77 replies to this topic

[Hyginos]

we're working on that dammit.

 

You work at CERN?

[ticklemyiguana]

You work at CERN?

What? No. We. Like, humanity.

[Hyginos]

Whooosh!

[CraftyDus]

where're we at with the budget on this?

[ticklemyiguana]

i've come up with a theory, that the sentient aliens are us... and that our bodies and genes are from sentient beings of the old extinct entities that died off or ran away....  nah, im just playing.. but, maybe our genes will give us a closer link to what the real aliens were.

 

Alright, moving on to a few more questions, which I'll try to answer a little more briefly, partially because they can be, and partially because I know less about some of the subjects than I do astrophysics or cosmology.

 

Regarding aliens.

 

So, water is one of the fundamental features a planet needs in order to sustain life as we know it. It's possible that other liquids can fill the same role, but water appears to be the best at it. The reason for this is a lot of things dissolve in water. When a liquid has the ability to dissolve solids, it's called a solvent.

 

What happens in a solvent is that the molecules of the solvent, in this case H₂O, or two Hydrogen atoms (as we covered above, being a single proton and a single electron) and a single Oxygen atom (eight protons in the nucleus of the atom, paired with 8 electrons that orbit the nucleus. Additionally there are 8 neutrons. Neutrons are subatomic particles similar to protons in their mass, and like protons, are also found in the nucleus of the atom. Unlike protons or electrons, they possess no charge) the molecules in a solvent allow the atoms in a solute (a molecule that dissolves in a solvent) to break apart, or dissolve.

 

Now, we're going to avoid my favorite part of chemistry, stoichiometry, because it really requires some base knowledge of physics that isn't in the scope of what we're talking about.

 

Instead we're going to use salt as an example. Let's just use standard table salt, NaCl - or a sodium(Na) atom bound to a Chlorine(Cl) atom. So we've got water, H₂O, and we've got table salt, NaCl. There's a simple, and unfortunately incorrect method of doing this that considers sodium to be bound to oxygen, and chlorine to be bound to hydrogen, but the fact is that that would require the water to break apart - which doesn't happen. Additionally, if that were to happen, it would be useless for the formation of life, which is your main question.

 

What might be important to understand is that water is not a straight line. You have two hydrogen atoms and a single oxygen atom, and the hydrogen atoms are bound to the oxygen atom, not to each other. This results in something like this:

 

(H)-(O)-(H)

 

I'm going to try and tread a line here that's not too dense, but also explains why water molecules assume a bent shape, instead of a straight line - this is actually pretty important in understanding why things dissolve in water. (Actually understanding why isn't all that important to understanding why things dissolve, but it's a very common question and it's one that people seem to be really bad at answering, even when students have more advanced knowledge than what I'm covering here.)

 

_H/^O\_H

 

That's closer to what they look like - though the angle is a little wider in real life. The problem is most people look at this in two dimensions, like it's illustrated here, when it's better explained in three. Ok settle in for just a second. On the outermost layer of oxygen, there are six electrons, not eight. Electrons don't always orbit at the same height as each other, and as you get larger and larger elements, there are more and more layers of electrons, which are called electron shells. The outermost layer of them are called valence electrons. On oxygen, there are 6. Hydrogen only has one electron, so it must be a valence electron - there's no other electrons to be outside of it. So what happens for reasons that really are beyond the scope of this discussion, is that electrons act in pairs - even numbers. Four of the six valence electrons on oxygen pair up in a sense, and the two remaining valence electrons split up and pair up with the one valence electron on each hydrogen atom. So now you have four pairs of electrons, and they're all trying to move as far apart as possible, which brings us to the few seconds of video right here:

 

(just the visualization in the couple seconds after the time it's linked to - if the timing fails, skip to 39 seconds.)

 

If you try and swap out either of the paired up white atoms, the hydrogen, with either of the remaining electron pairs, the molecule will still be bent.

 

If you're with me so far, take a breather to digest some of the above. Water is a good solvent because water is bent - and we're going to get into why water being bent is important next.

 

 

 

 

 

Alright.

