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Alien planet
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i was going to but a benifit dance to help pay medical bills for a cousin of mine who has cancer took presidence. waiting patiently for a rerun of it. Discovery Channel and Animal Planet have really done well with those types of programs(Dinosaur Planet, The Future Is Wild, the recent Dragon one, ect) which is fiine by me cause i love watching them.
Finch
Whats it to ya?
Yes, absolutely fantasy, originally done by one of the best fantasy artists!
I call these shows "fake-U-mentaries" but that's OK, I'm only interested in the visuals. We have no idea what lies beyond the stars. The things they showed still looked far too earthbound for me to believe they're from a different solar system. I mean we can't even know what plane or dimension the alien planets would even exist in, certainly anything resembling earth creature or resembling parts of earth creatures would be a large improbability. But I just let myself have fun - I wish I had one of those six foot TVs to watch it on!
I call these shows "fake-U-mentaries" but that's OK, I'm only interested in the visuals. We have no idea what lies beyond the stars. The things they showed still looked far too earthbound for me to believe they're from a different solar system. I mean we can't even know what plane or dimension the alien planets would even exist in, certainly anything resembling earth creature or resembling parts of earth creatures would be a large improbability. But I just let myself have fun - I wish I had one of those six foot TVs to watch it on!
I love Discovery planet documentaries like Walking with Prehistoric Animals, Dinosaurs, and all the other Walking-with shows. I've been wanting to see Alien Planet for a while now, but I haven't gotten to it. My favorite Discovery Channel documentary by far has been the one on dragons. I really wish dragons were real, and the ending of it was so sad, I felt like crying. Anyone else saw it?
Only a few elements are useful for 'building' creatures out of structurally. Carbon's ability to be arranged into shapes like buckyballs and such is one of the reasons there's a good chance a lot of life out there would be carbon-based like us. That's an integral similarity already... which could faciliate plenty of other similarities. Similar orientations of their bodies could result from having the same 'up' and 'down' that comes with living on a planet... that's another example. Similar sensory organs could result from only having certain types of information-containing radiation/vibration/whatever available (our eyes developed independently from squid eyes, but we both have eyes, and we live in very different environments). Etc.[b said:
Extraterrestrial wouldn't automatically mean absolutely different. I think we're on the verge of discovering bacterial life on Mars, and when we eventually see pictures of it through a microscope, we'd probably think, "Yeah, another bacteria-through-a-microscope picture... so what?" if we didn't happen to read the caption saying where it came from (though whether Earth and Mars have ever exchanged organic matter, I don't know).
Unfortunately I missed the show because I was at someone's house and lost track of time... but I'm sure it'll be on repeatedly for a little while.
FlytrapGurl
apple rings.. what more can i say?
I watched it.. pretty awesome. But I gotta agree that they were a bit earth-like. And this water thing.. how do we know all life ever possible in the universe depends on water? That's only on this planet, as far as we know. Just because all life on THIS planet needs water doesn't mean there's not life somewhere else in the universe that doesn't need water or that lives off something else. Hell, there could be other elements and substances on other planets we've never heard of! I keep repeatedly reading in schoolbooks about other planets which are, for example, extremely hot or the atmospheres of which are extremely heavy.. they all say "any possibility of life there is impossible". Why is it impossible? Just because life on EARTH couldn't live there doesn't mean it's not possible for there to be a form of life designed to live there. I'm not saying there IS life on Mercury or Venus or whatever, I'm saying that we should stop viewing the universe through earth-bound rules and laws and realize that this planet isn't the rulebook of the universe.
Microscopic organisms on Mars wouldn't surprise me at all. I've deeply believed there's life elsewhere from the beginning.
Another thought... is the universe really infinite? How do we know it is? Is there and end to it? What is the end to it? Just think about infinity for a few moments. Think about this universe extending forever, never ending, just going on forever. Did you feel that? What's that feeling you get when you think about something being infinite? I can't explain it. Then think about there being a boundary, an end. What would the boundary be? Is it the end of time and space? If you reached it, what would happen? And what the hell is at the other end of a black hole? A black hole is a vacuum, a warp where time and space converge and all laws of physics and defied. Okay, since scientists obviously accept that a black hole defies the laws of physics, why is it so hard for them to believe anything else that might break their sacred, holy scientific laws?
Another thing.. a straight line is NOT the fastest way between two points, and stop saying that it is. A wormhole, a warp in time and space, and it DOES exist, is the fastest way between two points. So SHUT UP.
