dunno
I know many different parameters can be taken into consideration and there would probably be bigger and smaller civilisations, but considering size of the earth and our development I always tought we wouldn't fare well number wise. I always imagined a more advanced civilisation to be from a much bigger planet with much greater numbers, probably in the hunderds of milions.
Population of earth is 7 billion already.
But yes, if it's a humanlike alien species then they would undoubtedly have more people if they have colonized different planets.
If they're scum like us they'll be like rats, and breed far beyond what they can realistically maintain
One's ecological foot mark is a popular subject these days. If everyone who is alive today, all 7 billions, lived like we do in the West and industrial countries, we'd need at least another 4 Earth-sized planets to sustain both us and the environment.
So while playing Mass Effect 2 (for the 5th time probably :mrgreen:) reading the Citadel info before docking i read the population of the Citadel is something over 13 million.
Our current Earth numbers surpass all the planet and city population in that game more or less (Krogan had great numbers before genophage)
If there were a galactic civilisation with many races or atleast one that lives somewhere out there what would the size and numbers be? Maybe more planets colonized by one race. Would the Earth trends apply, the more civilised and developed the race smaller the numbers (like weastern world on Earth) or would they be much larger.
I know many different parameters can be taken into consideration and there would probably be bigger and smaller civilisations, but considering size of the earth and our development I always tought we wouldn't fare well number wise. I always imagined a more advanced civilisation to be from a much bigger planet with much greater numbers, probably in the hunderds of billions.
What do u think?
We are still, at 7 billion, nowhere near that point. It's not a matter of not being able to feed, house, and clothe every single person on Earth- we can do that multiple times over. We can maintain an even higher population, and it's not unrealistic to expect people not to be self-serving at every turn. If you have a species that's willing to be collectively responsible and understands that the suffering of one is the suffering of all, great things can be achieved. We as humans are certainly capable of that, it's just a matter of unlearning the things we've been socialized to believe as truth.
One's ecological foot mark is a popular subject these days. If everyone who is alive today, all 7 billions, lived like we do in the West and industrial countries, we'd need at least another 4 Earth-sized planets to sustain both us and the environment.
We're killing this planet slowly.
However, Earth is capable of sustaining (correct me if I got this wrong) over 120 billion humans or something like that. Not *entirely* sure about that, read that once maybe, so could be wrong. Wouldn't not make sense though, Earth is huge. Sadly the ecosystem would collapse lon before we reached even 20 billions, considering the rate at which we consume natural resources.
I think if we encounter any aliens it is probably because they have somehow managed to develop faster than light travel, which means we are fucked regardless of how many of us there are compared to them. God knows how far away our technology is from being able to develop anything like that, provided it is even possible. But who knows, maybe the aliens don't even understand the concept of violence.
In any case, there is too many variables to make any insightful statements about it. It is very easy to project aliens always as some slightly different version of humans, keeps it manageable to our brains I guess. Evolution is a funky thing though. Who knows, maybe some other race consists of giant hyper intelligent godzillas who reproduce once every 200 years who manage to keep a population of 20 going.
Also, to develop our brains and agility we already needed millions of years. And that is with reproductive cycles that were relatively short. Species with super slow reproductive cycles evolve much much slower.Who's to say they didn't get a billion years headstart?
Other intelligent species could be very weird, no doubt (think of an animal with an amazing ability then add it to an intelligent species), but evolution and intelligence are quite resricting actually.If you look at the enormous variety that evolution produced Earth wide, which is with quite comparable circumstances, I think you can barely predict anything about the traits of highly intelligent beings that evolved elsewhere. Perhaps intelligence will always evolve in a similar way, but we only have 1 clear example so I am reluctant to draw conclusions.
Who's to say they didn't get a billion years headstart?
