Contact will never happen due to the vastness of space

endacl

Red Nissan wrote: »

I've always harboured the theory that we are in fact a manipulated race from an ancient civilization who may have made their home here, or on Mars or Venus perhaps and then possibly went extinct but leaving a DNA trait behind.

Communications may be one way.

And that civilisation got the DNA from......?

Rucking_Fetard

MeteoritesEire wrote: »

helped me put the vastness into perspective.But there's life out there, no doubt about it.Carbonaceous meteorites are filled with amino acids which are the precursors for life.One meteorite called Allende which fell in Mexico in 1969 , probably the most studied meteorite of all, was found to have something like 90 amino acids, 22 of which are found in all life forms on earth ...

Organic molecules found in the galactic core: Are stellar nurseries spitting out building blocks of life, as well as stars?

Researchers at the Max Planck institute in Germany have discovered large quantities of organic molecules at the center of the Milky Way that resemble life-bearing amino acids in their complexity. The new-found presence of this complex organic molecule, iso-propyl cyanide, is a good indicator that amino acids themselves are floating throughout the interstellar medium. If this is indeed the case, it in turn suggests that these wandering amino acids may have played a vital role in the synthesis of life on other planets in the galaxy.

Red Nissan

Victor wrote: »

That seems like a naively small number, although I have to admit we have come a long way in the last 10,000 years.

A lot depends on opportunity, man could have lived on this planet 300 millions years ago, but it was occupied and a quite a hostile environment.

Climate change also knocked us back and earlier man died off completely, also new men seem to have stopped arriving, meaning this is our last chance.

flanna01

Why would anybody contact us...??

Turn on the news any day of the week, we wouldn't be the most friendliest of life. We live on a small dirt ball in the middle of nowhere. And we are not aware of any other life forms in the Universe at present.... So what do we do??

Answer) We point nuclear warheads at each other, and arm them with a swift response system. Basically, this ensures that the first missile to be deployed, will be met with every missile on the planet going off in mainly pre-emptive strikes against each other... Which in turn renders the human race extinct.

*Clever eh?*

Maybe we are not ready to be contacted??

Would we ever try to showcase our technology to a nest of ants??

Or maybe we are missing millions of years of signals and messages, maybe we don't have the ability to detect these signals? We talk about radio waves as if everybody uses them, what if the signals are encrypted in rays of light? Maybe out DNA is full of messages? What about vibrations??

We expect everybody to sing to our tune. What if we are the super poor relations, just bugs in the grand scale of Cosmos intelligence??

We could stick an eternally charged up I-phone into an ants nest, and leave a users manual beside it.... We could then ring the phone every five minutes forever... It would never be picked up. The ants (as intelligent as they are), wouldn't even know it was a communication device.

Are we alone in the Universe - Almost certainly not. Will we ever be contacted - If we haven't figured it out by now...Probably not.

Standman

I used to fairly certain that there must be intelligent life out there somewhere, space being so unimaginably vast, but now I'm not so sure.

Say for example that the perfect scenario needed for microbial life to form happens once every billion years; we would have ~13 separate instances of this kind of life. Let's also say there is a 1 in 13 chance of any life evolving to an intelligent stage. That would leave 1 intelligent life form at this stage in our universe (us).

I think the above assumptions are reasonable based on what we know, which is essentially close to nothing when it comes to relating our knowledge to the rest of the universe.

We only have one example of any kind of life, so all of this is just guesswork.

shedweller

endacl wrote: »

And that civilisation got the DNA from......?

The Engineers, of course!
Duh, were ya not payin attention??!!!

raspberrypi67

Hmmm, I'd fairly bet my life that there is plenty of life ok. I feel that's a given.

Is all the 'waring' that goes on not a form of survival, crude as it may be and Vicious. Look how aggressive some of the comments
on these threads are, no need for it really, we all have an opinion, some not so clever maybe!!
Whats to say that the underlining pin point of life is to be aggressive in order to survive. We should we think its just man. If other life forms are based ( and whos to say they are actually ) on amino acids like ourselves then the same would happen in their societies too, perhpaps. Granted , if they manage to hang on to becoming more civilized than we are right now and realise that fighting isn't the answer.!!
We need another couple of hundred of years to understand quantum physics I think. I get the impression sometimes that the scientists add a lot of guess work and suppositions into their thinking. Part of me thinks that the laws of Physics may not apply in some instances when it comes to super dense objects and other areas of the universe. Who knows.

flanna01

Our planet has thousands upon thousands of different life forms living on it... All have enough intelligence to survive, hence they know how to hunt, kill, feed, reap the harvest, survive etc...