 

 

 

 

 

So remember in the visual up there, those two electron pairs hanging out opposite the hydrogen atoms? Ok, now remember how electrons are negatively charged? Good. Ok, so now imagine where the electrons that are paired up with the Hydrogen are most of the time. They spend most of their time between the Hydrogen atom and the Oxygen atom. This means that on the outside of the Hydrogen atoms, the side not close to the Oxygen atoms, you have the nucleus of the Hydrogen atoms - which if you'll recall, are protons. This means that one side of the water molecule is positively charged, because the protons are closer to the outside of that side of the molecule. On the other side, you have those two electron pairs, which are negative, and make that side of the water molecule negative.

 

One side of water molecules is positively charged, one side is negatively charged. When molecules have asymmetrical charge distributions like that, we call them polar molecules, as in they have electromagnetic poles, like Earth does, or magnets, just on a really tiny scale.

 

So we introduce NaCl into a sea of water molecules. You might be able to work a little bit of this out, or at least guess at it based on the explanation above, but similar to how water has it's poles, NaCl has a sort of polar orientation as well. However in the case of all salts, which are... uh.. we'll get to the periodic table if you really want to, but not now. In the case of all salts, they can break apart in a very clean way. What happens is, similar to how the valence electrons in Hydrogen and Oxygen pair up, something similar occurs in NaCl.

 

So in all salts, what's happening is the bond is really, really strong. But instead of the bond being something like glue, it's because one of the atoms has a very loose electron, a single valence electron, while the other atom has a full electron shell, minus a single electron - so that second atom with the almost full shell really wants the electron that the other atom has, and the atom with the spare electron kind of wants to get rid of it because underneath that electron is a full electron shell, and once that swap takes place, you'll wind up with two atoms with full and stable electron shells. However, it doesn't really happen cleanly, because there are still the protons to deal with, and swapping those electrons will make the atoms unbalanced. One atom would become negatively charged, and one would become positively charged, and then they'd just attract right back again.

 

What ends up happening is the atoms bond to each other, and the atom with the single valence electron shares it with the atom that wants it. In the case of NaCl, Sodium(Na) is the atom that is sharing its electron with Chlorine(Cl). When introduced to water, the water around the NaCl molecule arranges itself so that that previous unbalance in charges becomes less of an issue. The positive charge of the Sodium(Na) becomes attracted to the negatively charged (Oxygen) side of a lot of water molecules, and the negative charge of the Chlorine(Cl) becomes attracted to the positively charged (Hydrogen) side of a lot of the water molecules, and since it was just the charges of the Na and Cl that were preventing them from splitting up and the Na giving the Cl an electron, that problem is resolved in water, and you wind up with Chlorine that has an extra electron and is stable, and Sodium that has given away its spare electron and is stable.

 

Why the fuzzy bunny is this important at all?

 

Amino acids.

 

Oh boy.

 

Amino acids are chains of different molecules that are to proteins what bricks are to a house. And as you might know, RNA is made of protein.

 

What's the hype about RNA? Well, given the appropriate environment, it's a molecule that actually replicates. It builds more of itself. Now I happen to think that is cool on a level that just, I mean holy fuzzy bunny. Imagine if rocks built more rocks. This is a molecule - just a complicated series of atoms, that makes more of itself, and the more complex it gets, the more likely it is to be able to "tell" molecules around it how to go about replicating it. in the right conditions, this creates some really complicated stuff.

 

So why did I spend all that time talking about water?

 

Proteins need those individual instances of Sodium and Chlorine and other atoms, and without water, they remain locked up in bonds like NaCl that RNA can't do anything with. So if in all of this you've been kind of going "I thought it was DNA" well, you're not wrong. RNA stands for RiboNucleic Acid. DNA stands for DeoxyriboNucleic Acid. Pretty similar. As the length of the word sort of implies, DNA is a bit more complex than RNA, but RNA is a precursor, it helps to build DNA, which helps to build life. Both require free floating atoms to work with, and these occur most often in water.

 

 

And the thing is, water is fuzzy bunnyng everywhere. The tail of a comet? Water. There are enormous fields of water floating around in space - bigger than oceans, some bigger than planets, or possibly even stars. Now not all of that is liquid, in fact liquid water is kind of rare, but there are many plants, animals, and bacteria, that can survive being frozen, or extreme heat, or both.

