Posted on 03/23/2013 6:00:14 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The ancient Greeks also proved that motion is impossible, since to travel any given distance, one must first go half that distance and so on, never actually getting to any destination ...
Ain’t numbers fun?
“The vanity of human beings is priceless!”
As it is humorous ...
or just under 700 miles per second — getting there!
Put more succinctly - Since the universe is expanding in size, how much space is out there for it to expand into?
If that weren't bad enough, the space between objects in space is also expanding ...
> Please tell me I’m able to sway your opinion, or is your mind still closed?
Right back at you.
Read more than one book, and obtain more than a bunch of cheerleader reviews of “Rare Earth”, before saddling on it as some kind of final word. The book is built on false premises and straw men, and the years have been less and less kind to it and its authors.
The man-made Saturn/Apollo spacecraft achieved 25,000 MPH, in trans lunar injection or nearly 7 miles/second. That is the fastest man has ever traveled.
Many of the unmanned deep-space probes have reached far higher speeds.
Just a while back some guy used the Hubble to take a long exposure shot of the night sky were absolutely nothing was visible, nor interesting was known to exist.
He produced about a dime in diameter shot of the sky, showing several million previously unknown galaxies and other formations.
There are trillions and trillions of these formations in our universe containing billions or trillions of stars each, that only here and there does life exist, and only a very few have intelligent life is past statistically absurd.
Those Rare Earth authors are just more learned science grant mongers with a different ax to grind.
Closed minds do not enter into it, common observable sense does.
I, for one, am not impressed because some dude with a PhD after his name claims something is true or false. Some dude is always claiming something with irrefutable, unbasised data is one or the other, only to be proved later on by some other dude with a PhD that the first guy is a moron and flat wrong.
MSNBC makes a lot of the same type of claim about politics, and they are provable morons with axes to grind. If you were to watch them, you might have to agree with them also on the basis of their claims.
I have to agree with Civ here: "The book “Rare Earth” is utter nonsense."
That statement assumes the author has seen the entire universe, inspected everything in it closely enough to make such a bold and sweeping statement.
I think what the author is implying is that there is Zero evidence that life exists anywhere else in the universe. As far as the 'possibility' of life existing elsewhere, anybody's guess is as good as anyone elses.
7 miles per second is still far far far away from 186,000 miles per second, do you agree?
Of course, first you have to guess if there are "beings" who share the human concept, "existence" (which, of course, would be necessary for them to be "beings" in the first place). If that is possible (and it could be) then they would need to share the concepts, "time", "space", and "life". If all those chips fell in perfect order, it would then be a remote possibility that we humans and those "beings" could become aware of each other in some way IF they also share any senses with humans (sight, hearing, touch, smell). Since there could be an infinite number of senses, I would think the possibility of mutual awareness is slim to none, and Slim left town. In fact, I suspect the earth is teeming with "beings" that share no senses with humans at all, and we will therefore never make "contact" with them, either.
And as for "beings" who may "exist" on planets many light years away?
LOL.. no, there will be no "contact".
Light years away.
The crux of the point is that space travel to anything outside of our solar system is a pure pipe dream.
Definitely. It won't ever happen, and aliens will never visit Earth - it's physically impossible... IMHO.
Yes. Precisely 0.000037% of the speed of light.
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