If you look at the enormous variety that evolution produced Earth wide, which is with quite comparable circumstances, I think you can barely predict anything about the traits of highly intelligent beings that evolved elsewhere. Perhaps intelligence will always evolve in a similar way, but we only have 1 clear example so I am reluctant to draw conclusions.
knowing a great deal about cosmos im pretty confident that we are completely alone in this universe
Not necessarily true, recent studies of brain activity show that dolphins may well be at least as sentient as chimps; they feel emotions in a similar way to humans, learn to use tools, enjoy sex, have fun for no reason beyond fun (not for hunter training like in cats)- and yet we're still more than happy to kill or eat them, because dolphins don't speak any human languages? Cos they don't have humanoid faces so we can't see them emote? Basically until a sentient species becomes aggressive, or some sort of threat we'll shit all over it- if we encountered a peaceful species we'd enslave/eat them, if they were aggressive and more advanced they'd likely do the same to us. Thanks Obama!
Also cats are intelligent, we domesticated them, but they also adapted to get desired reactions from us- cat's do not meow to each other in nature, not in the same way they meow to humans, so cats have in essence got a separate language dedicated to getting what they want from humans. In houses where a cat lives with only one owner they won't meow if they want something, they purr at the exact pitch of a crying human baby to provoke maternal/paternal responses xP we think we domesticated cats, they domesticated us. Humans... we just got played.
My point is there is far more intelligence going on in the animal world than we appreciate, what's to stop us finding an alien species and thinking the same, that they're just dumb animals? Or them thinking the same about us?
knowing a great deal about cosmos im pretty confident that we are completely alone in this universe
MongoliaFuckin -50 celsius man
You can't reach the fucking lightspeed. -Albert Einstein
because if they had more technology they'd reach us already.If you can't reach lightspeed (or greatly exceed in the case of galaxies), distances between galaxies and even the nearest solar systems are simply too big too ever encounter any aliens. We can have 200 years more of scientific progress, without every being able to reach any other planets than our beloved 8.
In our galaxy yes, in the whole universe improbable.Why so sure about our galaxy? There are at least 100 billion stars in our galaxy, I'd say that leaves a good probability of an habitable planet.
Fuckin -50 celsius man
If you can't reach lightspeed (or greatly exceed in the case of galaxies), distances between galaxies and even the nearest solar systems are simply too big too ever encounter any aliens. We can have 200 years more of scientific progress, without every being able to reach any other planets than our beloved 8.
Why so sure about our galaxy? There are at least 100 billion stars in our galaxy, I'd say that leaves a good probability of an habitable planet.
The problem of lightspeed travel itself isn't that great if we develop spaceships big enough to actually be colonies themselves.I'd say this would come with enough problems itself to never be realistic, and we would still have to multiply our current speeds by a redonkeylous amount for even that to become feasible. I don't think there are many practical uses either to having a human colony at a few decades travel distance.
I also wonder if we in our current state found a civilization in a state of development equivalent to western middle ages, would we interfere ?If they got oil
I'd say any alien beings would be bound by the same natural and biologic laws as we are.
I'd say this would come with enough problems itself to never be realistic, and we would still have to multiply our current speeds by a redonkeylous amount for even that to become feasible. I don't think there are many practical uses either to having a human colony at a few decades travel distance.
If they got oil
In space, reaching crazy speeds isn't a very big problem if you have enough fuel. There are things to slow you down of course, but nothing much more heavy than cigarette smoke. On top of that, the ship could be designed like a very long and very thin tube to minimize the contact surface.Well, I am not sure how interstellar space travel works compared to space travel in our solar system. But I think you are always influenced by the gravity of something and are never able to just fly in a straight line and accelerate to great speeds.
Solar sails! Because i'm certain other people skimmed my previous post cos it was a wall of text explaining the principle, in essence you use photons from the sun/any star as endless acceleration to lightspeed.
SHOL'VA KREE!
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Silence, inferior beings.
Shak'ti'qua
Your manners in the presence of a God are unspeakable. Slaves is what you are. Slaves of the mighty Goa'Uld. Ya wan, ya daru.