Yet only the human kind established a higher intelligence, that mastered communication, commerce, weapons, aviation, space exploration, and even landed fellow humans onto the Moon... Not to mention putting remote controlled buggys on the Planet Mars...

We can now down load real time images of the surface od Mars... And let's not forget the two Voyagers currently entering into deep space..... And still sending back messages!!

A mere 5,000yrs ago, man was still dependant on candles and God's... In a short space of time, humans have gone at break neck speed on the technology front... Was this wisdom explosion pre-ordained, or maybe as a race we are maturing, and with maturity comes intelligence..?? Remember, we are using less than 10% of our brains......???

Our DNA has the blue print of our bodies... In a healthy human being, we have everything we need, arms, legs, eyes, ears etc... Yet the DNA still calls for a brain that we are currently not utilising fully?? Why house 90% of grey matter that we don't use??

Going back to my original line of thought... If indeed we are a maturing breed, then the brain is geared up for 'adulthood' so to speak..
What in another 500yrs we find we are using 15% of our brains... What will we 'become' when we are using the full capacity of our brains??

If 10% equals advanced technology and the beginnings of space exploration... What will 100% equate to...? Maybe then we will be ready for contact???

endacl

That 100% of the brain stuff is just another canard, like FTL travel. It displays a fundamental lack of understanding of what the brain does, and how it does it. Science fiction is fun. Change the parameters, and the possibilities broaden.

Rucking_Fetard

Yup, theirs MRIs of people brains awake/asleep. Its all used.

10% thing was traced back there lately, some lad in the 40s/50s but it was taken up wrong from there.

endacl

Rucking_Fetard wrote: »

Yup, theirs MRIs of people brains awake/asleep. Its all used.

10% thing was traced back there lately, some lad in the 40s/50s but it was taken up wrong from there.

It's a total myth. Nobody knows who came up with it first. Einstein has been suggested, but there's no record of him referring to it. Not really his field anyway...

It makes for a good movie premise, but that's all it does.

Capt'n Midnight

porsche boy wrote: »

you assume that 'aliens' would have the same type of communication devices as us, radio waves etc. different species evolving in a different solar system may approach technology in a different way.

Anyway, just because they havent made contact dosent mean their not watching.

We've been transmitting for little over a hundred years.

And thanks to the interweb and digital TV our broadcasts into space are getting weaker and less detectable. AM radio is being phased out. Analog TV has gone forever. Morse is no longer used by the military. We are filling in all the white space in the spectrum so less spikes.

All ET will pick up from us now are navigation radars and VLF stuff used to communicate with submarines.

And that's if ET is even looking for radio, ESA is rolling out 1.8GBs laser to Geosynch satellites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Data_Relay_System

namloc1980

porsche boy wrote: »

you assume that 'aliens' would have the same type of communication devices as us, radio waves etc. different species evolving in a different solar system may approach technology in a different way.

Anyway, just because they havent made contact dosent mean their not watching.

Intelligent ETs would almost certainly understand radio waves and the entire electromagnetic spectrum given that it is, literally, a universal phenomenon.

Red Nissan

namloc1980 wrote: »

Intelligent ETs would almost certainly understand radio waves and the entire electromagnetic spectrum given that it is, literally, a universal phenomenon.

We don't have to give out a signal, our planet is doing a good enough job on it's own. In fact this phenomenon is now the key factor used to find potential life on other planets.

Our magnetic fields deflect sufficient destructive radio waves from the Sun to actually allow life a change to form and develop. This is also broadcasting into space and any life forms out there would presumably be even more aware of us for a millennia or more already, we'd be like Spike244855349639B as a likely Class M.

They would in fact be actually waiting to hear "I love Lucy" come through all the other static.

Zubeneschamali

namloc1980 wrote: »

Intelligent ETs would almost certainly understand radio waves and the entire electromagnetic spectrum given that it is, literally, a universal phenomenon.

They would understand radio, yes, but why would they be searching the skies for radio signals?

We weren't broadcasting anything detectable 100 years ago, and it's possible that we won't be broadcasting anything detectable in 100 years time, if everything is fibre/modulated coherent lasers or some other thing we haven't even invented.

If there's, say, a million years between civilizations popping up in the volume in which radio signals are detectable (and it could be 100 million, or a billion for all we know), the chances of spotting this 100 year window of messy broadcast radio isn't worth searching for.

If everyone out there uses coherent neutrinos/tachyon beams/modulated gravity waves or some other exotic yoke to communicate, we wouldn't even be able to detect them yet. We could be in the position of an ancient Greek SETI researcher searching the skies for signs of really big beacon fires, or lighting beacons in the hopes that ETs will spot them.

