The Plausibility of Alien Life

Well, with our meagre naked eye we can see several stars similar to our sun. Alpha Centauri A is a little over 4 light years away Tau Ceti is a mere 12 light years away, 51 Pegasi is about 50 light years away. I think from that alone we can infer it is almost certainly the case that there are many G V stars in the universe. Agreed. If by could you mean 'they would have the capability' then yes. Humans might have such capability to go visiting extra solar systems if we had the will to do it. By postulating that they are far more advanced that our own - we have entered into speculation territory. Does this mean they are able to find us (given the aforementioned size of the universe that is a tricky proposition normally). Then do they have the technology to get here within a time frame that they are concerned with and finally are there other planets they'd rather visit?The final hurdle is that they would have to exist within same time as us. Right now we've only given off interesting signals into space for at best a century or so. That doesn't cover a lot of space. If the nearest more advanced species is a mere 6,000 light years away we might well be extinct before they receive the signal and decide to come here.It doesn't seem likely from our perspective, but speculation can lead us all over the place I suppose.

vThat's pretty much what I thought you meant - though I kept it open just in case. Since we don't know (by definition) what those advancements might be, it is speculation. I mentioned that they might have better technologies for finding us and maybe they have better methods of getting here, but it is pretty big on speculation and it would still be hugely impractical unless they had FTL technology.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I'd accuse you of quote mining, but you haven't read the original article, I presume? It looks like you have just taken it from Sean McDowell who writes

quote:

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title of one of the main articles should sum it up: “A Universe Built for Us” (pp. 52-58). Discover is one of the most widely read popular-level science magazines. And like the vast majority of science journals and magazines, it is decidedly naturalistic. Nevertheless, the article went on to describe how our cosmos “seems inexplicably well designed for life” (52).

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Which looks uncannily like He also writes:

quote:

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The reason Tim Fogler, the author of the article, concluded the universe appears designed is because of how exquisitely the laws of physics are fine-tuned for the emergence and sustenance of life. Fogler says the properties of the universe “are uncannily suited for life. Tweak the laws of physics in just about any way and”in this universe, anyway”life as we know it would not exist” (52).

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Which looks a lot like Buz - when you are essentially copying someone else's blog entry as closely as you have (with token changes) it would be polite to at least cite it. The biggest clue is that both Sean McDowell and you uncannily spell Tim Folger's name as Tim Fogler. What do you know - I'm using point mutations to ascertain common ancestry Anyway, here is the article, the full quote reads: The rest of the article is Tim Folger trying to explain the multiverse theory to a lay audience.Discover magazine isn't really a journal by the way - you should have kept Sean McDowell's wording of 'popular-level science magazines' since that is actually accurate. It's a fairly balanced article that explains the ideas, the different flavours, the philosophical problems with it and the like.Edited by Modulous, : reworded a sentence to make more sense.

What is the mass of a photon?

I just wondered why you replied to Rrhain, who pointed out that no object with mass can exceed the speed of light, with an example of something without mass exceeding the speed of light. I was hoping you might explain why you thought it was relevant to Rrhain's post...were you just randomly posting physics news or were you participating in some kind of debate?If your point raised in Message 58 was what you were driving at, you might also want to check out this which discusses a similar setup. Then maybe start a new thread if you think it has some interesting discussion avenues to explore.