On October 15, 1951, CBS first broadcasted a new show across the world. I Love Lucy would go on to be received by millions of homes across the globe. Back then, television transmission was done via radio waves. Broadcast stations would emit the low-energy EM wave over a speicified region, and it was the responsibility of the TV-antennae to pick up the signal. Any signal not received was either absorbed by the ground, or reflected by it into space.
It passed the Moon in 1.5 seconds, and zoomed past Jupiter in only an hour. 57 years after the initial broadcast, and the premiere episode of the then soon-to-be hit show is 200,000,000,000,000 (200 trillion) miles from Earth. The signal, traveling at the speed of light, speeds through the universe much quicker than the Voyager of course, so let’s hope that aliens have a sense of humor.
We’ve since refined television with the rise of cable and satellite TV, not to mention internet streaming. Television signals are no longer haphazardly bounce around the atmosphere; rather, they are contained within cables and fibers. Though such an event like the accidental broadcast of a comedy show out to space likely won’t happen again, we Earthlings can take solace in the fact that the our first message to an alien race will be I Love Lucy.
The Fermi Paradox. A now commonly known claim made by Enrico Fermi (famous physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project A.K.A. the first nuclear bombs) while he was having lunch with a few colleagues. While the Fermi Paradox is less of a paradox and more of an argument (if you want more proof, The Space Perspective proves this is not a paradox using the Drake Equation), it does make an interesting postulate as to why we have not yet observed any signals or messages from alien civilizations.
Enrico Fermi, one of the lead scientists on the Manhattan Project and winner of the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for the creation of the first nuclear fission reaction. Sourced from Atomic Heritage Foundation
While many theories float around the internet about the possible answers or reasons why Fermi’s postulations are correct, one comes from an individual many look to as the face of space travel and humanity itself: Elon Musk.
Elon Musk himself is not a doctor of physics nor a philosopher. In fact, professionally he has two bachelor’s degrees in Physics and Business, respectively. But, Elon Musk has many a time gone on television and other outlets to express his ideas and allow the world to know exactly what he thinks. Whether the world would have listened just as intently if he had finished his PhD program versus becoming the serial-entrepreneur he is today is up to interpretation. Anyway, my short aside about Musk’s and society’s focus on celebrities ends in this paragraph.
To sum up the point, Elon Musk theorizes that we are most likely living in a simulation. This fact alone automatically brings up the idea of robots and automated society, but the reality of it is that as humans we make our own simulations every day in a variety of aspects. Look at laboratory experiments, where rats are subject to an environment that is supposed to simulate a certain condition for the sake of academic endeavor. Look at car manufacturers who originally test their cars on closed-course tracks in order to test for a variety of different malfunctions and conditions which may affect their product. Simulations are prevalent in human life and are not just encoded in our binary devices.
A twitter post by Elon Musk about the interview where he explains his simulation theory. If you are an avid Elon Musk lover and views his ideas as purely gold, I suggest you follow him on Twitter. For those that are a bit more grounded, note that this image was sourced from SeekingAlpha
In fact, the simulations that are described by Musk are ambiguous in their detail. Yes, the interview does note that AI running simulations and more-intelligent beings running simulations is probable, but there is another idea about seeding different galaxies in order to promote life. What if the reason why we have not heard any signals from other alien civilizations is because we are simply a well-kept scientific experiment? In a world where an advanced civilization has mapped the entire Milky Way but found no other evidence of life, is it possible that they chose to put microorganisms from their home on Earth to begin breeding life? Did they chose such a habitable planet, with a gravity that could overcome by rockets, knowing that we would one day advance into a space-traveling race? In other words, is Earth simply chosen by design out of any other planet in our solar system?