Red Nissan

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

We weren't broadcasting anything detectable 100 years ago, .

Our planet has been identifying itself as a potential class M for billions of years. Our magnetic fields are generating strong radio signals that have been visible across the vastness of space.

It's a relatively recent discovery that life as we know it cannot survive or at least form if the host planet does not have a magnetic shield.

We now look for other class M planets by looking for this signal and we have found a few. It does not prove life, just another aspect as protecting us form the deadly Sun or host star is the first criteria for intelligent life potential.

We have been marking our location long before the first shrew that eventually became us ever evolved.

Zubeneschamali

Red Nissan wrote: »

It's a relatively recent discovery that life as we know it cannot survive or at least form if the host planet does not have a magnetic shield.

Did you learn about this discovery from the same place you learned about "class M" planets?

Nerro

namloc1980 wrote: »

Intelligent ETs would almost certainly understand radio waves and the entire electromagnetic spectrum given that it is, literally, a universal phenomenon.

Yes they would understand it but would an advanced civilisation use it? As it it is quite slow method and quite high energy losses using it. So welcome to quantum world....we only now just begin to understand it but give another 50 years and it should be common knowledge. Take even quantum entanglement or quantum computers, if we master that, sky is the limit.
And I can bet there are other ways of communication, we just didn't discovered them yet.

namloc1980

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

They would understand radio, yes, but why would they be searching the skies for radio signals?

We weren't broadcasting anything detectable 100 years ago, and it's possible that we won't be broadcasting anything detectable in 100 years time, if everything is fibre/modulated coherent lasers or some other thing we haven't even invented.

If there's, say, a million years between civilizations popping up in the volume in which radio signals are detectable (and it could be 100 million, or a billion for all we know), the chances of spotting this 100 year window of messy broadcast radio isn't worth searching for.

If everyone out there uses coherent neutrinos/tachyon beams/modulated gravity waves or some other exotic yoke to communicate, we wouldn't even be able to detect them yet. We could be in the position of an ancient Greek SETI researcher searching the skies for signs of really big beacon fires, or lighting beacons in the hopes that ETs will spot them.

It's not just radio broadcasts, it's the entire spectrum. We're broadcasting more electromagnetic waves than we ever have. Mobile phones, WiFi, digital fta tv, satellites communications, deep space probe communication and many many more besides are all broadcast on the electromagnetic spectrum.

ps200306

Nerro wrote: »

Yes they would understand it but would an advanced civilisation use it? As it it is quite slow method and quite high energy losses using it. So welcome to quantum world....we only now just begin to understand it but give another 50 years and it should be common knowledge. Take even quantum entanglement or quantum computers, if we master that, sky is the limit.
And I can bet there are other ways of communication, we just didn't discovered them yet.

Quantum entanglement can't be used for communication. It's called (oddly enough) the no-communication theorem.

Nerro

ps200306 wrote: »

Quantum entanglement can't be used for communication. It's called (oddly enough) the no-communication theorem.

There is a quote as well : "if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you really don't understand quantum mechanics."
At the moment we can only make predictions , but far from complete understanding what's going on. It may not be used specifically for communication but it may be used for something, and like you mentioned it's only a theorem. But what we do know if its going to be used on practical way, it's going to be groundbreaking.

ps200306

Nerro wrote: »

There is a quote as well : "if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you really don't understand quantum mechanics."
At the moment we can only make predictions , but far from complete understanding what's going on. It may not be used specifically for communication but it may be used for something, and like you mentioned it's only a theorem. But what we do know if its going to be used on practical way, it's going to be groundbreaking.

Not sure what you mean by "only" a theorem -- a theorem is a proposition proven by an accepted chain of reasoning. The no-communication aspect of quantum physics has also been demonstrated many times in experiment. There isn't the slightest reason to doubt it.

Your quote about understanding quantum mechanics is one of those "quotes" that nobody's sure where it came from. It's a probably a paraphrase of Niels Bohr's statement about not having understood quantum mechanics if you haven't been shocked by it. I've just finished a 3rd-level course on it, and I'm quite sure I understood it.

Nerro

ps200306 wrote: »

Not sure what you mean by "only" a theorem -- a theorem is a proposition proven by an accepted chain of reasoning. The no-communication aspect of quantum physics has also been demonstrated many times in experiment. There isn't the slightest reason to doubt it.

planetsave.com/2014/03/28/quantum-entanglement-experiment-proves-non-locality-for-first-time-will-permit-multi-party-quantum-communication/

You may finished 3rd lvl that I haven't, but I have a passion for it...like I said if you do understand it you really don't...

ps200306

Nerro wrote: »

Yes they would understand it but would an advanced civilisation use it? As it it is quite slow method and quite high energy losses using it. So welcome to quantum world....we only now just begin to understand it but give another 50 years and it should be common knowledge. Take even quantum entanglement or quantum computers, if we master that, sky is the limit.
And I can bet there are other ways of communication, we just didn't discovered them yet.