 

So consider where I'm going with this. It's possible that there are strains of bacteria, life, that can survive in space, and could even survive an asteroid impact blasting tons and tons and tons of rock into outer space, and after hundreds, thousands of years after that impact, frozen in a little pocket on a space rock, that space rock hits another planet, and maybe, just maybe that planet has the right conditions for those bacteria to go right back to what they were doing in the first place.

 

Evolving.

 

It is possible that if we ourselves, are not descended from another planet after billions of years of evolution, that our planet has seeded other planets far far away, with life.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 05 February 2016 - 12:24 PM.

[ticklemyiguana]

Alright, moving on to a few more questions, which I'll try to answer a little more briefly,

fuzzy bunnyng lol

[The_Silencer]

1.- Actually, that's essentially unknown (yet). It's a good question.. 

2.- That's a good question; indeed.. probably that's very related to what interests and overall goals mankind has and will pursue...

3.- Perhaps a combination of 1 and 2 plus certain extra backup..?

4.- "Do you know about the word? Because everybody knows the word is.." vanity? 

5.- You must be out there to have an idea on that.. very hard to know without looking from the outside; so to speak...

6.- Because cube shaped planets would be hard to handle for a good number of reasons... the elegant universe?

7.- Because of mass, distance, momentum, "space continuum conditions"... and(ergo the influence of G; how not! ...

 

It's been fun =)

[ticklemyiguana]

1.- Actually, that's essentially unknown (yet). It's a good question.. 

2.- That's a good question; indeed.. probably that's very related to what interests and overall goals mankind has and will pursue...

3.- Perhaps a combination of 1 and 2 plus certain extra backup..?

4.- "Do you know about the word? Because everybody knows the word is.." vanity? 

5.- You must be out there to have an idea on that.. very hard to know without looking from the outside; so to speak...

6.- Because cube shaped planets would be hard to handle for a good number of reasons... the elegant universe?

7.- Because of mass, distance, momentum, "space continuum conditions"... and(ergo the influence of G; how not! ...

 

It's been fun =)

 

I don't take issue with not knowing. That happens. There are a lot of things that people don't know.

but...

 

1. Yes it is.

2. neutral

3. neutral

4. uh?

5. not even wrong

6. Kill me now.

7. Please, now. I beg of you.

 

...disinterestedly waving off legitimate questions with either verifiably false information or hand-wavy science words is detrimental to any sort of scientific pursuit.

 

Statements like "I think it has something to do with momentum and gravity, but I'm not sure how" are fine, great in fact! But assuming that people can just put those pieces together just kills, absolutely kills people's willingness to learn about it.

 

1, 4, 5, and 6 have all been covered in this thread at pretty great length, though 5 is pretty open to discussion. Others have been covered to a greater degree than above.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 05 February 2016 - 12:54 PM.

[The_Silencer]

I don't take issue with not knowing. That happens.

but...

 

1. Yes it is.

2. neutral

3. neutral

4. uh?

5. not even wrong

6. Kill me now.

7. Please, now. I beg of you.

on 1.- It is? .. what you say?

on 2,3.. In space, high energy particles are a very serious problem yet..

on 4.- Earth is not the center of the Universe... so following those lines.. that's my point on that...

on 5.- As a plus: For instance, to know what the color and texture, shape and so forth.. of a globus is you must be able of having a look from the outside of it. That would be the basic idea...

on 6.- Consider the many systems which would not properly work in a non-sphenoid based planet... ;)

on 7.- EM and G are Forces intended to inherently be interacting in distinct ways... at least initially.. A good question would be how G may interacts in the quantum level/scale..

Edited by The_Silencer, 05 February 2016 - 01:07 PM.

[The_Silencer]

hey if you edit your previous posts so much then I'm forced to do so, thich which i do not like much to tell ya the truth.. it's hard to mantain one coherent "discussion" flow.. so to speak .)

 

edit: my previous "edit" was just an S I forgot.. =)

 

edit2: Hey, I do my best, man! if anyone else makes it better than me and makes me think extensively then the better.. how not!