Another question that this brings up is how many simulations could possibly exist? Is this a simulation that the aliens cared to track for the millions of years life took to develop for educational purposes? And are we still being tracked? I know that some of you out there view this as farfetched, but Elon Musk is not the only one to propose life coming from outer space. Stephen Hawking also proposed that Earth may have gained its life via panspermia, a phenomenon that states that extremophiles riding on asteroids that end up hitting Earth. But then this beckons the question of where did that other life come from…
Going back to Elon Musk’s theory, then we must say, “Well, if these aliens are observing us, how have we never observed them?” And the answer to that may be that they are using a communication method we cannot detect yet. Maybe, once we do, they will obliterate us. Or maybe, we will be allowed to coexist peacefully with them after they explain that the population of life on Earth was all a simulation of theirs. More importantly, however, is to note that the organisms they used to populate Earth most likely came from their home environment. Depending on how life develops, we may just look just like them. They could be living among us, observing at this very second. Or, they could be in the shadows, only coming down to Earth when needed. And maybe, when they come down from Earth, certain cultures view this as the arrival of an omnipotent being. Maybe the idea of a messiah in many religions is simply based upon the arrival of an advanced being that we misinterpreted. Or it is a test of theirs to see how far and what kind of far-fetched stories we will create to explain the existence of something we cannot understand. Note, I am not trying to debunk any beliefs, but rather provide an explanation as to why the messiah motif is so prevalent in many religions and our beliefs and provide evidence for the possibility of Elon’s theory.
There are so many questions that are left unanswered by the Fermi Paradox, and while Elon’s simulation theory may help explain why we have not heard from other civilizations (at least if we extrapolate it a bit), it still leaves much unanswered and much to wonder. But, the reason why these theories and conversations and equations are made is for us to think, dream, and explore. So much of space is not understood and we have so much more to learn about all facets of life. Providing a basis for curiosity is not meant to be taken with great criticism, fear, or frustration, but is an inviting invitation into the boundless realm of idea and initiative. That, itself, I think is the beautiful outcome of all of our unanswered questions.
Nala and Simba in Disney’s The Lion King: Simba’s Pride
In the second The Lion King movie, Simba’s pride, Simba and Nala sing that Love will find a way. My own version of this song claims “life will find a way”. The reason I say this is because of extremophiles. Extremephiles are interesting creatures that love the conditions that humans would consider to be extreme. This includes high temperatures, low temperatures, high pressure, very salty places, and so much more.
Extremophiles are what lead me to believe that there must be other life in the universe. They are able to survive in conditions that are unimaginable to humans, and survive in ways that sometimes seem impossible. While these forms of life are not necessarily intelligent, and can accomplish far less than us, it is still true that they exist. To me, this means that somewhere else in the universe, there must also be some sort of life that finds a way to exist despite all the odds. There may be forms of life that are even extreme compared to the extremophiles that we know. Love will find a way and in the case of extremophiles, so will life.
Nala and Simba in Disney’s The Lion King: Simba’s Pride
In the second The Lion King movie, Simba’s pride, Simba and Nala sing that Love will find a way. My own version of this song claims “life will find a way”. The reason I say this is because of extremophiles. Extremephiles are interesting creatures that love the conditions that humans would consider to be extreme. This includes high temperatures, low temperatures, high pressure, very salty places, and so much more.
Extremophiles are what lead me to believe that there must be other life in the universe. They are able to survive in conditions that are unimaginable to humans, and survive in ways that sometimes seem impossible. While these forms of life are not necessarily intelligent, and can accomplish far less than us, it is still true that they exist. To me, this means that somewhere else in the universe, there must also be some sort of life that finds a way to exist despite all the odds. There may be forms of life that are even extreme compared to the extremophiles that we know. Love will find a way and in the case of extremophiles, so will life.
Enrico Fermi believed that we are alone in the universe. This belief was based on the fact that so far, we have seen no evidence of other intelligent beings. He figures that any civilization of intelligent beings would want to colonize, and would be able to do so in about 10 million years. If there is in fact other intelligent life in our galaxy, the Milk Way, which is 13.51 billion years old, than by now we really should have seen signs of it. So far, we haven’t, and that is the Fermi Paradox.
