6 ms·

What if other civilizations terra engineer galaxies to keep their form, will this hamper our physical understanding of the universe?

dchichkov 14y ago
The correct term would be galaktoforming, or americanized galactoforming, rather than terra engineering.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
andrewcooke 14y ago
interesting question [although i think from the way you use "keep" you've misunderstood slightly what's happening here. "old" in this article means that it is a long way away and so is observed as it was a long time ago (light takes time to travel from the galaxy to our telescope) and so the galaxy we are seeing is actually [as it was when it was] new. in general, it is expected that galaxies start off as amorphous blobs and (some) become spiral-like as they get older (simplifying hugely). the problem here is that this galaxy [as we see it] is so new (which the article calls "old"!) that it hasn't had time to become such a nice-looking spiral. so it's not "keeping form" as much as "achieving form too early".] anyway, back to the question. you can divide astronomy into two halves. there's the serendipitous "interesting object" work, like this paper, and then there's the "survey" work. the two are complementary - detailed studies turn up new ideas but can be very misleading (due to chance - this is a good example, where it seems that something looks "mature" simply because it has been disrupted in a way that, accidentally, makes it look like something it is not). in contrast, surveys give us reliable knowledge of how things work "on average", so are more reliable, but take more time and are very "broad brush" (and usually rely on the earlier detailed work for a "focus"). my guess is that a terra-forming (well, galaxy forming) civilization could mislead the former, but not the latter. this is because the universe is very big :o) - the aliens would need time travel and / or faster than light travel (arguably the same thing and generally considered unlikely) in order to affect large volumes of the observable universe. particularly if they took a reasonable time to evolve (you could argue that galaxies need to form and "settle down" before things are stable enough for live to evolve to such a level).
- andrewcooke 14y ago
  actually, the final argument isn't so much about galaxies forming. for a civilisation to have formed early enough to affect all of the observable universe without time/ftl travel i think that they would have to exist before atoms existed (ie when the universe was still a primordial "plasma", during "inflation", assuming, of course, current models, although this general constraint is fairly strong, given the microwave background uniformity, although(!) see below). now you can argue that the idea that atoms are necessary for life is an anthropomorphic bias :o) but really the problem is that very little of anything had structure at that point. and for life i think you do need some kind of order. this is related to why the microwave background result(s?) with large-scale anisotropies was(were?) so weird (and, if i understand right, have since been discounted) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation#Low_multipoles_and_other_anomalies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_rad...
- Uchikoma 14y ago
  Thx, appreciated your long reply.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
jerf 14y ago
It has definitely been observed that activity by alien intelligence could affect our observations. For example, one astronomer observed that a red giant strong in the infrared and a Dyson Sphere around something like our sun would look pretty similar from many lightyears away. Fun link on that topic: http://home.fnal.gov/~carrigan/infrared_astronomy/Dyson_sphere_look_alikes.htm http://home.fnal.gov/~carrigan/infrared_astronomy/Dyson_sphe... However, one of the reasons that I tend to believe that we are largely or entirely alone is that there doesn't seem to be anything out there that requires or even really suggests intelligence as an explanation.

dchichkov 14y ago

The correct term would be galaktoforming, or americanized galactoforming, rather than terra engineering.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

andrewcooke 14y ago

interesting question [although i think from the way you use "keep" you've misunderstood slightly what's happening here. "old" in this article means that it is a long way away and so is observed as it was a long time ago (light takes time to travel from the galaxy to our telescope) and so the galaxy we are seeing is actually [as it was when it was] new. in general, it is expected that galaxies start off as amorphous blobs and (some) become spiral-like as they get older (simplifying hugely). the problem here is that this galaxy [as we see it] is so new (which the article calls "old"!) that it hasn't had time to become such a nice-looking spiral. so it's not "keeping form" as much as "achieving form too early".] anyway, back to the question. you can divide astronomy into two halves. there's the serendipitous "interesting object" work, like this paper, and then there's the "survey" work. the two are complementary - detailed studies turn up new ideas but can be very misleading (due to chance - this is a good example, where it seems that something looks "mature" simply because it has been disrupted in a way that, accidentally, makes it look like something it is not). in contrast, surveys give us reliable knowledge of how things work "on average", so are more reliable, but take more time and are very "broad brush" (and usually rely on the earlier detailed work for a "focus"). my guess is that a terra-forming (well, galaxy forming) civilization could mislead the former, but not the latter. this is because the universe is very big :o) - the aliens would need time travel and / or faster than light travel (arguably the same thing and generally considered unlikely) in order to affect large volumes of the observable universe. particularly if they took a reasonable time to evolve (you could argue that galaxies need to form and "settle down" before things are stable enough for live to evolve to such a level).

andrewcooke 14y ago
actually, the final argument isn't so much about galaxies forming. for a civilisation to have formed early enough to affect all of the observable universe without time/ftl travel i think that they would have to exist before atoms existed (ie when the universe was still a primordial "plasma", during "inflation", assuming, of course, current models, although this general constraint is fairly strong, given the microwave background uniformity, although(!) see below). now you can argue that the idea that atoms are necessary for life is an anthropomorphic bias :o) but really the problem is that very little of anything had structure at that point. and for life i think you do need some kind of order. this is related to why the microwave background result(s?) with large-scale anisotropies was(were?) so weird (and, if i understand right, have since been discounted) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation#Low_multipoles_and_other_anomalies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_rad...
Uchikoma 14y ago
Thx, appreciated your long reply.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

jerf 14y ago

It has definitely been observed that activity by alien intelligence could affect our observations. For example, one astronomer observed that a red giant strong in the infrared and a Dyson Sphere around something like our sun would look pretty similar from many lightyears away. Fun link on that topic: http://home.fnal.gov/~carrigan/infrared_astronomy/Dyson_sphere_look_alikes.htm http://home.fnal.gov/~carrigan/infrared_astronomy/Dyson_sphe... However, one of the reasons that I tend to believe that we are largely or entirely alone is that there doesn't seem to be anything out there that requires or even really suggests intelligence as an explanation.