Battlefront3.net

[Sam]

I think that if I wrote the description in the chat box it will disappear before too long.

Recently I have been thinking about aliens. Specifically, the odds of humans ever having any contact with them.

You see, people rarely consider the sheer scale and size of the universe. Our galaxy alone is 100,000 light years in diameter and considering that a light year is the distance light travels in a year and it travels 300000000m per second.....well you get the gist of things.

Our galaxy is also host to at least 200 billion stars and 50 billion planets, which considering the actual size of the galaxy isn't a great deal.

The other thing people generally don't consider is the age of our universe. Its over 14.75 billion years old. All of human history is less than a blink in the grand scheme of things. Hundreds if not thousands of alien civilizations could have come and gone by now.

Also, our presence has only been detectable by other civilizations for about 80 years now due to the radio bubble that Earth has been emitting and that's still only covered a minute fraction of our galaxy.

Not only has our presence only been detectable for 80 years but our ability to detect other radio emissions from other civilizations has only been available for 80 years.

Do you see what I'm trying to say here? Our galaxy is so vast and old that our comparatively little window to detect that presence shows little favour to us ever coming into contact with them. Whether they are alive right this second but too far away to ever get into contact with Earth, or even accidentally stumble across us or even their radio signature has come and gone (due to their extinction) before we were even capable of detecting it.

So my simulation is going to try and give me an estimate to the likelihood of two intelligent species 1) Ever discovering any evidence of each other and 2) Ever actually communicating with one another by simulating an entire galaxy (although considerably simplified) over the course of a few billion years, where civilizations will randomly rise and fall (through terrestrial (meteorites, etc) and even galactic (nearby supernovae) extinction events).

However, this is no easy task. The computational task would be massive. The program would literally have to keep track of billions of figures and perform trillions of calculations.

Not only is the computational task massive but I will be required to make some pretty hefty assumptions. Where I can, I'm trying to base as much as possible on Earth (like how many extinction events we have ever had) but I am hitting a wall when it comes to the generation of life. How did it come to be on Earth, through Abiogenesis, or one of the more exotic theories (i.e life coming via an asteroid) and what is the probability of that occurring on an Earth like planet. The what are the odds of intelligent life evolving over time? The answer is that nobody has much of a clue!

And that's just one of many issues I currently have with it.

So yeah, right now I am just trying to write a program to deal with a much smaller system and then optimise the hell out of it and try to figure out decent estimates for the areas that modern science doesn't quite understand yet....or wait until it does.

So yeah....got a lot of things to think about for a while.

EDIT: oh yeah and Scott, on a completely unrelated note, could you possibly do me a favour and change my name from "Tretarn" to "Sam" ?

[spartan64]

I have also thought about this. So do you want to make a simple galaxy simulator?

[Scott]

Changed your username.

I have a lot to say although don't know in which order to say them, so I'll just fire them off...

- are you crazy?
- I know you could potentially be a scientist but why must you be a mad one?
- what system are you using to run this?
- how many years do you plan on letting it run this program to calculate all of it?
- do you have anyone else helping?
- optimizing only goes so far...it'll never be all that quick...what will you do about that?
- have you considered using cloud computing for good?
- what language(s) will it be in?
- it'd be a console program right?
- wha...?

I'll expand on any that require expanding.

[spartan64]

Changed your username.

I have a lot to say although don't know in which order to say them, so I'll just fire them off...

- are you crazy?
- I know you could potentially be a scientist but why must you be a mad one?
- what system are you using to run this?
- how many years do you plan on letting it run this program to calculate all of it?
- do you have anyone else helping?
- optimizing only goes so far...it'll never be all that quick...what will you do about that?
- have you considered using cloud computing for good?
- what language(s) will it be in?
- it'd be a console program right?
- wha...?

I'll expand on any that require expanding.

Don't you need a super computer for this? I would think so for a galaxy of billions of star systems with other millions of objects within each system... but I've seen a simple program with just a few thousand stars moving around making a galaxy kind of form.

[Scott]

- are you crazy?.

Don't you need a super computer for this? I would think so for a galaxy of billions of star systems with other millions of objects within each system... but I've seen a simple program with just a few thousand stars moving around making a galaxy kind of form.

Actually being crazy is as easy as eating dog food and wearing tinfoil on your head


As for the simulator, you could do it with an iPod if you wanted it'd just have to be really slow.

EDIT:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/2 ... 86111.html

[Sam]

Changed your username.

I have a lot to say although don't know in which order to say them, so I'll just fire them off...

- are you crazy?
- I know you could potentially be a scientist but why must you be a mad one?
- what system are you using to run this?
- how many years do you plan on letting it run this program to calculate all of it?
- do you have anyone else helping?
- optimizing only goes so far...it'll never be all that quick...what will you do about that?
- have you considered using cloud computing for good?
- what language(s) will it be in?
- it'd be a console program right?
- wha...?

I'll expand on any that require expanding.

1) Yes

2) I'm leaving that decision until later, I will do some small scale runs and then calculate how long that will take. Currently thinking of doing it on my old laptop and leaving it to run 24/7. Might even be able to hijack a desktop in the physics department.

