Why science for me?

1. Let’s say you went to Scotland and studied a mountain lake and discovered, it had fish. What would be your natural assumption about other similar lakes? Are you 1 or 2? • “This is an holy lake blessed by a God. It is impossible any other lakes could have fish in them. It does not make sense to believe that fish exist elsewhere, unless you see them.” • “We have only studied one lake so far. It has fish. The odds of this being the only lake with fish is quite remote since there is nothing special about this lake.”

2. Douglas Adams Author (1952-2001) Why science for me? “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.”  “See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.” 

3. Thought for today– are we alone? • “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”  M81 – 12 million light years away

4. How fast is light? • Dedanken (Thought) Experiment “Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.”

5. This Galaxy (M33) is pretty average. It has 40 billion stars (suns) That’s 7 each for every human on earth A Galaxy “Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.”

6. The Drake Equation • Optimistic • 20,000 per Galaxy, there are quite a few civilizations, and the closest one would be about 350 light years away. • Pessimistic • 0.000065 we are almost surely alone in our galaxy, but many other galaxies host life. • Current research • the range is between 0 and 180 million per Galaxy! “I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.”

7. How many Galaxies? The most important photo ever taken? “Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” 

8. How many? • From this photograph scientists have estimated that there are 125 billion galaxies in the universe. • So using Drakes’ original estimates, 1250 billion intelligent civilisations in the universe, 180 for each person on earth! “What's so unpleasant about being drunk?""Ask a glass of water!” 

9. The Fermi paradox - Where are they all? Some people believe they are here! “All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place.” 

10. Possible answers • Life is difficult to start and to evolve to an intelligent/technological stage and we're the only one in the galaxy. • They are here unobserved they are keeping us in a well designed zoo. • They are us Humans are the descendants of previous alien civilizations. • They exist but... ET’s messages may not have reached us yet. • They are sending signals, but we do not know how to listen. • They don’t want to talk. • Catastrophes...Civilizations only survive for a short time. • They do not exist because • We are the only fish in the pool and we are special. “My universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay.” 

11. Final thoughts The solar system has only existed for about 1/3 of the age of the universe. In 2003, British philosopher Nick Bostrom suggested that our far-evolved distant descendants might construct a program to simulate the past and recreate how their ancient ancestors lived, this could be it! “All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.” “The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore.” Why Science for me?