Edited by The_Silencer, 05 February 2016 - 01:16 PM.

[Hyginos]

on 4.- Earth is not the center of the Universe... so following those lines.. that's my point on that...

 

It is not impossible that everywhere is the center of the universe. Refer to Jim's balloon.

 

on 7.- EM and G are Forces intended to inherently be interacting in distinct ways... at least initially.. A good question would be how G may interacts in the quantum level/scale..

 

Can we please not get into the idea of intent in the design of the universe? 

[The_Silencer]

 

...

 

Can we please not get into the idea of intent in the design of the universe? 

 

Oh, you touched a nerve there... why you said precissely that while quoting me?

 

edit: ah.. the intended thing. Ok, my english isn't so good after all, ignore that bit

Edited by The_Silencer, 05 February 2016 - 01:38 PM.

[ticklemyiguana]

on 1.- It is? .. what you say?

on 2,3.. In space, high energy particles are a very serious problem yet..

on 4.- Earth is not the center of the Universe... so following those lines.. that's my point on that...

on 5.- As a plus: For instance, to know what the color and texture, shape and so forth.. of a globus is you must be able of having a look from the outside of it. That would be the basic idea...

on 6.- Consider the many systems which would not properly work in a non-sphenoid based planet... ;)

on 7.- EM and G are Forces intended to inherently be interacting in distinct ways... at least initially.. A good question would be how G may interacts in the quantum level/scale..

I'm just going to focus on one for now.

 

If we're going to count hand wavy stuff, now's the time:

 

Gravity

 

Gravity pulls together all things with mass. Atoms have mass. Dust has mass. Gas has mass. Sand, pebbles, rocks, have mass, and planets are just really large clumps of matter. They get pulled together in space because they have mass, and they form asteroids or planets or stars depending on how much matter is around.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 05 February 2016 - 01:45 PM.

[The_Silencer]

I'm just going to focus on one for now.

 

If we're going to count hand wavy stuff, now's the time:

 

Gravity

 

Gravity pulls together all things with mass. Atoms have mass. Dust has mass. Gas has mass. Sand, pebbles, rocks, have mass, and planets are just really large clumps of matter. They get pulled together in space because they have mass, and they form asteroids or planets or stars depending on how much matter is around.

The truth is that, actually, scientists do not exactly know what gravity is. Gravity seems to strongly interact with, not only mass and its momentum, but with the time-space continuum too and also with dark mass; that according to the latest papers..

Edited by The_Silencer, 05 February 2016 - 01:49 PM.

[ticklemyiguana]

The truth is that, actually, scientists do not exactly know what gravity is. Gravity seems to strongly interact with, not only mass, byt with the time-space continuum and also with dark mass according to the latest studies..

God. fuzzy bunnyng. Dammit.

 

If that's going to be your line of thought, you probably shouldn't bother ever saying or doing anything ever, because if we regress far enough in any conversation, of course we don't know why fuzzy bunny is. An equally valid answer to what you just said would be to respond to every single question with:

 

"Conservation of energy and the boundary conditions of the universe" but that doesn't help anyone understand anything at all.

Edited by ticklemyiguana, 05 February 2016 - 01:55 PM.

[The_Silencer]

God. fuzzy bunnyng. Dammit.

 

Dude, if that's going to be your line of thought, you probably shouldn't bother ever saying or doing anything ever, because if we regress far enough in any conversation, of course we don't know why fuzzy bunny is. An equally valid answer to what you just said would be to respond to every single question with:

 

"Conservation of energy and the boundary conditions of the universe" but that doesn't help anyone understand anything at all.

uh oh .. how hostile from you.. Understood.

[ticklemyiguana]

You have my apologies for the tone, and I would prefer for the sake of the thread that any discussion on that particular matter be carried out in the ongoing private messages.

 

I am far more interested in the topics at hand than explaining why I reacted in a childish manner.

[CraftyDus]

r/iamverysmart

[The_Silencer]

You have my apologies for the tone, and I would prefer for the sake of the thread that any discussion on that particular matter be carried out in the ongoing private messages.

