Brian Cox

[TCIB]

One mad thing about sending ourselves to other solar systems could be arriving to the planet and seeing it a hive of technology with humans already there. We send of a ship with people on board that with the tech of the time takes 20 thousand years to reach the new planet. However technology advancement on earth develops a method to get there in 5k years. So that ship has landed long long before the original ship and developed for a good 10 thousand years before the others arrive.

How would we react to ourselves, what would the differences be if any. We could start to diverge due to our very different atmospheric surroundings. For example the new planet may have 0.9 earths gravity so that length of time may see those on the planet first evolve to be bigger. How noticeable would it be after 10k years of divergence etc.

 

[aguero93:20]

One mad thing about sending ourselves to other solar systems could be arriving to the planet and seeing it a hive of technology with humans already there. We send of a ship with people on board that with the tech of the time takes 20 thousand years to reach the new planet. However technology advancement on earth develops a method to get there in 5k years. So that ship has landed long long before the original ship and developed for a good 10 thousand years before the others arrive.

How would we react to ourselves, what would the differences be if any. We could start to diverge due to our very different atmospheric surroundings. For example the new planet may have 0.9 earths gravity so that length of time may see those on the planet first evolve to be bigger. How noticeable would it be after 10k years of divergence etc.

We distrust and fear those from other countries now mate, in that scenario I'd really hope we'd have developed a bit more sense than we have now.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

The clue is in the colour of the night sky. It's pretty dark, right? If it was densely packed with stars it would be like daylight.

In our own solar system, and the sun is a football, then the earth is a peppercorn and Neptune is a peanut orbiting 400 yards away. That's a lot of "nothing" in between! And the gaps between solar systems is much, much, much, much bigger than that!

The problem with your Star Trek propulsion system is that you can't do anything to help the people you leave behind. Travelling at very near light speed, you could traverse the galaxies - going millions or even billions of light years in a matter of a couple of years. (It would take you 1 year to accelerate to light speed and another year to slow down, but whilst at- or very close to - light speed, you could traverse galaxies in seconds).

But billions of years would have passed on earth when you got back. The earth might not even exist any more on your return.

In actual fact if it wasn’t for dust and cosmic debris absorbing light there are so many stars out there that night would be as bright as day if all the light from all the stars out there could reach us.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

The clue is in the colour of the night sky. It's pretty dark, right? If it was densely packed with stars it would be like daylight.

In our own solar system, and the sun is a football, then the earth is a peppercorn and Neptune is a peanut orbiting 400 yards away. That's a lot of "nothing" in between! And the gaps between solar systems is much, much, much, much bigger than that!

The problem with your Star Trek propulsion system is that you can't do anything to help the people you leave behind. Travelling at very near light speed, you could traverse the galaxies - going millions or even billions of light years in a matter of a couple of years. (It would take you 1 year to accelerate to light speed and another year to slow down, but whilst at- or very close to - light speed, you could traverse galaxies in seconds).

But billions of years would have passed on earth when you got back. The earth might not even exist any more on your return.

This is twaddle.

Galaxies are hundreds of thousands of light years across.
Our own Milky Way is 100,000 light years across, Andromeda is 220,000 light years across.

You couldn’t traverse them in seconds at light speed.

 

[Zubrman]

This is twaddle.

Galaxies are millions of light years across.

You couldn’t traverse them in seconds at light speed.

I would think you could if you travelled at warp speed.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

We will colonise the galaxy but it will be with earth bacteria and viruses not mankind.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

I would think you could if you travelled at warp speed.

And could you explain what that is please?

You could also do it if you travelled a million light years every time you said “wibble”, the blackadder drive.

But that’s fantasy as well.

 

[aguero93:20]

We will colonise the galaxy but it will be with earth bacteria and viruses not mankind.

I read an interesting article a while back that proposed that it would be a lot more feasible to send frozen fertilized human embryos along with robotics/computers to unfreeze, raise and nurture/educate them.
Can't remember where it was though.

 

[Chippy_boy]

In actual fact if it wasn’t for dust and cosmic debris absorbing light there are so many stars out there that night would be as bright as day if all the light from all the stars out there could reach us.

No, that's not actually correct.

"Besides being very hard to imagine, the trouble with an infinite universe is that no matter where you look in the night sky, you should see a star. Stars should overlap each other in the sky like tree trunks in the middle of a very thick forest. But, if this were the case, the sky would be blazing with light. This problem greatly troubled astronomers and became known as "Olbers' Paradox." A paradox is a statement that seems to disagree with itself.

To try to explain the paradox, some 19th century scientists thought that dust clouds between the stars must be absorbing a lot of the starlight so it wouldn't shine through to us. But later scientists realized that the dust itself would absorb so much energy from the starlight that eventually it would glow as hot and bright as the stars themselves.

Astronomers now realize that the universe is not infinite. A finite universe—that is, a universe of limited size—even one with trillions and trillions of stars, just wouldn't have enough stars to light up all of space.

Although the idea of a finite universe explains why Earth's sky is dark at night, other causes work to make it even darker."*

* the other causes being the expansion of the universe, not dust, btw.

https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/dr-marc-space/dark-sky.html

 

[Chippy_boy]

This is twaddle.

Galaxies are hundreds of thousands of light years across.
Our own Milky Way is 100,000 light years across, Andromeda is 220,000 light years across.

You couldn’t traverse them in seconds at light speed.

You'd think so, wouldn't you. But no, it's actually correct. I am thinking perhaps you didn't factor in the effects of Einstein's special relativity?

If we designed a spaceship that could travel at 99.99999999999% of light speed, for the astronauts it would seem like it took just under 36 days.

Add a couple of 9's to the 99.9999... figure above and the journey time is less than 4 days.