determined to occur in a very set way.

What does this mean? In a nut shell, it means the universe is pre-determined to act out it’s life from start to finish. What’s astounding to me is that this may very well be a scientifically provable position. What would the implications of that be to religion and our place in the universe? All sorts of questions ranging from Free Will to Atheism come under fire.

I am waiting on bated breath to see what may come of such experiments. Whether or not this turns out to be true could radically redefine our understanding of the world. The “final theory” or theory of everything that scientists have long been seeking, many think that string theory is a candidate, may one day show that determinism is part of our universe.

I am often reminded of one my favorite quotes from Peter O’Toole in a 1985 movie called Creator where he said, “it’s said that once science peers over the great mountain of mystery, it will find religion has been sitting there all along”. I don’t know if that will be true, and I’m not a religious person, but it’s something to think about.

Read about determinism in philosophy here: http://www.mb-soft.com/believe/text/determin.htm
Read about determinism in science here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/