Do you believe in other life in the Universe?

[natdscott]

Methane may work pretty okay as well.

 

[Alpo]

Molecular polarity, dudes. You need dipoles.

... importance of liquid water to life as we know it. We can only really study what exists here.

NH3 is easy to manufacture and study in the lab.

 

[printcraft]

Even the SETI guys called them idiots.....

Something to the effect that it accelerated without typically known means to do so.

 

[ATOMonkey]

Given enough time, and enough iterations, there's a statistical chance. The question is whether there has been enough time, and enough iterative cycles.

I think.

Not necessarily, since each occurrence is an independent event. Each event is just as unlikely as the last.

 

[T.Lex]

Not necessarily, since each occurrence is an independent event. Each event is just as unlikely as the last.

Sure, but eventually the roulette ball settles on green.

 

[ATOMonkey]

Sure, but eventually the roulette ball settles on green.

possibly...I'll give you that there is a mathematical chance, if not a realistic chance.

All of that aside, your process needs to be repeatable and stable, not a maybe it'll happen once in a billion-trillion times.

If it was just random, then by definition it can't be randomly stable.

 

[patience0830]

Gas cools as it rises, doesn't it? At least that is what I remember from thermodynamics.

As it expands. Though rises implies expansion, I think. Think can of butane. Spray liquid butane on a surface, surface gets mighty cold. Conversely, the chambers on your air compressor get pretty warm as you shrink the volume of the air contained in them.

 

[BugI02]

Not necessarily, since each occurrence is an independent event. Each event is just as unlikely as the last.

So what is the result of an infinite number of repetitions on the likelihood an event with any non-zero probability?

 

[patience0830]

So what is the result of an infinite number of repetitions on the likelihood an event with any non-zero probability?

The odds remain the same every time you play the lottery..

 

[eldirector]

Hot gas "rises" in our frame of reference only because the Earth's gravity. Hot gas is less dense, and is displaced by cooler gas(es) as they are pulled down. No gravity, and it would not "rise". Only expand.

Gas DOES cool as it expands. Formula is PV=nRT (Ideal Gas Law).

P= pressure
V = volume
n = amount of gas in moles
R = gas constant
T = temperature

In the butane example, the surface the butane was on cools because the butane takes in energy as it phase-shifts from liquid to gas, and then expands. Not EXACTLY the gas law, but whatever.

In the compressed air example, volume decreases, pressure increases, and the amount of gas (air) in the volume increases (you are adding air to the compressor). To balance the equation temp must go up.

Wow. Been a while since I've actually looked at this. We use it all every day, though. Just don't realize it.

 

[Ziggidy]

Given enough time, and enough iterations, there's a statistical chance. The question is whether there has been enough time, and enough iterative cycles.

I think.

Yep.....

 

[eldirector]

My daughter and I just had a conversation yesterday about the vastness of the universe. What (I think) a lot of folks fail to realize is the size and scope we are talking about. The known universe (which isn't saying much, really) has a volume on the order of 4 x 10^80 cubic meters. It has been around something on the order of 13.8B (1.38 X 10^10) years.

When we talk about statistics and "chance" at these scales, and try to relate it to something like Roulette, we have to realize.... Every combination has been tried by now, many, many millions/billions/trillions of times.

Of course, the flip side of this is that the chances of us actually finding anything else in all that vastness is inversely small. We, in all our hubris, are not even a pixel in the big picture.

One of my favorite Calvin and Hobb's pics: