Posted on 07/28/2016 7:54:07 AM PDT by LibWhacker
If the aliens around the star say Betelgeuse three times in a row it will explode.......
Right. But the gamma will show up at the same time as the visible.
I’m not sure what you mean by “looking through it.” They don’t have to be able to see through it to measure how much radiation is being given off.
“The simple biochemistry of the notion that life is inevitable is absurd.”
Indeed, I agree.
“We haven’t even found a single planet anything like Earth.”
It’s worse than that. We haven’t even found another stellar system that resembles our own, which has effectively thrown their “nebular hypothesis” for planetary evolution into the trash bin.
“We are in the exact center and the exact oldest part of the universe.”
Correct, although most scientists refuse to acknowledge this and cling to the “cosmological principle”, an assumption that contradicts the evidence.
“I don’t mean that’s because it took light 3.6 billion years to get here. I mean that as an effect of temporal distortion of high-speed travel, there’s been less time for stuff to happen.”
Interesting. I hadn’t considered that myself, but you may be right. The only thing I’m wondering is, does temporal distortion kick in if the motion is due to the expansion of space itself? I’m not sure one way or the other, I have never really thought about it...
“Years ago, I calculated the Drake equation and estimated less than 10^1 (in other words, less than ten) worlds with intelligent life in the universe. I had badly underestimated the number of planets in a typical galaxy, but I also badly overestimated the likely habitability of life on a given planet.”
Seems like an optimistic estimate to me even so. If we didn’t know there was life on at least one planet, I would say the probability was effectively zero. Since there is life on at least one planet, then either it’s due to some extraordinary circumstance (like divine intervention), or we hit the biggest lottery drawing ever held.
They are not detecting the size directly, it’s based on assumptions about the type of object it is and calculations about how the gravitational forces and nuclear forces of such an object would interact to determine its geometry.
Basically, if they can figure out how much mass it has and what type of star it is, they can guestimate the diameter easily.
Well, the size is obviously calculated from observation data. When I said the size of the source doesn’t matter, I was thinking along the lines of seeing a large bonfire from 10 miles away vs. seeing the light emitted from a tiny LED. You see the light, not the object.
Well, damn. You mean I can’t finish “Longmire” season four?
Well, a supernova throws off a lot of mass, but gravitational waves require both mass and acceleration; it’s not enough if there is just a shift of mass. In a supernova, the mass ejected would be decelerating, unless there was some other nearby gravitational source to accelerate it, so I don’t think it could produce gravitational waves.
We’re reasoning with averages here. Ever take a statistics course?
Of course it matters how often supernovae occur. If only one occurs every ten billion years, that is not going to be enough to prevent advanced forms of life from arising somewhere in a galaxy. But if a million supernovae explode every hundred million years, that could be enough to prevent vast regions of a galaxy from ever developing multicellular life forms.
Some regions may get lucky and escape, as we may have, but most won’t. That’s the reasoning.
If they happened (emitted) at the same time that would be true, but they don’t.
Because the sequence of nuclear reactions gamma rays happen first and visible light is next.
Unfortunately for us if Earth is ever hit by a nearby supernova we will be dead by the wave of gamma rays before we see the blinding light.
OK ... didn’t know that about the sequencing. So we get blasted by gamma, then the cockroaches standing on our corpses see the big flash. Yay, cockroaches!
From what read if the Supernova is as close as 100 light years even the roaches won’t survive.
When the nuclear fires go out the core collapses at nearly the speed of light and can form a blackhole in less than a second. The next generation gravitational interferometers will be sensitive enough to detect these.
“But if a million supernovae explode every hundred million years, that could be enough to prevent vast regions of a galaxy from ever developing multicellular life forms.”
But again, we have prima facie evidence that doesn’t happen, or at least, has never happened in the entire history of life on earth.
You keep neglecting to address that fact, and until you do, your arguments are pretty meaningless.
Ah, I hadn’t thought about the collapse, yes, that would be an acceleration, thought the center of mass would remain the same, so I still am not sure if that would cause any gravitational waves.
I did address it. Life on Earth survived and evolved because it got lucky. Go take a probability class.
Meantime this may help you see the light... Throw a couple of dozen darts at a dart board (for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re not very good at darts and they strike the board at random). Was every point hit? Of course not.
Now imagine the dart board is the size of the Milky Way, 100,000 light years across. Instead of darts, now imagine you’re throwing supernovae at this galaxy-sized dart board. Was every point hit? Of course not. Not even if you threw one every 100 years for 4.5 billion years. Some regions of the galaxy are going to get lucky. Many won’t.
But Keith Richards would survive.
“I did address it. Life on Earth survived and evolved because it got lucky. Go take a probability class.”
That’s hand waving away the problem, not addressing it. We know that a galaxy-wide sterilization event, whether one single event, or an aggregation of multiple events, DID NOT occur over the entire history of life on earth, or we would not be here.
You didn’t propose that the aggregation of events would sterilize most of the galaxy and leave some “lucky” pockets, so you’re moving the goalposts now instead of accepting the obvious.
No one ever said a GALAXY-WIDE STERILIZATION EVENT EVER OCCURRED BUT YOU, LOL!!!
Look, I’m sorry you don’t understand this, but I have no desire or obligation to teach you what you obtusely refuse to even try to understand. The argument put forward by astronomers is a sound one and I’m not going to waste any more time trying to explain it to you.
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