Just so we don't lose the context, you meant using quantum entanglement to communicate faster than is possible with radio signals, right?

Nerro wrote: »

planetsave.com/2014/03/28/quantum-entanglement-experiment-proves-non-locality-for-first-time-will-permit-multi-party-quantum-communication/

You may finished 3rd lvl that I haven't, but I have a passion for it...like I said if you do understand it you really don't...

And like I said, your quote is an urban legend -- look it up. It's a misquote of Bohr. I think it's good to be passionate about science -- passion can be a spur to learning but it can't replace it. That article is nothing to do with communicating faster than light. It's about quantum cryptography -- using entanglement to prevent eavesdropping. It's already been done commercially for years using particle pairs. They just have a new twist on it using GHZ states to target more than one party. It's nothing even to do with using non-local effects for sending information. It's about securely distributing random cryptographic keys, relying on the fact that you can't send information, but you can send random bits and be sure that nobody else has looked at them. The communication itself then proceeds over a traditional communication channel, encrypted using the secure key. The article title calls it "quantum communication" but that's just standard sloppy science journalism. To reiterate, it's nothing to do with using entanglement for communication, let alone faster than light communication.

Victor

namloc1980 wrote: »

It's not just radio broadcasts, it's the entire spectrum. We're broadcasting more electromagnetic waves than we ever have. Mobile phones, WiFi, digital fta tv, satellites communications, deep space probe communication and many many more besides are all broadcast on the electromagnetic spectrum.

Do you really think that from several light years away that a billion low power mobile phones, using encrypted signals, against the background of a star sounds like anything other than static?

namloc1980

Victor wrote: »

Do you really think that from several light years away that a billion low power mobile phones, using encrypted signals, against the background of a star sounds like anything other than static?

It may well sound like static but it would be static that would be recognisable as artificial and unlike anything occurring in nature.

Zubeneschamali

namloc1980 wrote: »

It may well sound like static but it would be static that would be recognisable as artificial and unlike anything occurring in nature.

In other words, the opposite of static.

Nerro

ps200306 wrote: »

Just so we don't lose the context, you meant using quantum entanglement to communicate faster than is possible with radio signals, right?



And like I said, your quote is an urban legend -- look it up. It's a misquote of Bohr. I think it's good to be passionate about science -- passion can be a spur to learning but it can't replace it. That article is nothing to do with communicating faster than light. It's about quantum cryptography -- using entanglement to prevent eavesdropping. It's already been done commercially for years using particle pairs. They just have a new twist on it using GHZ states to target more than one party. It's nothing even to do with using non-local effects for sending information. It's about securely distributing random cryptographic keys, relying on the fact that you can't send information, but you can send random bits and be sure that nobody else has looked at them. The communication itself then proceeds over a traditional communication channel, encrypted using the secure key. The article title calls it "quantum communication" but that's just standard sloppy science journalism. To reiterate, it's nothing to do with using entanglement for communication, let alone faster than light communication.

As someone said: always bet on a dreamer, and not on expert.
There might not be a way to use entanglement as a means of communication, and yes there are more theoretical answers explaining why you cannot use entanglement as means of sending a signal. Although I don't know how they are derived. But you cant argue that the model we have doesn't have loopholes that could be exploited.
I am no means an expert in this, and all the knowledge I get is thru papers but there is an experiment in trying to achieve this.

" there might be a way to use complementarity to send a signal by altering the behavior of entangled quanta depending on how they're measured. There have been experiments showing that an interference pattern in photons is created if and only if the entangled twins are detected with absolutely ambiguous position information. So far, these experiments all require correlations because only a subset of photons is able to be detected at a given time. However, if ALL of the photons can be detected ambiguosly, then, in theory, the entangled twins should create a visible interference pattern and, perhaps, allow for signaling."

I would never say never.

endacl

Ok. For the sake of extremely far fetched argument, let's say QE could be used for communication.

With whom? Our closest analogue would be the first transatlantic cable. That used a simple on/off switching method to send messages to people who knew the cable was there, were waiting for the signal, and understood and were interested in what was being said

Nerro

ps200306 wrote: »

And like I said, your quote is an urban legend -- look it up. It's a misquote of Bohr. I think it's good to be passionate about science -- passion can be a spur to learning but it can't replace it.

And I wasn't referring to Bohr but more to Feynman. The idea is we can give predictions where such and such particle will be at given time but we do not understand why.