Dr. James Pierce’s
Favorite Quotes from Life in the Universe Essays
–– What? ––
Every term, each student in my Astronomy 115 course (Life in the Universe) was assigned to write an essay giving his or her opinion on the following question:
“Do extraterrestrial technical civilizations currently exist in our Galaxy?”
To these quotes, one can only say “What?“. (The typos and misspellings are real, but they are not mine.) The material is presented here without comment; you will have to make up your own.
Essay Quotes: What?
- I believe in what I have not seen. That is a statement which will not go undisclosed.
- Many people believe that complex and intelligent life is abundant in the galaxy, but technical civilizations are rare. I believe in the opposite.
- We find that here on earth, many different parts of earth lifeform cannot support the life that is created for them without the help of more advanced, intelligent areas of earth.
- Looking at the idea that intelligent advanced civilizations are already visiting our planet is absurd to me.
- Although the obscurity I believe that there is something else out their, and that we are very close to finding the answer.
- The perception I have is clear and uncut.
- I believe that intelligent life is abundant. We are living proof of intelligent life. However, extraterrestrial life is rare.
- Even though we have been searching and found nothing, doesn’t mean that the extraterrestrial life hasn’t found us.
- We have no reasons not to believe that they are not here.
- These instructions for a suitable environment are unique because when we look at our solar system we are the only planet that has these abilities and are using them to the planets advantage.
- There are many topics we have covered in class that support my theory that existing extraterrestrial life does exist.
- With the knowledge I gained from this class, my reasons have become more plausible educated.
- Earth was and is now a star that had enough fuel to give us energy that lasted long enough to get life started.
- I believe that there is not existence in our galaxy because the methods that there are and have no evidence to back them.
- We already now that the galaxy is older than our solar sytem and their could be civilizations among the stars that have exited much lounger then are own.
- It is not possible for the earth to be the only planet able to harbor earth.
- When I look up at the sky and see millions of stars at a single glance I can’t help but feel a sense that we are not alone. Frankly, I think it is kind of silly to argue that we aren’t alone.
- In defining this question, the answer is narrowed done quiet a bit.
- Of the main sequence stars with planets, we can educationally take out the jovial planets for serving life in general.
- Taking into consideration the principle of Mediocrity :assuming that there is nothing special about our sun or the solar system, and that it is typical of others in the galaxy, we can hypothesize that about half of the stars are terrestrial planets.
- At this point, of all the stars in the Milky Way galaxy, half of them are terrestrial planets.
- Diseases among the species, regardless if it is intelligent or not, may restart the evolution process along with natural disasters, resource exhaustion, and atmospheric changes.
- The way our planet has developed and the different molecules found on it is not as uncommon as people think if you consider all the huge numbers you have to deal with for the possibilities of a planet to have intelligent life on it.
- It is virtually impossible that we are the only technical civilization in such a grandiose place. However, there is much information leading scientists to believe the slim chance of extraterrestrial life existing in our galaxy, but rather the possibility of another galaxy.
- Although easy to conquer, thousands or millions of years would be needed to regain a communicative contact. Within these years, evidence of IET civilizations could be lost through denial, mutation or simply decay of the material.
- Being human, knowing of all the technological advancements that flourish everyday and the large expanse of our galaxy, it would be unsophisticateed to not believe that we are alone. Indeed I believe that we are being watched at this very moment.
- In order for anything on Earth to escape velocity, it would take approximately 270,000 years to do so.
- I do not believe that our great intelligence is not advanced enough to be able to interpret any outside communication.
- Since there are billions of stars and there are planetary systems just like ours in this Galaxy, it is very possible that they have a star just like our Earth.
- Until, I actually am abducted myself, or shown what is really at Area 51, I have to go with what I know now.
- If the universe is infinite then why for all we know there is any life?
- Everything that is discussed in one textbook on the possibilities of extraterrestrials makes it more likely that extraterrestrials would not exist if they were like us.
- Life is fragile, so hostile stars shouldn’t be uncommon throughout the galaxy.
- Mediocrity dictates in this assumption to me.
- The best way I could answer to this question would be more likely then not.
- It is unlikely any intelligent forms a life would be capable of forming on a jovian planet; therefore technically the earth has only four real terrestrial planets.
- “Do Extraterrestrial Technical Civilizations Currently Exist in Our Galaxy?” This question has only two answers, yes or no, but the real answer is not so simple.
- I believe that there is indeed at least one possible multiple technical civilizations existing in galaxy.
- So many reports can be confirmed by reliable sources that some of these UFO’s can not be explained.
- There can be many reasons on what else is out in our Galaxy that we haven’t discovered yet.