You need not know what lies beyond the rancid hole you are to spend your whole life in, mining Naquadah, slaving for your God. The alphas of your race will serve as vessels for the Goa'Uld and consider that an honor.
*whip*
Well, I am not sure how interstellar space travel works compared to space travel in our solar system. But I think you are always influenced by the gravity of something and are never able to just fly in a straight line and accelerate to great speeds.
Regardless, an interesting mission to Jupiter's moons is estimated to take 8 years to arrive and Jupiter is about 800 million km away, or 0.00008 lightyears and the closest System is 4.24 lightyears. This 53000 times further away than something that takes 8 years to get to. Hence my statement that we need to multiply our current speeds by a redonkeylous amount. I think reaching crazy speeds surely is a big problem because carrying lots of fuel is a problem.
That kind of reasoning only works if you consider extremly short distances (aka not letting the spaceship reach decent speed) in space filled with a lot of stuff that creates friction and attraction. Once you're out of a solar system, there's almost nothing to slow you down, which means building up your speed and keeping it requires very little energy.Having no friction and low gravity does not mean that building up speed requires little energy. You still need to accelerate mass to a speed many times that of our current space travel to even get within centuries of travel time. With the square relation between velocity and energy, getting twice the velocity means needing 4 times the energy. Getting a 100 times the velocity means needing 10000 times the energy. It is not simply a matter of having a lot of fuel, because fuel is friggin heavy and every bit of extra mass requires more energy. If you actually ever wanted to deaccelerate the craft, that would require as much energy, although the craft will probably be lighter, which you need to store as dead weight for the entire acceleration. I can't be bothered to do a calculation with some estimates, but I am quite sure accelerating a ship that can sustain humans for a century to a speed with which it would take a century to travel 5 lightyears requires a tad bit too much.
Solar sails! Because i'm certain other people skimmed my previous post cos it was a wall of text explaining the principle, in essence you use photons from the sun/any star as endless acceleration to lightspeed.Endless but very, very slow. Though I have read an article on them and there seem to be possibilities of greatly increasing the acceleration in the future, seemed very promising. They stated that travelling to Alpha Centauri may be possible with about a century travel time. Seems like the only viable way of maybe ever doing interstellar travel. A solar sail could slow down using the light of the target star, brilliant. The payload they would be able to carry can't be much though.
One's ecological foot mark is a popular subject these days. If everyone who is alive today, all 7 billions, lived like we do in the West and industrial countries, we'd need at least another 4 Earth-sized planets to sustain both us and the environment.
We're killing this planet slowly.
However, Earth is capable of sustaining (correct me if I got this wrong) over 120 billion humans or something like that. Not *entirely* sure about that, read that once maybe, so could be wrong. Wouldn't not make sense though, Earth is huge. Sadly the ecosystem would collapse lon before we reached even 20 billions, considering the rate at which we consume natural resources.
Having no friction and low gravity does not mean that building up speed requires little energy. You still need to accelerate mass to a speed many times that of our current space travel to even get within centuries of travel time. With the square relation between velocity and energy, getting twice the velocity means needing 4 times the energy. Getting a 100 times the velocity means needing 10000 times the energy.
Ek = ½mv^2 is the relation between velocity and energy I am talking about.
If put a sportscar (1000 kg, very light one) accelerating to the speed of light in this formula and convert it to gigawatt/hour I get 1.248x10^7 or 12,482,710 gigawatt/hour. To compare, world energy consumption is 2.203x10^7 or 20,279,640 gigawatt/hour. So you would need almost 2/3rds of the energy the world produces in a year to reach lightspeed and twice that if you also actually want to stop somewhere. That is a lot of rocket fuel.
Ek = ½mv^2 is the relation between velocity and energy I am talking about.
