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First images from Euclid are in

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Re: First images from Euclid are in

#101

Post by gorgoiler »

A fun thing I like to do every so often is to try to break away from the natural notion that space has a horizon and that instead force myself to feel that it continues equally in all directions.

We’re naturally inclined to be ok with giant distances on the horizon. It’s natural to put more emphasis on that part of the world. Hold up your thumb to the horizon and notice how many things fit alongside it compared to your thumb help downwards against the ground.

On the surface of our planet the up direction isn’t usually interesting and the down direction isn’t even there. It is therefore quite horrifying (“fun”) to imagine space going down forever.

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#102

Post by colordrops »

mcmoor wrote: post #87
6stringronin wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying out of the trillions upon trillions of stars that the chances are no life can think but us? I think the odds are that at least one of them does.

We're multiplying a very large number (number of planets) with a very small number (chance of intelligent life). The margin can make the answer go either way.

Why do you think the chance of intelligent life is a very small number? Considering we know of several million species, the chances are that we are right in the middle of the curve, and can't recognize the vastly more intelligent species the way an ant can't recognize our intelligence.

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#103

Post by colordrops »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #74
m3kw9 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One proof is that we are thinking, and so are dogs, cats and monkeys to a lesser extent.

That’s hardly proof considering these examples all share a common ancestor. I ask you, can you communicate with a slime mold? Even the slime mold is more similar to ourselves than any potential life we’d find elsewhere, as we share a common ancestor.

What's so important about "sharing a common ancestor"? It doesn't say anything about the spread of different types of life that could evolve, considering we have a sample size of one, and it also says nothing about how difficult it is for any particular form to evolve intelligence.

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#104

Post by felizuno »

imchillyb wrote: post #66
wayoverthecloud wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that too. That it's surely meant to be something. But sometimes I think what does "meaning" even mean? Does universe really have any "meaning", the term that humans invented and that even they are unsure of? Then, I think it's a big randomness, a random accident, a big joke, just happening with nothing to make sense of.

So many rules, laws, and systems for all of this to be random. Seems a waste of good code if everything is random. Is an ecosystem random? What happens when one outside force is added to an ecosystem? There's plenty of examples around the globe of this. Life doesn't 'find a way' and balance. The ecosystem is damaged, and often times destroyed by adding a single non-native species. That doesn't seem random does it? Ra…

I've been convinced that random is so maximally inclusive that there is no error category. Obviously uniformity is an anti-random condition that would bait the label "error" but I think it's still perfectly random to flip a coin tails 2, 4, 6, 6k times consecutively and the uniformity is simply a shocking instance of random. To your point, I don't think random implies balance though I understand that statistically this is the expected outcome of large set randomness such as ...the universe... (OP)

Many of my thoughts on randomness are seeded by David Deutsch's "Beginning of infinity" which is an interesting read FWTW

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#105

Post by ffwd »

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #97
geenkeuse wrote: post #30

We still have a long way to go to beat this draw distance, but we are on our way. The day will come when we have "sentient" beings, living in a massive world created by us. And they will ponder the same things as we do now. And we will remain invisible and out of reach, but completely observant, and influential in their world. After all, we wrote the program. And they will study the code and discover their own "natur…

The more I learn about physics the more I am convinced this is a simulation. In a way our universe is very lazy, at large scales where consciousness exists the universe is coherent, predictable. The smaller you get the lazier and fuzzier the universe gets to save computational work. The actual state of things is only computed on small scales when you measure them. The speed of light puts limits on how far humanity ca…

This is an interesting idea but personally I think the opposite - the universe is not lazy and all details matter at all levels.

Like imagine making a complete account of all world views of all people in all of history - all perspectives, and all the physical events of that history. There is almost infinite detail there. In a way, in the universe all the details of all the things matter, including at the physical level, otherwise you wouldn't get the diversity and complexity you get now.

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#106

Post by samus »

imchillyb wrote: post #66
wayoverthecloud wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that too. That it's surely meant to be something. But sometimes I think what does "meaning" even mean? Does universe really have any "meaning", the term that humans invented and that even they are unsure of? Then, I think it's a big randomness, a random accident, a big joke, just happening with nothing to make sense of.

So many rules, laws, and systems for all of this to be random. Seems a waste of good code if everything is random. Is an ecosystem random? What happens when one outside force is added to an ecosystem? There's plenty of examples around the globe of this. Life doesn't 'find a way' and balance. The ecosystem is damaged, and often times destroyed by adding a single non-native species. That doesn't seem random does it? Ra…

Ecosystems eventually adapt to the newcomers. And it's not like the species already part of the ecosystem wouldn't ever evolve to something detrimental to the whole.

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#107

Post by cvoss »

mlyle wrote: post #99
xpl wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't we build a giant optical interferometer in space by sending multiple telescopes out there?

Possibly, but the challenges to do so are immense. Using the sun as a giant gravitational lens seems much more tractable.

Really? I wouldn't think the sun is nearly massive enough to do what would be required here. Stars visible near the edge of the Sun appear in slightly different spots from their actual locations. If there was a distant planet directly behind the Sun whose light were focused back to an image on our side of the Sun, you'd have to get really far back from the Sun to resolve the image, no? And furthermore, it's exceedingly difficult to orient such an apparatus to look in the desired direction; you are beholden to the orbital mechanics of your viewing satellite as it plods along.

Whereas, multi-site telescopes spread across the Earth have already been demonstrated as a feasible technology (recall the black hole images). It is well within our ability to set up a constellation of satellites, perhaps spanning a few of the Earth-Sun Lagrange points.

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#108

Post by WhitneyLand »

shiroiushi wrote: post #52
bikamonki wrote: post #7

So many solar systems out there, life evolved in many planets for sure. No proof but no doubt.

No, there's only one solar system in the entire universe. There's countless star systems though, but only one of those stars is named Sol. /pedant

If that’s where we’re going I’ll try to pedant-raise you.

Assuming the cosmological principle is true and the universe is infinite, wouldn’t we be guaranteed an infinite number of Sols? ;)

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#109

Post by cameldrv »

dyauspitr wrote: post #89
neom wrote: post #10

Some of that zooming in made me feel pretty damn uncomfortable. It really is f'ing massive out there huh. Makes me wonder what this is all about, I'm sure it's something, I wonder what. :)

It’s ridiculous. That final zoomed in image that showed one galaxy has maybe 300 million stars in it. Just that one. The scope is… unbelievable silly.

Take a look at the Hubble ultra deep field image. It’s a tiny part of the sky but it’s hundreds of galaxies. It’s hard to wrap your head around…

Re: First images from Euclid are in

#110

Post by seoulmetro »

Jun8 wrote: post #90

Watching this is ... hard to find the words to describe it. It's insane! It shows us how mind bogglingly vast the universe is and how we're literally nothing compared to it. Paradoxically, it also makes me feel incredibly potent and capable as a human being in that being this small we can know so much! Your size is to the distance of that distant spiral galaxy (420 Mly - 10e24m) as a neutrino is to you (effective cro…

>in that being this small we can know so much!

We only know what we think we know. We could just be grains of sand in someone else's world for all we know.

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