Microscopic organisms on Mars wouldn't surprise me at all. I've deeply believed there's life elsewhere from the beginning.
Another thought... is the universe really infinite? How do we know it is? Is there and end to it? What is the end to it? Just think about infinity for a few moments. Think about this universe extending forever, never ending, just going on forever. Did you feel that? What's that feeling you get when you think about something being infinite? I can't explain it. Then think about there being a boundary, an end. What would the boundary be? Is it the end of time and space? If you reached it, what would happen? And what the hell is at the other end of a black hole? A black hole is a vacuum, a warp where time and space converge and all laws of physics and defied. Okay, since scientists obviously accept that a black hole defies the laws of physics, why is it so hard for them to believe anything else that might break their sacred, holy scientific laws?
Another thing.. a straight line is NOT the fastest way between two points, and stop saying that it is. A wormhole, a warp in time and space, and it DOES exist, is the fastest way between two points. So SHUT UP.
Finch
Whats it to ya?
The water thing is easy and no its not too earth based, all creatures must feed, reproduce, and avoid being eaten to survive, or else they wouldnt last the test of time anywhere. on the contrary, i thought it was too far out
As for water, w eknow of no way that the particles nececary for life could form in any other state. Tht doesnt mean its not possible, but water is the most likely. I was suprised that life on such a hypothetical plant continued without a ocean, but high water vapor. wouldnt it precipitate?
The galexies at the farthest reches of the observable universe are receding from us at the speed of light. we cannot see beyond them. As for more powerfull telescopes... we can only observe them in more clarity, but not beyond.
We dont know what's at the center of a black hole for many reasons. Perhaps the most signifigent problem is we can never see a fully formed black hole. The strong gravity slows time there almost to a halt, so to the outside observer all you can see is the exact point in wich the collapsed core becomes a black hole. We can not send anything to tehre to see because no signal would ever come back and in all likelyhood it would also be destroyed.
As for water, w eknow of no way that the particles nececary for life could form in any other state. Tht doesnt mean its not possible, but water is the most likely. I was suprised that life on such a hypothetical plant continued without a ocean, but high water vapor. wouldnt it precipitate?
[b said:
The galexies at the farthest reches of the observable universe are receding from us at the speed of light. we cannot see beyond them. As for more powerfull telescopes... we can only observe them in more clarity, but not beyond.
No. it is where the laws of physics brake down, not defined. Where did you hear that?[b said:
We dont know what's at the center of a black hole for many reasons. Perhaps the most signifigent problem is we can never see a fully formed black hole. The strong gravity slows time there almost to a halt, so to the outside observer all you can see is the exact point in wich the collapsed core becomes a black hole. We can not send anything to tehre to see because no signal would ever come back and in all likelyhood it would also be destroyed.
Elements are defined by how many protons they have. An element a million light years away that has 8 protons is still oxygen. Any element we haven't discovered/created simply has more protons than anything that's currently on the periodic table. We're up to triple digits there, so any element we've never seen before is going to be very dense/massive and complex.[b said:
Simple things are building blocks for complex things. Believing there's hydrogen, helium, etc. all over the place isn't thinking-inside-the-box... it's just simple probabilities. Since we've seen all the simple elements, most life we encounter is probably going to be built out of things we recognize. Again, extraterrestrial doesn't automatically mean absolutely different. To people who don't recognize the implications of their existence, martian bacteria will probably look very boring. "It's a bacteria... so what?"
Probably not. I don't know what the estimate is but they believe the mass resulting from the Big Bang was finite. They say slightly more matter resulted than antimatter, and that alone implies the amount is finite because if they were infinite, you can't have one infinity that's "bigger" than another infinity (infinity+1=infinity). And the confusing part is, space itself resulted from the Big Bang, and is expanding as well. Things aren't expanding "into" space that was already there.[b said:
There could be an infinite number of universes, however... I believe there are. And then you have to wonder what those universes might be "contained" in.
Black holes have a confusing name... they aren't automatically "holes". In some cases they could be (wormholes like you said)... but usually a black hole is allegedly just an ultra-massive singularity. Tons and tons and tons of matter squished into a tiny tiny space. I've never heard of a scientist saying a black hole defies the laws of physics... our model of physics just doesn't fully encompass it yet. The actual laws of physics are separate from our current understanding of the laws of physics. And any scientist who thinks our understanding of the laws of physics is complete is a laughably bad scientist.[b said:
And time and space are two components of the same thing... space-time... they're always "converged". Time is manipulated by gravity, and ultra-massive things have lots of gravity.