If put a sportscar (1000 kg, very light one) accelerating to the speed of light in this formula and convert it to gigawatt/hour I get 1.248x10^7 or 12,482,710 gigawatt/hour. To compare, world energy consumption is 2.203x10^7 or 20,279,640 gigawatt/hour. So you would need almost 2/3rds of the energy the world produces in a year to reach lightspeed and twice that if you also actually want to stop somewhere. That is a lot of rocket fuel.
Ek = ½mv^2 is the relation between velocity and energy I am talking about.
If put a sportscar (1000 kg, very light one) accelerating to the speed of light in this formula and convert it to gigawatt/hour I get 1.248x10^7 or 12,482,710 gigawatt/hour. To compare, world energy consumption is 2.203x10^7 or 20,279,640 gigawatt/hour. So you would need almost 2/3rds of the energy the world produces in a year to reach lightspeed and twice that if you also actually want to stop somewhere. That is a lot of rocket fuel.
Giving yourself an acceleration a 1m/s^2 will last continuously in space so you could, with nothing more than a simple burst of energy get those speedsThis is not true. The acceleration will not last continously, the speed you gain from the acceleration will last continously until counteracted by deacceleration. Acceleration does in fact require consistent pushing. Giving yourself an acceleration of 1m/s^2 for 1 second will make you go 1 m/s until more acceleration or deacceleration is applied, even in space. My calculation perfectly shows the amount of energy required for a 1000kg to be accelerated to lightspeed from 0 in a vacuum without any friction or gravity. I am not forgetting anything.
Remember, An object will stay in motion unless acted on by an outside force. and in space, the amount of "outside forces" is pretty low.Yes, stay in motion indeed, not increase in speed of motion.
That's why utilizing gravitational fields or solar sails is so viable in space, those would give you constant acceleration (or in the case of gravity; infrequent bursts to further increase your already high speeds), however the only issue i can forsee is that you can take as long as you like to accelerate, stopping at your destination may be difficult lol. That's where you'd need copious amounts of fuel, likely more than any ship could realistically carry. A shame, but it seems crazy physics and folding space is our only hope.Well, with the aforementioned solar sails stopping is not much of a problem as long as you are travelling towards another star, just turn your sails away from your home star and towards the destination star, or any star close to the actual destination.
SHOL'VA KREE!
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Silence, inferior beings.
Shak'ti'qua
Your manners in the presence of a God are unspeakable. Slaves is what you are. Slaves of the mighty Goa'Uld. Ya wan, ya daru.
You need not know what lies beyond the rancid hole you are to spend your whole life in, mining Naquadah, slaving for your God. The alphas of your race will serve as vessels for the Goa'Uld and consider that an honor.
*whip*
Ek = ½mv^2 is the relation between velocity and energy I am talking about.
If put a sportscar (1000 kg, very light one) accelerating to the speed of light in this formula and convert it to gigawatt/hour I get 1.248x10^7 or 12,482,710 gigawatt/hour. To compare, world energy consumption is 2.203x10^7 or 20,279,640 gigawatt/hour. So you would need almost 2/3rds of the energy the world produces in a year to reach lightspeed and twice that if you also actually want to stop somewhere. That is a lot of rocket fuel.
Actually the energy is far higher since acceleration becomes more expensive the faster you are.
What about ion drive propulsion?It would continously accelerate, not accelerate faster, and in fact, as EponiCo pointed out, when getting closer to lightspeed it will start to accelerate slower when the force propelling it remains constant.
Also, wouldn't a constant force of energy cause the vessel to continuously accelerate faster in space? If there's no counter-active force, wouldn't said vessel accelerate infinitely?
Actually the energy is far higher since acceleration becomes more expensive the faster you are. The formula is something withYou are right, my knowledge sadly does not exceed simple Newtonian physics. Of course what we know now dictates that reaching lightspeed is theoretically impossible as well.
sqrt(n / (1- v²/c²)). Reaching speed of light would require infinite energy. Also, nitpick, but you are confusing gigawatt-hours with gigawatt/hour.
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