The Fermi Paradox has a number of interesting implications. The one that is most interesting to me is that one day, us human beings on Earth should be able to colonize the universe. Homo sapiens have been around for 200,000 years, which means that we should have about 9.8 million more to colonize the Milky Way. Our earliest ancestors were around as much as 6 million years ago, but I won’t count that as a part of the 10 million years we have to colonize the universe, because then we would have already used up half of our time. In our short 200,000 years, us homo sapiens have made an incredible number of technological advances, but we are still far far away from having the ability to colonize the Solar System, let alone the Milky Way. The technology required to make it to another possibly habitable planet within a lifetime is still extremely far off, and the technology to further survive on that planet is even further off. This is what leads me to disagree with the Fermi Paradox. I think it’s very possible that another life form chooses not to colonize a galaxy, because of the hardships it would require.
If it turns out that Fermi was correct, I think it would be a little bit sad. It would be incredibly lonely to be the only intelligent life form in the entirety of the universe.
Enrico Fermi believed that we are alone in the universe. This belief was based on the fact that so far, we have seen no evidence of other intelligent beings. He figures that any civilization of intelligent beings would want to colonize, and would be able to do so in about 10 million years. If there is in fact other intelligent life in our galaxy, the Milk Way, which is 13.51 billion years old, than by now we really should have seen signs of it. So far, we haven’t, and that is the Fermi Paradox.
The Fermi Paradox has a number of interesting implications. The one that is most interesting to me is that one day, us human beings on Earth should be able to colonize the universe. Homo sapiens have been around for 200,000 years, which means that we should have about 9.8 million more to colonize the Milky Way. Our earliest ancestors were around as much as 6 million years ago, but I won’t count that as a part of the 10 million years we have to colonize the universe, because then we would have already used up half of our time. In our short 200,000 years, us homo sapiens have made an incredible number of technological advances, but we are still far far away from having the ability to colonize the Solar System, let alone the Milky Way. The technology required to make it to another possibly habitable planet within a lifetime is still extremely far off, and the technology to further survive on that planet is even further off. This is what leads me to disagree with the Fermi Paradox. I think it’s very possible that another life form chooses not to colonize a galaxy, because of the hardships it would require.
If it turns out that Fermi was correct, I think it would be a little bit sad. It would be incredibly lonely to be the only intelligent life form in the entirety of the universe.
It’s been known for a while now that the universe is expanding, but the real question is, what is it expanding into? Well, the answer is no body really knows. Einstein’s theory of relativity makes it possible for the universe to be expanding into anything, including into itself. Because of the vast size of the universe, it is impossible from our location in the universe for us to ever detect an edge (if one exists of the universe).
The “edge” of the universe will never be within our reach
Basically, a few things could be happening as more and more empty space time is being added into the already massive universe. They all depend on what the actual size of the universe is. If the universe is an infinite amount of space, then the expansion is literally into nothing because infinity plus anything is still infinity. Where it starts getting trippy is if the universe has an edge. If an edge to the universe exists, we will never know because the universe is to too big for us to receive life from it’s perceived edge, and with the expansion of the universe, that edge that may or not exist is only getting further and further away.
This is super cool to think what the entire universe is and what it is becoming because it effects everything we think about space but we will get a definite answer to the edge of the universe.
As we learned in class, the Drake equation can estimate that the existence of life should exist. The universe is huge, its been in existence for a very long time, and there is no foreseen limit to what can exist, especially life off Earth. Fermi’s paradox is super cool, creepy, exciting and puzzling all at once. Fermi’s paradox basically says that there should be so much intelligent life capable of off world communication and interstellar travel. Basically, Fermi wondered why the entire galaxy hadn’t been colonized yet at the time of its death. That’s so wild!