Finch
Whats it to ya?
argh i was just writing a reply and the computer lost it all. thats it my patence is up with this subject.
endparenthesis... your right. i wish i had the patence to be that thurough(ARRRGGGGH IVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO SPELL) with stuff. usually i only skim the stuff imideatly relevent to pelples questions. I dont have the patence to delve deeper
or to correct my own misspelling for that matter
endparenthesis... your right. i wish i had the patence to be that thurough(ARRRGGGGH IVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO SPELL) with stuff. usually i only skim the stuff imideatly relevent to pelples questions. I dont have the patence to delve deeper
or to correct my own misspelling for that matter
I'd get more work done and have more free time if I wasn't so obsessive about it.
I never mean for those posts to get that long.
I try not to post anything at all if I don't think my post will hold water reasonably well. Just a personal thing with me. I get frustrated with myself if I find out later there was a huge error in what I said.
I try not to post anything at all if I don't think my post will hold water reasonably well. Just a personal thing with me. I get frustrated with myself if I find out later there was a huge error in what I said.
Finch
Whats it to ya?
seedjar
Let's positive thinking!
I think these Discovery channel things are kind of cool, but they've been getting sensationalistic. It was a good idea, and I liked the graphics, but I felt like Alien Planet was approaching the realm of bad science, what with all the interviewees speaking about this hypothetical planet as if it were real and they'd been there. I just find it a little irritating that this is what it takes to get people interested in modern science - and this stuff isn't even especially relevant to everyday life. What's it going to take to get people to watch a documentary on deforestation or poaching?
A lot of the speakers went on wierd tangents. They ignored a lot of precendents about deep-space exploration. I also felt like they could have used some corrections regarding their use of biology and robotics nomenclature. I still want to know what was so significant about this book that it was based on. And what was with the little subplot? It's all like, "the two robots are stranded! Will they ever make it? Of course not, they weren't designed to, but we're going to make a big melodrama about it anyways."
There are plenty of other non-aqueous, non-carbonic mediums which lifelike processes could progenate from. Modern theories of the origin of life are pointing towards silica clay crystals as the primary ancestor of all life on Earth. Living things can potentially arise in any medium which can store and manipulate patterns according to the patterns themselves. It's easy to just think of things like DNA and RNA suspended in water, and say that's all there is to life, but RNA can operate in other suspensions, without DNA, and there are silicon polymers that can mimic the coding behavior of DNA and RNA. Although we probably won't be able to describe them until a unified field theory has been constructed, there are probably configurations of sub-atomic particles that have the necessary properties for life.
And radiation escapes from black holes - physicists are thinking that the radiation could one day be used to perform computational tasks, by dropping things into the hole as input and reading the radiation as output, once somebody comes up with a black hole that's safe enough to keep inside a computer.
~Joe
A lot of the speakers went on wierd tangents. They ignored a lot of precendents about deep-space exploration. I also felt like they could have used some corrections regarding their use of biology and robotics nomenclature. I still want to know what was so significant about this book that it was based on. And what was with the little subplot? It's all like, "the two robots are stranded! Will they ever make it? Of course not, they weren't designed to, but we're going to make a big melodrama about it anyways."
There are plenty of other non-aqueous, non-carbonic mediums which lifelike processes could progenate from. Modern theories of the origin of life are pointing towards silica clay crystals as the primary ancestor of all life on Earth. Living things can potentially arise in any medium which can store and manipulate patterns according to the patterns themselves. It's easy to just think of things like DNA and RNA suspended in water, and say that's all there is to life, but RNA can operate in other suspensions, without DNA, and there are silicon polymers that can mimic the coding behavior of DNA and RNA. Although we probably won't be able to describe them until a unified field theory has been constructed, there are probably configurations of sub-atomic particles that have the necessary properties for life.
And radiation escapes from black holes - physicists are thinking that the radiation could one day be used to perform computational tasks, by dropping things into the hole as input and reading the radiation as output, once somebody comes up with a black hole that's safe enough to keep inside a computer.
~Joe
Finch
Whats it to ya?
its ok. As america turnes a-w-a-y from science, other countries like china are picking it up. Some states are even trying to redefine science altogeather to allow for the supernatural to be included. (KANSAS)
We'll loose our technological edge, but thats ok, since us americans obviously dont want it anymore despite all the benefits it brings.
We'll loose our technological edge, but thats ok, since us americans obviously dont want it anymore despite all the benefits it brings.
