Thu 6 Dec 2007
“From an intergalactic vantage point we would see, strewn like sea froth on the waves of space, innumerable faint, wispy tendrils of light. These are the galaxies…
A galaxy is composed of gas and dust and stars – billions upon billions of stars. Every star may be a sun to someone.
There are some hundred billion galaxies each with, on the average, a hundred billion stars.
Our overwhelming impression, even between the spiral arms, is of stars streaming by us – a vast array of exquisitely self-luminous stars, some as flimsy as a soap bubble and so large that they could contain ten thousand Suns or a trillion Earths; others the size of a small town and a hundred trillion times denser than lead. Some stars are solitary like the Sun. Most have companions. Systems are commonly double, two stars orbiting one another. But there is a continuous gradation from triple systems through loose clusters of a dozen stars to the great globular clusters, resplendent with a million suns.
In all the galaxies there are perhaps as many planets as stars, 10 to the eleventh x 10 to the eleventh = 10 to the 22nd power. That is, ten billion trillion.”
Cosmos, pp 21-23
And while the Universe is very big. The human body is also mind-boggling. I’m sure you’ve read these things before in other places but I enjoy typing them out:
“Human DNA is a ladder a billion nuctides long. Most possible combinations of nucleotides are nonsense: they would cause the synthesis of proteins that perform no useful function. Only an extremely limited number of nucleic acid molecules are any good for lifeforms as complicated as we. Even so, the number of useful ways of putting nucleic acids together is stupefyingly large – probably far greater than the total number of electrons and protons in the known universe.”
Ibid, pp 50-51
[...] And when Robbins says the Mystery, you only have to read a page of Carl Sagan (or my hand-picked bits) and you know that the Universe is human-shatteringly massive and our own bodies are mind-shatteringly complex and impossible. [...]
Dear Alistair,
I believe, it was also Carl Sagan, who wrote for the script of the “Contact”-Movie:
If we’re really alone in the universe, then it’s a massive wasting of space.
In loving memory of this extraordinary intelligent man!
I think, today he would despair or get stomach pain, if he would or better had to see the current activities of the creationists and other religious fundamentalists.
There are quite good reasons to believe in a creator. Even respectable scientists say, we cannot prove surely, that there will be a sunrise tomorrow morning again. And if we view the tremendous dimensions of the universe and the countless scientific phenomena in and outside of earth remains sufficient area for faith.
But I think, the existence of extraterrestrial life is not a question of faith, but of simple mathematics, of the calculation of probability. I think, that was the real message of Sagan: we are not alone. Maybe we cannot see the others immediately. Maybe not in centuries, but they are somewhere outside, deep in the universe. The answers to the questions: Who are we? Where we came from? are the 2nd step.
The 1st step, I think, is the consequent scientific one, to accept, that the mankind is not the unique life form in universe. The other steps are not less scientific, I think, but maybe rather spiritual or religious or something. Are the like us? Could we contact with them? They with us? Could we understand each other? Could we survive misunderstandings? Do they have any interest in us?
However. Even if there is a theoretical area for a creator, the history of religion and science shows that faith was always in conflict with discoveries and the church had to correct their point of views, not the science. The Roman Catholic Church is now very clever. They have understood. It’s easier, to lean back simply and comfortably. Not we have to prove the existence of God but the science. Because we believe simply and only, while they want to believe only in something, what them can prove. But, then they should examine for Heaven’s sake that there is God and leaves us alone.
And naturally Rome knows, that is impossible.
By the way. In “Contact” (Sagan wrote the script, do you remember) this question was discussed between Elli and Palmer Joss. Palmer asks Elli, after she requires a proof for the existence of God again and again: Do you have loved your father? Whereupon she says naturally YES. And Palmer answered: prove it!
Well. That’s all for the moment. Maybe more on another day. A very exciting question!
Thanks for your patience and for this possibility to exchange ideas with you.
Sincerely Andreas
Carl Sagan was the most celebrated graduate of Rahway
New Jersey public high school, which means I grew up
about 2 miles from him and I guess a half dozen years
behind. This means absolutely nothing to you, but none-
theless I submit it only because I Googled myself here
to learn more about you & your enjoyable BBC show.
Carl Sagan was one of my heroes, along with Jacob Bronowski and Marie Curie. Hence my degree in Physics, but also my belief that time and space are not always linear – maybe synchronicity flows from here?