There are so many theories surrounding Fermi’s paradox of why we haven’t discovered life or why we haven’t been discovered yet by other worlds. Some common and well-accepted ones are that aliens are incapable of travel for whatever reason, they chose not to come visit, civilizations advanced enough to travel emerged before we did or that Earth has been visited, but it occurred too early in our planet’s history for us humans to know about it. I bet the list goes on and on, but the reality is that Earth appears to be a unique source of intelligent life despite the monstrous size of the universe.
Now, here’s my two sense. I totally think there’s life out there somewhere in the universe, I just don’t think that a plethora of intelligent life in the way we think of intelligent exists. Think about how many things had to have gone right from Earth’s placement to the size of our sun for life to even be a thought. And then think about how much had to go right for evolution to lead life to what we know it. I just think that the chances of beings similar to us existing on other planets just isn’t plausible. What I do believe is that there are other civilizations out there that look, act, communicate and survive completely differently from us because evolution took them on a different course that it took us. Evolution is a long and almost random process, how could it basically repeat itself in another world?
Life probably exists elsewhere, but how do we know it will do everything we can do?
Now, should another civilization exist that is capable of everything that we are in a comparable fashion to what we know as life, I believe that it appears we are alone because physics and time aren’t exactly on our side. First off, think about how long it took us to understand physics enough to understand space and even begin to search for life. Plus, the universe is so big travel takes waaaaay too long. A colonized galaxy to me just isn’t a realistic idea because you can’t fly from one star to another in the same time it takes to fly from Nashville to California, time and physics just don’t work like that. And then there’s the age of the universe, every star, every planet and every system are on their own time frame in comparison to the age of the universe, and I bet there is something out there that is in sync with us, but it could so far away we may never know about it. The universe is just so much older and bigger than we can even imagine. These are just my two cents, but life and science can lead to some pretty amazing conclusions.
In the early 1990’s, astronomers hypothesized that as the universe grew in size gravity would eventually slow down the expansion process as time progressed. Further research showed that the universe’s expansion rate is actually accelerating, and this prompted researchers to look into Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Research found that Dark Energy composes approximately 68% of the universe, dark matter composes around 27% , and the rest of the universe is what we have observed and have yet to observe.
Einstein discovered that space does not simply exist, it has several properties and one of them is the ability for more space to be created. As more space is created, then more dark matter and energy are created which results in the acceleration of the universes expansion.
Could this present a problem? Or could a rapid expansion create more universes that are more earth-like?
On April 27th, 1961, fifty-seven years ago, NASA launched Explorer 11 into space. This satellite held the first gamma-ray telescope to go into space. Gamma rays are the wavelength of light with the highest energy levels. These wavelengths can originate from sources such as supernova explosions, supermassive blackholes, and solar flares. While scientists had predicted the presence of such a type of light, there had been no previous evidence due to gamma rays being absorbed within the Earth’s atmosphere. During it’s seven-month mission, the Explorer 11 detected 22 cosmic gamma rays, as well as 22,000 events of cosmic radiation. More importantly, astronomers were not able to locate the exact origination locations of these waves, with the rays seemingly coming from all over the place, which revealed the first evidence of a uniform gamma-ray background in the universe.
The entire spacecraft only weighed 82 pounds. Due to the inability of the telescope being aimed, the satellite was put into a slow and controlled spin in order to allow it to scan the celestial sphere. The mission was only seven months due to a couple of mishaps. The satellite ended up in a higher than planned orbit, which saw it enter the Van Allen Belt, a zone of energetically charged particles originating from Solar Wind but now trapped byEarth’s magnetic sphere. The effects of this radiation jammed the telescope’s detector. On top of this, an early failure of the on-board tape recorder saw its information limited to only 141 hours of useful data. The data that was recorded, however, was a significant breakthrough in science, the first proof of gamma rays. The success of this mission paved way for a much improved gamma ray satellite to be launched upon the Third Orbiting Solar Observatory six years later.