 

I am far more interested in the topics at hand than explaining why I reacted in a childish manner.

Hey , no problem. It's an interesting topic, indeed. So let's move forward ;)

[angryhampster]

yes, bacteria can be frozen, and then come to life.   the current frogs or some animals /creatures of today that hibernate in the frozen snow wake up in spring, i guess the bacteria in the asteroids and comets was the original master of this trait.

 

cyrogenic freezing and unfreezing, at the molecular atom level.

 

where did the first RNA develop, and how was water even created in space?

 

how many of these complex bacterias were frozen and made it all the way to planet earth..

 

since all species and animals on earth have very similar organs... heart, lungs, kidneys, etc etc...  thus making everyone and everything related.. in the form of energy... yes.. energy and the physical flesh is also energy....  vegetables and trees have proteins and vitamins that we need, and we have what they need....

 

these self sustaining bacteria came from a very specific area to be able to procreate to what we can observe here on the planet earth...

 

and i can imagine, if the comet was very very big, the inside of the comet must have been very cold and freezing because it was in space, and the hot parts of the comets are the outside part due to the falling and speed.

 

i can totally see that life can start from a comet of frozen bacteria from a specific location in the universe.. but where did that rock come from?

[ticklemyiguana]

education can be scary at times for me.  especially since they throw big words.   when the words starts to sound alike very often, they begin to blur with me, and keeping those chain of thoughts is tougher.    
 

 

 this was hard to soak in.

 

http://astrophysicsf...ss-calculation/

 

i would consider this as an language barrier.

 

my main language is English, but this in-itself is a complete different language and a different use of words but the same words.

Before we go any further, and I don't intend to tonight, these longer responses can take an hour or so to develop, I want to address your response here.

 

In no way are you expected to look at those and just, grasp it. It requires a vocabulary and method of thinking learned over time. Of course you can try and dive right in, and attempt to decipher it using pen and paper to help hold the concepts that you start to get real fuzzy images of, in place, while you try to interpret yet another part, and there is some value to that - but it really boils down to whether or not you want to do that.

 

You're better off with human interactions, where learning can be a fluid experience and can address any gaps in knowledge that a textbook or website might overlook.

 

Looking at those myself, I can't read that like I would read a novel, I need to take time to interpret what's going on, form a real solid concept of pretty much every sentence before moving on and applying it to the next one, and it's a pain. Unfortunately upper level academia all reads like that, and while I can understand its utility, it's always refreshing when someone's able to describe complex concepts in more human terms, which I try to do whenever I can.

 

So yeah, there's no reason to feel particularly daunted by that going into learning these subjects. You just need to be honest with whoever you're working with on learning the subject about what you know and don't know, even if it occasionally means raising your hand for a question that everyone else seems to get. (Chances are a lot of people don't get it, and are just too proud to ask - and even when that's not the case, any decent professor understands the value in ensuring a student understands the fundamentals.)

 

But seriously, keep the questions coming. You're giving me a good reason to go over some stuff that I learned a long while ago in more detail than I've had reason to in quite some time.

[The_Silencer]

i honestly think we have not even an aprox. idea on what's going on out there.. keep 'em going .)

[Trych]

why did i read all this i have things to do

[ticklemyiguana]

why did i read all this i have things to do

Did you really read all of it?

 

Well fuzzy bunny.

 

+1

[Trych]

Did you really read all of it?

 

Well fuzzy bunny.

 

+1

 

it was actually rather fascinating, I'm a sucker for sciencey stuff and whatnot

[ticklemyiguana]

it was actually rather fascinating, I'm a sucker for sciencey stuff and whatnot

Hey feel free to contribute to the questions, and if it's in the scope of my understanding, I'll try and get to it. Can't promise it'll be in a day or two, as you might notice I tend to take some time on these, and though I don't plan on answering every one of AH's questions, there are a few that would be good to put some thought into.

 

It definitely holds my interest for the entirety that I'm sorting through it all and putting it into words that people without education on the matter can understand.

[angryhampster]

this is one of those revelations where the truth was with us all along, in our DNA. lol.