- To conclude, I must state that knowing is based on conceptually proven facts and thinking is just a method of hope wrapped in theories. So, I know that technical civilizations other than ours don’t exist in our galaxy, but I think that they do. Currently our civilization is convinced of its knowledge and advanced technology, merely because there is no comparison.
- The second reason I believe extraterrestrial civilizations currently exist in our Galaxy is that just because there are billions of stars, doesn’t mean there are civilizations.
- The universe is, essentially, everything there is. It is infinitesimally huge, and could never be truly searched.
- What makes our sun so special to be able to produce the only life producing star? They could be in the same situation we are in, sending out info to empty a service (universe), hoping for a response.
- A similarity between our planet and that of another technical civilization is thought by many to be an important requirement in the quest to find another planet like Earth.
- Intelligent life can only be formed through one thing. This thing is time.
- Another theory is that there are Technical Civilizations like us, but not any that are as advanced as we are.
- Our atmosphere has a system of well developed space colonies.
- There are civilizations that appear and die each day and then they have to re-colonize themselves.
- If there does exist a technical civilization somewhere out in our galaxy, I believe that they are probably somewhere equally advanced to us technologically if not less so.
- Our neighboring countries are just a few of the monkeys in our little barrel and should be the least of our concerns when compared to our galaxy.
- Finally we have to consider the extreme happenstance that we are as elaborate and are made of what we are made of.
- Again this area of analysis is entirely speculative which is a fundamental error to a problem like this that we cannot solve in any real world experiment.
- In conclusion I after taking this class and learning about the habitable zone in which life could possibly exist and what they need such as the atmosphere of the planet makes me wonder at times.
- In addition to those facts, the fraction of such planets on which life has actually developed, although small, must make careful consideration not to make any hasty generalizations.
- If Earth is classified as a normal situation where life forms than they are thousands of sun-like stars in our universe where life could forum.
- For there to be a civilization the life has to have evolved over millions of years just like we did, which means it can’t be in a very crowded or violent solar system. This factor could get rid of some of the earth like planets in the galaxy that can on support life for a short amount of time that were already in the equation.
- These stars are, in turn, the planets most likely to harbor life.
- Of course many of these stars do not contain any planets and many are not habitable even if they have planets.
- If we were to say that life was able to exist in some form on other planets it would still be impossible to obtain.
- The best place to start is the size of this existence that we are in.
- While all possibilities could and may hold true as to whether or not extraterrestrial technical civilizations do exist in our galaxy, I feel that they simply do not and my reasons stated do have strong evidence to hold true.
- My theory is based off of the relationship between the planet and life with the nature of our universe.
- I just don’t think any civilization has had the time to exist just like it is likely that ancient civilizations could have existed but have long disappeared.
- Unfortunately for us, the first place we have to rule out is our own solar system being that we have been to a few and seen close up on the others. However, with this, we also are now more capable of dwindling down unlivable stars, and planets within capable stars.
- So be these numbers how is anyone expect there to be life.
- To size this task down we can use many factors when looking at those billions of stars and the elemental make up of the atmosphere within the Milky Way.
- The first thing to note is whether or not what star we are looking at.
- Another reason I have for my belief that there are no extraterrestrial civilizations besides us on Earth would be that the odds of being able to support us besides through the water theory are also highly unlikely.
- Finally, there is enough evidence to disprove that there are not extraterrestrials in our galaxy, but on the other hand there is plenty of evidence to prove that it’s more likely that there are extraterrestrials in our galaxy.
- Although our main focus on earth right now is to find a planet suitable to inhabit humans.
- Probability states the unlikelihood of us being the only technical civilization. Out of the 96 billion stars or more, if some calculations are incorrect, must have at least one civilization.
- The amount of time it takes for the speed of sound to travel the same distance for the speed of light to travel is a vast difference.
- The earth’s atmosphere allows earth to have evolution gaining reproduction and life existence.
- There are only a handful of planets that are close to the Earth’s age but that doesn’t mean they have developed as much as our population has and would have had to be calm over the past four billion years or more, like our planet.
- Plate tectonics form along our atmosphere, then multicellular life, animals, and eventually leading to technical civilization much like ours.
- The chances for life on planets to be sustainable rely on lifetime, luminosity, and abundance of stars in order to survive.
- However there could be a planetary system that isn’t close to a star when it would blow up and the extraterrestrial beings could be living on that planet and we wouldn’t even know because we would say, well that star blew up and everything around it is pretty much gone too.
- As I learned in class elements have a harmonic frequency and if we can tune into the mass frequency we could somehow make a heavy object practically weightless.