3) Again, not a clue how long it will take to run until after the small scale.

4) Nope, just me doing the programming but will routinely bounce ideas of anybody willing to listen.

5) Yeah, like you said optimising can only go so far. Nothing I can do but try to shave as much time of as possible. My research has shown that I will only be interested in about 500 million star systems, give or take a few million, so I could potentially just "delete" uninteresting systems to free up a bit of time.

6) You mean like what CERN are doing? Sending data to be processed across the internet and then sent back?

7) C / C++

8) That's the plan. I could produce data files, during "interesting phases" and create a program capable of creating graphical representations of the system further down the line.

9) Indeed.

and I would hate to think how long an ipod would take.

[Scott]

1) Yes

2) I'm leaving that decision until later, I will do some small scale runs and then calculate how long that will take. Currently thinking of doing it on my old laptop and leaving it to run 24/7. Might even be able to hijack a desktop in the physics department.

3) Again, not a clue how long it will take to run until after the small scale.

4) Nope, just me doing the programming but will routinely bounce ideas of anybody willing to listen.

5) Yeah, like you said optimising can only go so far. Nothing I can do but try to shave as much time of as possible. My research has shown that I will only be interested in about 500 million star systems, give or take a few million, so I could potentially just "delete" uninteresting systems to free up a bit of time.

6) You mean like what CERN are doing? Sending data to be processed across the internet and then sent back?

7) C / C++

8) That's the plan. I could produce data files, during "interesting phases" and create a program capable of creating graphical representations of the system further down the line.

9) Indeed.

and I would hate to think how long an ipod would take.

2) Let me know when you decide.

3) Let me know when you find out.

4) I'm always here to listen

5) You could always make data, change it accordingly, then save and delete it. Then bring it back when required again. Represent large pieces of data with keys until they are called when the full piece is needed. It would be slower (more computing) but it won't require a terabyte of RAM!

6) I'm not sure what CERN is doing specifically but my thought was to have the data on the web and pulled down and changed then put back up. That way you'd have a database (which can also be local) of information on the galaxy and will make the amount of memory the program itself take up much smaller. That's just one of the many way to tackle it of course and was merely a thought.

7)

8)

9) N/A

On an unrelated note I've taken a look at those videos you directed me to. Very interesting!

[Sam]

2) Let me know when you decide.

3) Let me know when you find out.

4) I'm always here to listen

5) You could always make data, change it accordingly, then save and delete it. Then bring it back when required again. Represent large pieces of data with keys until they are called when the full piece is needed. It would be slower (more computing) but it won't require a terabyte of RAM!

6) I'm not sure what CERN is doing specifically but my thought was to have the data on the web and pulled down and changed then put back up. That way you'd have a database (which can also be local) of information on the galaxy and will make the amount of memory the program itself take up much smaller. That's just one of the many way to tackle it of course and was merely a thought.

7)

8)

9) N/A

On an unrelated note I've taken a look at those videos you directed me to. Very interesting!

4) Excellent

5) Its true what they say, great minds think alike. I've been having similar thoughts.

6) No, I had not considered that. That could prove to be very useful.

and glad you are finding the videos useful and interesting.

[ctrooper]

Ive always pondered about this. Not the making a simulator part but how immense the universe is. I dont understand why there are people that deny that other beings exist. I dont care wha your beliefs are, there is no denying the fact that we are not alone.

Anyways, about your idea, its sounds like a great challenge. Good Luck.

[Calvanater]

Umm, you guys are stupid, because I am an alien.

Trolololol.

Actually, it's believed that aliens banged us when we were cavemen, because, you know, that missing link in the evolutionary chain.

And if you are one of those heavy-religious-evolution-is-the-devil people, angels may be aliens due to the fact they had special powers.

[Sam]

I dont understand why there are people that deny that other beings exist. I dont care wha your beliefs are, there is no denying the fact that we are not alone.

Anyways, about your idea, its sounds like a great challenge. Good Luck.

Yeah I don't understand how some reject the idea of life beyond Earth either. I think NASA found some indirect evidence of life on Mars a year or two ago, so hopefully we will find direct evidence of simple life (bacteria, virus, something completely new on the cellular level, etc) outside of Earth soon. From there the possibilities of life outside Earth are endless.

Actually, it's believed that aliens banged us when we were cavemen, because, you know, that missing link in the evolutionary chain.

I'm not sure about aliens with an ape fetish causing the human race but I will give you that nobody really knows what caused Humans to develop higher intelligence. Intelligence recurs in nature all the time (chimps learning sign language, birds using tools, etc) but only humans have demonstrated the ability to think about their place in the universe and to develop abstract ideas such as mathematics.

Perhaps aliens did come to Earth and fiddle around with the DNA of a distant ancestor of ours. However, then the question becomes, how did they develop their intelligence?

[Calvanater]

They were on the right track, baby, they were born this way.

(That was a Lady Gaga song, just encase you didn't get it. :O)

[spartan64]

Woah... is this what you are attempting to do?

[Legion 2.5]

You sir just made my day.

[Sam]

Slightly different, my version will be rotating (I hope) and will keep track of the galaxy as it evolves over millions of years.

But I am hoping to have something visually very similar.