Amadeus Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 Too much space for aliens EARTH may not be visited by aliens for a long time to come, according a new mathematical model which suggests it would take billions of years to probe the universe. Mathematician Rasmus Bjork, from the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, has calculated that eight probes travelling at a tenth of the speed of light, and each capable of launching up to eight sub-probes, would take about 100,000 years to explore a region of space containing 40,000 stars. When he scaled up the search to include 260,000 such systems in our galaxy's habitable zone, the probes took almost 10 billion years - three quarters the age of the universe - to explore just 0.4 per cent of the stars. New Scientist magazine reported: "Bjork's answer (is that) aliens haven't contacted us because they haven't had the time to find us yet.'' /puts away tin foil hat and "Hello Visitors!" sign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Tatlock Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 They probably already found us - and realised that we are so far up our own arses and we base our whole society on passing bits of paper to each other - that they told the rest of the civilisations to give us a wide berth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 This is the first time I've seen an attempt to answer the Fermi Paradox . The New Scientist article, which the newspaper has basically plagarized has links to the original paper - link. I think the major issue is the speed of the probes - one tenth of the speed of light is a huge speed compared to anything that we have ever even imagined outside the realms of Star Trek, but the idea that pulsed fusion, solar sails, matter antimatter engines couldn't get you faster is a nice game the geeks at NASA play when they dream of unlimited budgets. Distances also shrink as speed increases (isn't relativity amazing) so if you could get to about .6 c you'd reduce the number of years to search by alot and maybe up to a factor of 10 - can't be bothered to do the maths, but remember discussion in Scientific America about it in the last year or so! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spock Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 we are amongst you now. live long and propser. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lonan3 Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 we are amongst you now.live long and propser. I am resolved to propser just as much as I possibly can. (By the way, just how do you 'propser?') Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Declan Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 But would intelligent life use that method to search for new life? Surely, they'd do the maths first and decide it wasn't worth the bother. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mutley Posted January 2, 2008 Share Posted January 2, 2008 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Tatlock Posted January 2, 2008 Share Posted January 2, 2008 But would intelligent life use that method to search for new life? Surely, they'd do the maths first and decide it wasn't worth the bother. If they are as 'intelligent as us', they probably don't have much interest in science and spend all their time watching 'my wife really is an alien' and 'celebrity big blobber'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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