Nice people thread part 5 - nicely does it

zagubov

sss555s wrote: »

Friday evening question....

Which nice people think there possibly is ET life that could land on our planet?


I personally like to remain open minded on such things :cool:

I think there's got to be loads of primitive life around the universe, but multi-celled lfe would be as rare as hen's teeth (and even more so would intelligent life).

Not that I'd want to meet them.
First people to use space vehicles were Hitler's Germany and then the Soviet Union. Dictatorships with an abhorence of personal freedom and no compunctions about large-scale violence. Kind of makes me wonder if the first intelligent life we meet might be more like the klingons than ET, real hard characters.:eek:

Can we suck back our old tV and radio signals so they can't trace us?

LydiaJ

vivatifosi wrote: »

I think that there is intelligent life on other planets, but I'm not convinced they'd get here that easily. The reason being that we aren't aware of broadcasts etc from other places in space and surely it would be easier to send a soundwave than a life-form (a question for Lydia there perhaps).

Not sound waves, no. Sound waves don't travel through space. That's why we can see the sun but can't hear it. But they could send radio waves. They'd have to have the most unimaginably powerful transmitter, though. Remember, even things bigger and brighter than the sun just look like tiny little faint dots to us from this distance, and the distance would have the same effect on any radio tranmissions too.

michaels

I think generally you are insured although if you were in an accident in which an mot defect contributed then your cover would be reduced, also the value of your car would be reduced based on lack of MOT. I would have risked it

Our second car failed its MOT on emissions (it does every year) but I don't know how to fix it, possibilities are lambda sensor, cat and throttle potentiometer (or even ecu). I hate garages as they generally just change parts in order until it is 'fixed' and the car is only worth a few hundred. Getting the parts on line is a gamble, they changed the engine just before my car and the sensor that will definitely fit is 60 quid, however some sellers claim the part for the previous engine will also work and that only costs 30 quid.

LydiaJ wrote: »

Aargh!

Tried to renew my tax disc online. The system said it couldn't find a record of my MOT. Searched for the certificate and couldn't find it. Phoned the garage I bought it from at the end of April last year to ask if they had a record of the certificate number or something. They checked their list and said they hadn't MOT'd it when I bought it because it had still had 11 months on its existing MOT. :eek:

So it's got no MOT, and as from Sunday no tax either. I've booked it in for an MOT on Monday, and in the meantime I presume its insurance isn't valid so I'm not driving it. Fortunately my dad arrives in an hour or so to stay for the weekend, so he can drive us anywhere we need to go.

I phoned round a few friends to see if anyone could give me a lift to pick the kids up from after school club, but my friends were all out, so I walked. Walking there was a bit stressful because I only had 19 minutes to do a mile and a half, and I'm not particularly fit. (I made it, though, just!) Walking back had no time pressure, but I did have to encourage DD along. She went very slowly and kept complaining that she had hurt her foot (although it seemed OK when she wanted to climb on something in a playground that we went through). So it was stressful in a different way. DS was great, though, and helped to encourage DD instead of winding her up, so I'm very grateful to him.

PS sss555s The big number is 10^16 (when typed all on one line) or 10 with a superscript 16 if done on something that can do superscripts, pronounced "ten to the sixteen". If it were money it would probably be referred to as ten quadrillion, but we don't use words higher than million in science usually, just the "ten to the..." notation.

vivatifosi

LydiaJ wrote: »

Not sound waves, no. Sound waves don't travel through space. That's why we can see the sun but can't hear it. But they could send radio waves. They'd have to have the most unimaginably powerful transmitter, though. Remember, even things bigger and brighter than the sun just look like tiny little faint dots to us from this distance, and the distance would have the same effect on any radio tranmissions too.

Doh! Sorry, meant radio not sound...

ETA: DH (a physical chemist) shouts at films re sound effects. I will try very hard not to show him my previous post for fear of being called a numpty.

michaels

Plus suns are so big and energetic that their radiation would almost certainly drown out the communication signals of any planets in their orbit. Given the number of planets it seems that life is a near certainty, however given the impossibility of faster than light travel and the fact the universe is expanding it seems unlikely that any race will ever be able to travel between systems unless they live their lives to a very different timescale to ours.

LydiaJ wrote: »

Not sound waves, no. Sound waves don't travel through space. That's why we can see the sun but can't hear it. But they could send radio waves. They'd have to have the most unimaginably powerful transmitter, though. Remember, even things bigger and brighter than the sun just look like tiny little faint dots to us from this distance, and the distance would have the same effect on any radio tranmissions too.

LydiaJ

michaels wrote: »

I think generally you are insured although if you were in an accident in which an mot defect contributed then your cover would be reduced, also the value of your car would be reduced based on lack of MOT. I would have risked it

Thanks. I didn't have time to phone the insurer and check. I didn't risk it because I am freaked out by any possibility of being uninsured when driving since my experience with LNE's compensation claim has made me all too aware that motor insurance claims can be huge. My lawyers are describing my family's claim as "fairly small" because everyone that was in LNE's car is either dead or fine. The big claims are for people with life-altering injuries - their claims can run into millions very easily.

zagubov

LydiaJ wrote: »

Not sound waves, no. Sound waves don't travel through space. That's why we can see the sun but can't hear it. But they could send radio waves. They'd have to have the most unimaginably powerful transmitter, though. Remember, even things bigger and brighter than the sun just look like tiny little faint dots to us from this distance, and the distance would have the same effect on any radio tranmissions too.

I have heard arguments that we could only ever be in contact with planets not amazingly different from our own.
ie plenty of water so life can start somewhere but seismically active so some land rises above the sea, with a moon to produce tides that let life migrate to the land, land needed so they could develop fire to produce the metals that they would need to send the signals.:)

I remember Rowan Atkinson on a sketch where he was an alien contacting us via TV and describing his planet as being very different from ours, having "no gravity, no death, and a different shaped gearstick on the Mini Metro":D

Spirit_2

silvercar wrote: »

One house my parents had had a vegatable patch that was filled with black currents. Revolting job to pick them and then top and tail, put me off black currents for life. We always had far too many, I don't know why my parents didn't get rid of some bushes.

Black currants make me smile. Boxingday 2009 and I was making a blackcurrant cheese cake for a pudding for a family visit. My mum was staying with us and I can picture her arthritic fingers working hard to top and tail the frozen currants. it was a horrible job but mum wanted to help me, Mum was a little confused and kept referring to them by the wrong name.

Forever more this pud is known as Blue bottle cheese cake.

Mum died the following spring.

PasturesNew

LydiaJ wrote: »

...everyone ...or fine.

You can't really tell. Something could be discovered years in the future. My sibling's fighting the potential of total paralysis, and has newly discovered this is the direct result of a simple accident with a bicycle 45 years ago. It went undiagnosed/unspotted all those years.... but I guess things are better these days. Back then they strapped you up and you got pushed around for 2-3 months, then it was over. Thing was, there was something they didn't spot.

PasturesNew

Spirit wrote: »

Black currants make me smile. Boxingday 2009 and I was making a blackcurrant cheese cake for a pudding for a family visit. My mum was staying with us and I can picture her arthritic fingers working hard to top and tail the frozen currants. it was a horrible job but mum wanted to help me, Mum was a little confused and kept referring to them by the wrong name.

Forever more this pud is known as Blue bottle cheese cake.

Mum died the following spring.

Awww. it's stuff like that that hurts isn't it
All those memories.