 

in the subject of energy, and ghosts...  because when we die, our energies go somewhere else, to the ground, or to other places, or no where at all...

 

for this question of ghosts or radio sound waves (interference), what is the molecular structure of these ghosts or white noises that causes a disturbance in an area.

 

they are mostly comprised of electrons, but what else?   what other element do they have that we haven't figured out yet?   a superficial proton? lol

[The_Silencer]

Now that you mentioned DNA.. we all should agree on that DNA is an information system. Isn't it?

 

Edit: On the other hand, thinking that we're the only life within such an immense universe as this, is purely an exercice of vanity or otherwise naive.. Just have a quick glance to the actual estimation on what our Universe's age seems to be.

Edited by The_Silencer, 06 February 2016 - 03:17 PM.

[angryhampster]

yes. the DNA is an information system...

 

i think, if we can replicate the DNA strands to exactly replicates an species, say, dinosaurs.. it would be possible to bring them back...

 

all we need is an ostrich egg, change out the DNA, and infuse the dinosaur DNA into the embryo and WALAH, dinosausr.

 

copying DNA to a sample of 10,000,000,000 exact strands will take a very good powered computer, but i think it'll be possible to bring back extinct species, since the information is there...or not at all. lol

[DallasCreeper]

yes. the DNA is an information system...

 

i think, if we can replicate the DNA strands to exactly replicates an species, say, dinosaurs.. it would be possible to bring them back...

 

all we need is an ostrich egg, change out the DNA, and infuse the dinosaur DNA into the embryo and WALAH, dinosausr.

 

copying DNA to a sample of 10,000,000,000 exact strands will take a very good powered computer, but i think it'll be possible to bring back extinct species, since the information is there...or not at all. lol

1 problem: This isn't Jurassic Park, Dino DNA has degraded so much that even if we could find some, it'd be completely fuzzing unusable. It could work, with less degraded DNA. I remember seeing a documentary about a group of geneticists trying to clone a preserved Tasmanian Tiger, which has been extinct for 1 or 2 centuries. I never heard if they succeeded though. I don't think they did.

[The_Silencer]

Just in order to positively shake this topic a little...

 

And if DNA is an information system then... Isn't it denoting intelligence not only because of the vast amount of coherent information into it but because of its inherent structure as a whole?

 

Just curious on what you guys may think on this

[angryhampster]

im still not understanding your question.  :( otherwise i would love to answer it.

 

can you re-word so an 6th grader can understand it?

 

thanks to this thread, i've legally downloaded a few ebooks, and i will start my own research and theories.

 

and i will post it here. because i don't know how to find other forums besides hawken. 

[The_Silencer]

 

can you re-word so an 6th grader can understand it?

 

 

Oh,

I'm studying Russian so.. well.. must be that, at least upon a time.. ;)

 

DNA is an information system. Information denotes intelligence. In the case of DNA not only due to the vast quantity of data it contains but also due to its inherent construction as one system. The later and for instance, from a mechanical stand point as a system; which denotes intelligence as well.

 

Better now? ;)

[angryhampster]

i understand  . what you are saying, is that there is no such thing as intelligence, it's jus an information system.  you are right. yes

[The_Silencer]

i understand  . what you are saying, is that there is no such thing as intelligence, it's jus an information system.  you are right. yes

No, I'm afraid.

What I'm saying is that DNA, to say the least, denotes.. intelligence.

 

And if you allow me to be straight on this subject... I think that DNA seems to be an extremely advanced informational system oriented to compile, preserve and express data sets of intructions via its own programming language on a self-repairing bio-chemical "hardware".. so to speak...

 

It's amazing 

[JeffMagnum]

what has this thread even turned into 

[angryhampster]

No, I'm afraid.

What I'm saying is that DNA, to say the least, denotes.. intelligence.

 

And if you allow me to be straight on this subject... I think that DNA seems to be an extremely advanced informational system oriented to compile, preserve and express data sets of intructions via its own programming language on a self-repairing bio-chemical "hardware".. so to speak...

 

It's amazing 

yes. it is truly amazing.

[angryhampster]

have we found the DNA to greed and power? and the gene of self awareness and critical thinking?