There are those who believe that life here began out there

[Nickswitz]

Yeah, even though all AT&T got from Cingular was their phones, since they didn't have any service to give...

[Mark]

Why is everyone so worried about looking for intelligent life out there. We still haven't found it down here!

[Sionnach Glic]

You're about two pages too late with that joke, Mark.

[Monroe]

The universe isn't infinite, but it does have something like 10^22 stars in it. I lean towards life being somewhat rare in terms of percentages... one species per million stars, perhaps. But that's still an awful lot of species. A hundred thousand in this galaxy alone!

Here's the thing, though. I lean towards that view purely because I want it to be true. It's nothing more or less than a bias.

There's no objective reason whatsoever to suppose that Earth isn't the only lifebearing planet in the universe. That would suck, but nature doesn't care too much about that.

Don't think I had seen the 10^22 figure before. That's pretty bad ass.

Stephen Hawkings in an interview I saw said that he thought intelligent life was out there but didn't think it existed within a thousand light years. He went on to say that that was a really good thing as more primitive cultures are always destroyed by more advanced.

And I was thinking, that really gives us as a species some elbow room to expand. It would suck if we were completely surrounded by claimed territory. But by being alone for 1000 light years that means we can develop into a little bitty Empire.

[Mark]

You're about two pages too late with that joke, Mark.

Story of my life

[thelordharry]

Mark, you bad man, you very bad man.

[Sionnach Glic]

That's rather creepy.

[thelordharry]

Babu!

(not a Seinfeld fan? )

[Mikey]

That was one of the best eps of the show.

[Sionnach Glic]

(not a Seinfeld fan? )

Nope.

[Kevsha]

That was one of the best eps of the show.

actually the episode shown is the last one of the seriese, where they were in court and they had everyone who was in the show before testifying against them. not a very good episode all together but this part was funny

[Lazar]

I liked the show but I didn't like the finale.

[Mikey]

That was one of the best eps of the show.

actually the episode shown is the last one of the seriese, where they were in court and they had everyone who was in the show before testifying against them. not a very good episode all together but this part was funny

Oh, alright. The original ep with Babu was one of the best of the show, then.

[Graham Kennedy]

what Graham is saying is that the finite amount of matter already discussed is the universe, by definition making it not infinite

No. What I am saying is that the universe is indeed like a ring - well actually a better example would be a beachball. The surface of a beachball has no end - set out in any direction and you will never reach the end of the ball. But that in no way means that a beachball is infinite in size.

[Teaos]

I believe you guys are confusing two different things.

What Graham is talking about is usually refered to as either Open or closed universe. A beachball is closed since it never ends, open would have some sort of end.

Infinite and finite refer to the matter ect.